Symphony

Encore of Revival: America, October 26, 2020

Media and analysts miss the greatest takeaways from the debate. Arguments were based on who did what while already in office: All of the problems Trump solved and Biden didn’t, but says he will. And, their positions were radically different: Biden appealed to need for help while Trump appeared in-control at the helm.

The only times incumbents lose reelections are in the wake of gross incompetence (not seen since Carter) or gross broken campaign promises (not seen since HW Bush). If anything, Biden appears to already have broken the promises he is now making. That will not be enough to eject a promise-keeping incumbent.

In our last week before the election, polls have gone on record for predicting Biden as voices in media shifted their tone to a non-answer over who will win. Trump already won 2020 in 2015 when he announced. Many people don’t understand that. Many in media believe they decide election outcomes, not voters, so they don’t understand it either.

The greatest danger Trump always posed was that he would do too good of a job. He is the leader the Republican Party doesn’t deserve. They denounced him. He delivered the promised results they wouldn’t. Now, they will have respect they didn’t earn, plus a near supermajority in the Senate, control of the house, and overwhelming control of the Supreme Court. Power unchecked corrupts. Trump’s awesome work will get him reelected where he will continue more awesome work, but awesomeness can destroy us where it is unearned. And, that shadow is where the RNC stands.

The country will likely destabilize over the coming weeks. Americans will fight from anger on all sides. War with China could be seen as a convenient distraction from domestic dysfunction at a time when the US needs an excuse to put an unchecked Asian bully in its place. But, China doesn’t need to be embarrassed; it needs to be discipled. But, the US won’t be ready to disciple anyone until the US recovers its lost neighborly conscience. The US will find its conscience again, but it appears that we will only learn through trouble.

Encore of Revival: America, August 3, 2020

The montages and excerpts won’t sway a single vote. Congressman Jordan’s six minute video mainly shows footage of just a few groups mobbing police with limited looting. This doesn’t contradict the narrative on the Left that activists don’t primarily loot, but strongly oppose police in particular. Both Right and Left voters think the video justifies their own position. Not one opinion changed.

People are generally fed up with police having an elitist attitude. Trump supporters don’t think Trump needs to act for police to get what they beg for, the mobs on the Left are doing a good enough job. There won’t be any changed votes over police and protests.

Experts and analysts are starting to predict a possible Trump victory because Trump identifies with the main backbone of swing States. In other words, some people think the energizing incumbent who kept campaign promises might win against a boring opponent. The technical polling research term for that is, “Dah!”

The interesting factor in all this analysis is that Trump supporters don’t seem swayed at all by the media. Rich Thau finds that his Obama-Trump focus groups mainly watch local news. And, that explains everything.

The media can’t take away what the media did not give. Sentiment for Trump never came from any single speech or opinion. It came from results. People were tired of jobs moving overseas while the so-called spirit of free trade served as little more than an excuse to fatten China into the otherwise unnecessary threat we have today. Now, people are glad jobs are back and someone is actually telling China to behave. People were tired of a Washington culture that talks nice and polite while steamrolling the obvious will of the electorate. People hated bad results before and liked the good results in the last three and a half years. It was the results, not opinion-slanted news from any side, that shaped pro-Trump opinion.

The concept that reporting doesn’t decide public opinion is a concept that the reporting establishment can’t grasp. All the polls that falsely predict every Republican incumbent’s magical defeat can’t change people who don’t even watch, no matter how much those polls think they can.