I heard over and over from highly educated, liberal professionals after the 2016 election that some mistake had happened. “The election was stolen.” The electoral college had somehow disrupted our normal process (spoiler: it wasn’t any different)… “The Trump campaign enlisted Russian government support.” And then afterward we all needed to read Hillbilly Elegy to understand how to kindly condescend to the plight of the misinformed blue-collar rust belt that had erred and turned away from Democrats and sided with President Trump. At the time I was moving back and forth between NYC colleagues who’d secured a seat at Hillary’s victory party in Manhattan and neighbors in new England who’d sold their home early to facilitate their quick nomination through the Senate to take their new place in the administration “with her.” They sat down on election night ready to watch the show, and they were shocked at the show they saw. They never saw it coming. And it’s happening again… and again they don’t see it coming.
I think they saw a glimmer of it before the COVID-19 crisis locked them all in their homes? But since then, the tone has changed. They’re locked in their homes reading their favorite websites and the articles their phone algorithms say they’ll like- and all of those sources tell them that Donald Trump’s performance through COVID-19… all the polls being conducted… point to a president losing ground heading into election season.
Many in this group don’t understand the monster they’ve created in their media bubble. In 1980 (the year CNN was founded) there were 3 news networks. To be viable, network news needed both liberals and conservatives, and the news was 30 minutes 3 times a day stuck between Brady Bunch reruns and The Jeffersons. You couldn’t serve people what they wanted with the context they wanted- so you gave them straight, complete facts with a straight face and let them apply their own context. Now media is fragmented to where a 3% market share is huge, and straight shooting is dead. Even the best journalists quit trying to challenge us. They serve us what we want by arranging and selecting facts and applying context to make stories what we wish to see in them, and our tech knows what media will excite us. Most of what’s “mainstream media” is the slice that serves the prime consumer: 25-40 years old, professional, urban, liberal-leaning, with substantial discretionary income. So now if you’re an educated professional, working for a large company in a white-collar job… these days you log in from home, work on zoom, order from Amazon. It’s annoying, but life is working. And if you look at the media that targets you, the biggest problem out there right now are those that want to reopen too quickly.
If you’re a small business owner, a self-employed tradesman, a wage earner or any sort of gig worker (ie the people Biden needs to win back from the president to win this time), three months of this has been hell. If you had savings, it’s gone. You can’t work, your children are home with you complicating work even more. Stress is elevated; money is scarce, and even if the $600 a month in federal assistance works for now, the uncertainty of what’s to come is crushing. Even as the signs are there, the articles pushed back to the mainstream consumer talk about elevated levels in “black and brown communities” that need “understanding and voice.” That’s true – but what those also are are the communities of people that still need to head out in the world every day to work. They are still getting sick because they’re still out there, and having been out in it since the start, they’re not nearly as scared of the virus as they are of losing their livelihood. Further, having not been scared by the world they continue to toil in all day, they continue to visit their friends and family more, and quietly dismiss you when you try to shame them. They’re over it. And they’re turning on Democrats again, and on the rare occasions when they speak up, they’re again facing condescension (here’s looking at you, Governor Whitmer). Those aren’t all MAGAs out there; it’s also your blue-collar swings.
Also, polls now aren’t really polls. For years, exit polls have needed rebasing because Republicans are less likely to respond – a fact that was exacerbated in the 2016 election when Trump voters began to feel that announcing loudly that you expect to vote for Donald Trump could cause indignation from someone around them and began to not state (or misstate) their intentions. With tensions running high in 2016 the weight-adjusted polls turned out to be not weight adjusted enough. Tensions are higher now. Also, currently most polls being completed are online polls by your favorite news sources. You can’t walk down the street, get in someone’s space and get a good poll sample in-person anymore. With online being the only way that works, it turns out (as an example), that most people that respond to a Huffington Post poll are still voting for Biden (although less than you might expect).
And once again, there’s a candidate who isn’t exactly rising to the occasion. Biden has emerged twice since being named the presumed party nominee- once for a late and horribly jumbled explanation of Tara Reade’s accusations, and another botched interview with Charlamagne Tha God – both of which were designed and curated by campaign aides to be well-choreographed softballs and neither of which won him a voter he hadn’t had already. Conversely, if either interview had any effect at all, it decreased voter excitement which (according to Charlamagne Tha God himself) is likely to depress voter roles. Trump raised $212MM this quarter – a clip he’s been maintaining steadily since he started his re-election fund the day of his swearing in. Biden raised only $60MM in hard money in April – despite his new status as the Democrats’ ordained winner. The president has a motivated base, is organized, and has a turnout plan that was tested in dry runs during the early primaries (and generated unprecedented primary turnouts for an incumbent presidential primary). Sitting in his basement without a formal role in the government, Biden needs to create viral moments that will excite women, minorities and wage earners, and so far his performance seems likely to depress turnouts for all three.
And it’s happening again. This time… just don’t be so surprised.
Similar Read: Mainstream Media or “Fake News”?
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