Swing-State Voters Might Doom Our Democracy, But It’s Not Too Late To Win Them Over
The latest Washington Post poll reveals a majority of swing-state voters believe Trump would be better to protect and defend our democracy. Commence your face plant.
(Image courtesy of The New York Times)
While I’ve learned not to put too much faith in polls so far ahead of the 2024 election, they can nonetheless be helpful data.
When looking at recent polls, I step back and realize America is in the Upside Down, and I live in a country of amnesiacs with the attention span of gnats on meth.
Case in point: The Washington Post/George Mason University poll released on Wednesday surveyed the views of 3,513 registered voters in six swing states who trust Donald Trump more than President Joe Biden to handle the threats to our democracy.
Please commence your face plant, groans, eye rolling, and other suitable melodramatic expressions to relieve your disgust, sadness, and pain.
Yes, Donald Trump - the twice impeached vulgarian who failed to overthrow a free and fair election and was convicted by a jury of our peers for falsifying his business records to hide hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels and praises brutal dictators like Putin, MBS of Saudi Arabia, and Kim Jong-Un of North Korea - is trusted more by these swing-state voters to protect democracy than President Biden, who despite his flaws, does not boast a similar record of villainy and corruption.
The vast majority of voters in this poll want to avoid “authoritarian control,” and for them the threats to democracy were second only to the economy as an extremely important issue ahead of the 2024 election. Encouragingly, 79% of these voters prefer a strong democracy to a dictatorship. When it comes to Trump, 69% of them believe he will not accept the 2024 election results compared to 35% who said the same about Biden. Also, 46% said Trump will rule as a dictator compared to 19% who said the same about Biden.
And despite all this, more of them trust Trump to handle threats to our democracy. Trump is the same man who promised to be “dictator for a day.”
It’s easy to condemn and dismiss these swing-state voters as “dumb,” but I believe the more accurate description would be misinformed. The results of this poll reflect the deep failure of our corporate media ecosystem which continues to court “both sides” framing and horse-race analysis nine years after the ascension of Trump, who uses fascist language to smear the free press as “the enemy of the people.”
They chase the illusion of neutrality and offer a “view from nowhere” instead of being committed to the truth. “Be truthful, not neutral,” was veteran CNN Christiane Amanpour’s advice to her peers in 2019 which has gone completely unheeded.
Instead, Trump’s daily sins are sandwiched into one story that is then countered by a story on Biden’s age creating an asymmetrical reality. For example, Media Matters reviewed articles of five top US newspapers over the past five months which revealed they published nearly 10 times as many articles focused on Biden’s age as focused on Trump.
In the past two weeks, Trump has praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, went on an unhinged rant about sharks and electrocution, and bragged about proposing a Migrant Fighter League to Dana White, the CEO of UFC. He has also confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and is now baselessly claiming that President Biden will be on performance-enhancing drugs at their upcoming debate on Thursday. (It’s always projection with Trump.) All of those news items, along with the fact The Daily Beast reported Trump made “Nazi Ovens” jokes in front of Jewish staffers, have already been forgotten.
America also has to contend with an incestuous, multi-billion dollar right-wing media ecosystem that serves as a MAGA propaganda arm pumping out disinformation 24-7. Judd Legum of the Popular Information substack published an excellent analysis of how Sinclair Broadcast Group “flooded a vast network of local news websites with misleading articles suggesting that President Biden is mentally unfit for office…each of these crass political smears masquerading as journalism was syndicated to at least 86 local news websites owned by Sinclair.”
Flooding the zone with shit works like gangbusters to overwhelm our common sense, the truth, and democracy.
That being said, there are five months left before the election. As I’ve said before, I love Michelle Obama, but “When they go high, we go low” just doesn’t cut it. You have to put them in a knee bar and make them tap out. For the upcoming Thursday Presidential debate, I have no faith in the CNN moderators to focus on truth instead of their alleged “both sides” neutrality. As such, it’s up to President Biden to remind voters that Democrats, despite their flaws, will fight for their freedoms, while Trump and MAGA will do everything to take them away.
President Biden has to attack relentlessly on Dobbs, the Jan 6 insurrection, and Trump’s criminal conviction. He has to be the fighter that the majority wants while also reminding Americans that Trump is an utter, bloated mess of a man and was a total failure as a leader. When Biden referred to MAGA as a “semi-fascism” movement, he saw a boost with his base. When Biden took on Republicans at the State of the Union address over Social Security, the clip went viral and reminded Americans that Republicans are promising to gut one of the most popular public benefits.
Yes, corporate media won’t save us, but that doesn’t mean that Democrats can’t do a better job on messaging, fighting, and creating a better story. But, you have to tell that story passionately and effectively for people to know it, especially the amnesiacs in the swing states who will decide this country’s future.