This is not a problem for the Democrats per se. This is a problem with insular majorities. Republicans have, in the past, run into it as well. Surrounded in a mass echo chamber, they refuse to believe data to the contrary from their echo chamber. Making matters worse, Democrats are in a remarkably cohesive echo chamber with most major media outlets catering to their views, voices, and presuppositions.
In that world view, there is no way Donald Trump could get elected President in 2024. Voters are telling Democrats otherwise, but the Democrats choose not to listen. The Democratic Party and so much of the national press corps does not just disdain Trump, but they do not relate to, listen to, understand, or value the voices of Americans who would consider voting for Trump. The result is a constant feedback loop affirming Democrats that there is a problem, but the problem can be overcome and, after all, no one will vote for Trump.Related to that is the relentless bullying of anyone who might dare speak up for Trump or his supporters. The bullying is real. The pressure to silence those who might talk out of turn is real. The reality is that Trump benefits from this.According to NBC News, Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden by five points. While voters say they would go with Biden should Trump be convicted, Bill McInturff, the Republican side of the NBC polling team, is not so sure they will. Why? Voters who say they’d abandon Trump if he were convicted shift only narrowly, still prefer a GOP controlled Congress, and absolutely disdain Joe Biden.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff, the GOP half of the bipartisan group of pollsters who conduct the NBC News survey, cautions that the sliver of voters who shift on these two ballots — 55 in total out of 1,000 interviews — hold overwhelmingly negative opinions about Biden, and they also prefer a Republican-controlled Congress by more than 60 points.As a result, McInturff says, he has doubts if these voters would really stick with Biden even if Trump is convicted of a felony.
Biden, likewise, gets slaughtered on his handling of the economy, even as the macroeconomic picture improves. The Democrats keep forgetting, in their echo chamber, that voters vote on the microeconomic picture and Democrats are selling the macroeconomic picture. Democrats are living in a world that voters do not inhabit.Likewise, Gallups tells us that, and you need to process this one, fewer Americans support Biden’s re-election than think he is doing a good job. Again, more Americans think Biden is doing a good job than want him to get re-elected. When you actually look at the numbers, you see how pathetic it all is. 41% of Americans think Biden is doing a good job. Only 38% want him re-elected. Yikes.The number one issue in America right now is the border situation. Sixty percent of swing state voters blame Joe Biden for the problem. On top of that, twenty percent more voters say Trump would do a better job handling the economy than Joe Biden.Joe Biden is losing young black men. He is losing Hispanic voters. He has lost the working class. His coalition is falling apart. But what is notable is how so little press coverage does anything to change this. The startling irony is that the media conversation during the Republican primary process lamented how Trump’s rivals patently refused to aggressively attack him.Now, the Democrats and their friends in the press who fret openly about Trump’s surge are circling their wagons around Joe Biden instead of trying to force him out of the race or accurately and honestly cover him as most Americans see him.The symbiotic relationship of the liberal leaning press and Democratic Party will be the very thing that gets Trump back in office. They do not even see it. No, it should not be the job of the press to engage as partisans against either side. But, if we are really honest, they already do that against Republicans. The bias is there and most of them are aware of it and the fair minded ones work to overcome that bias and present both sides evenhandedly.But Trump is so despised by the press, it becomes very hard for the press or the Democrats to do that. They know no one who would support Trump. They cannot fathom a majority of Americans might vote for him. The result is that they are missing the voices of a mass of Americans saying, basically, “We’re voting for him even if we don’t like him because you guys don’t listen to us, seem to hate us, and we hate you more than we hate him.”2024 seems to be a combination of both 2016 and 1992 all over again. Just as in 2016, so many could not conceive of Trump winning that they had to conjure excuses like “Russia stole it” to process it. Democrats and their friends in the press who hated Trump so much could not understand that most Americans hated Hillary Clinton more.In 1992, the GOP ran its presidential race focused on the macroeconomic picture, that was improving, and lectured Americans about how good they had it. Americas resented being told the national economy had come back to life when, in their own lives, they did not feel it, see it, or appreciate it. They began to resent Republicans telling them how good they had it.In 1992, Republicans could not fathom that most Americans would reject war hero, Reagan heir, and winner of the Gulf War George H. W. Bush for a draft dodging pothead with woman issues from a trailer park in Arkansas. Guess what happened?This time, the parties are reversed.
