America is clearly divided. Democrats get vaccinated, Republicans don’t want to. Now, vaccine demands are rising for a virus clinically proven to cause no harm 40% of the time. Two in five people with the Omicron variant of COVID won’t have symptoms. When Democrats hear that, they fear the virus more because lack of symptoms makes it more sneaky. When Republicans hear that, they fear the virus less because lack of symptoms is lack of real threat. The same virus invokes opposite reactions.
Republican states argue to block vaccine mandates over technicalities. Democratic-controlled governments argue “science”—when “40% asymptomatic” means 40% zero risk of harm. Neither side presents the strongest case in their own favor. Republican states should argue lack of symptoms and Democrats should argue that workforce hubs do matter.
Our response to the virus is not the problem; our polarity over any response is devastating. The virus hasn’t torn the country apart; our division has. As the saying goes, it’s all in the mind. The strange part is that a billionaire’s daily 40 minutes of meditation is making headlines in a nation that mostly doesn’t see the contradiction of its own thought life. But, some do, enough to make headlines about mind time worthwhile to the ever changing news industry.
Friday, Sidney Powell said she will present legal evidence in court within two weeks. Her claims of evidence and testimony for vote fraud far surpass the never-proven claims of the Russianewsgategate scandal. The catch is in the process; evidence in serious court cases is best presented first in court, not first to the press. While interviews and lists of court rulings surface, we can’t know the truth of her claims one way or another, yet. Only two weeks will tell.
In the meanwhile, things look grim for anti-Trumpists. While Trump plays golf and Powell behaves as if her claims are the most legit they can be, Giuliani made a statement that Powell is not officially on the Trump legal team per se. Why play golf and clarify that the loudest voice of defense is not on your team? Trump’s actions are not those of the Democrats who lost in 2016 nor Bush who lost in 1992. Whatever he’s up to, it looks like he is playing it cool with a royal flush in his hand. Whether Trump and Powell are bluffing remains to be seen, but they haven’t folded. And, their actions are not those of a loser; Democrats and mainstream media think they are.
Far more important than Trump winning in court are the developments within the Republican base. They are irate with the Republican Party’s inaction. Perhaps the RNC hopes to manipulate them into support for Powell’s “big reveal” at the end; they are irate nonetheless. They are a quiet people, not always prone to shout for Trump at every moment. And, they are fierce when roused to wrath. More than these, they have a strange love for each other.
The Sunflower students who took Taiwan’s Legislature in 2014 had the same mutual love, and with it came “political electricity”. Nothing could stop them.
Neither the Republican nor Democratic parties can ignore their respective bases. The DNC is doing the will of its base, even in what Powell portrays as an attempt to, more or less, institute a nation-wide political machine. Democratic voters still support their party. Neither the DNC nor its base can accept a Trump victory.
The Republican base cares nothing for the Republican Party, but they will not accept a Trump loss either. They differ from the DNC base, however, in their calmness and strange, mutual love. Democratic voters will be furious and dangerous; Republican voters will be deadly. Both are being conditioned for genocidal thoughts against the other. Republican voters would win that brawl. The least destructive solution is that Powell calmly wins her case in court and the RNC takes supportive action accordingly, but post-election months still won’t be fun.
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.
