This week: The Briefing, Vol. X, Issue 21
- Democrats’ propaganda fantasy-land
- Is Mo Brooks making a comeback?
- Pennsylvania Senate primary goes into overtime
Outlook
Polling: Last week’s Quinnipiac poll contained a very interesting finding. It was buried well below the main line results of President Biden’s unpopularity (he has a 38/55 job approval rating overall) and a 47 percent to 43 percent Republican lead on the Congressional generic ballot line.
But first, some context.
Democrats have spent the last 16 months furiously whipping up their voting base using two issues. Beginning last year, they ran a deliberate scare campaign about election laws that were being passed in states such as Georgia and Texas to restore post-COVID normal election operations. They very dishonestly attempted to portray these as an attempt at voter suppression and even a return to Jim Crow (or as President Biden put it himself, “Jim Eagle”). They succeeded in getting several woke corporate officers who hadn’t even read the bill to release ridiculous, scathing statements condemning these election reform laws. They even got Major League Baseball to scratch last year’s All-Star game in Atlanta, which was probably an own-goal.
More recently, Democrats have been whipping up their own base with rhetoric and small-dollar fundraising pitches surrounding the impending overturn of the Roe Supreme Court abortion decision.
With that in mind, turn to line 12 of last week’s poll from Quinnipiac University.
When asked what is “the most urgent issue facing the country today,”, Americans of every sex, racial, and age demographic group were united in staying that it was inflation.
Men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, every age cohort, and both white college graduates and white on college graduates agreed that inflation was significantly more important than any other issue. Self-identified Republicans and independents also agreed on this.
But Democrats did not.
For Democrats, abortion is the most important issue in America today, at 18 percent. Inflation is relegated to second place at just 14 percent, with “election laws” just behind at 13 percent. Note that election laws are a single-digit issue for nearly every racial and age group — only Democrats view them as a major issue. Why? Apparently, because their own party propaganda told them so, with the help of a massive message-boost from the ostensibly objective news organizations that increasingly act as propaganda arms of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic voters believed the message, but nobody else did. That includes the black voters (8 percent if them view it as most important) whom they were supposedly trying to help by taking a stand in an imaginary campaign for voting rights.
Politics occurs at the margins, it is true. A party that can successfully mobilize its base — even by scaring its own core of supportive voters with lies (about voting laws) and exaggerations (in the case of Roe) — can boost turnout and win elections.
However, what happens when the propaganda takes on a malignant life of its own?
What happens when the constant bombardment of distorted reality causes voters for one of the two major political parties to fall out of touch with reality, to the point that their priorities no longer even resemble those of the national electorate as a whole?
Last week’s Quinnipiac poll reflects the fact that Democrats are living in a fantasy land of their own propaganda. It is not going to help them this fall.
As we have mentioned repeatedly, Democrats should be most alarmed by the dissimilarity between their own priorities and those of Hispanic voters, large numbers of whom are already showing signs of defecting to the Republican Party in this coming election — perhaps permanently. Another red flag: Hispanic voters care less about the issue of immigration than any other group except for black voters.
Inflation is a real world issue — currently, it has 63 percent of voters disapproving of Joe Biden’s handling of the economy. Voting laws aren’t. Surely, there are Democrats who understand this, but they are the ones whose job is to fool all the others into believing that America is slipping back into the segregation era.
Governor 2022
Georgia: Although this will not be the first loss by a major Trump-endorsed candidate (that happened in Nebraska), David Perdue’s expected loss to Gov. Brain Kemp on Tuesday will represent the first major repudiation of a Trump endorsee. Trump targeted Kemp for his failure to indulge in fantasies about overturning the 2020 election result in Georgia. We expect confirmation on Tuesday that it didn’t work.
Senate 2022
Alabama: Rep. Mo Brooks, whom President Trump initially endorsed but then publicly abandoned weeks ago, might just be making a comeback. He now has a fair chance of making a runoff election against frontrunner Katie Britt, a former staffer for the retiring Sen. Richard Shelby.
A new poll from the Alabama Daily News is the latest to show that Mike Durant has fallen off in this contested primary.
North Carolina: As expected, Rep. Ted Budd came through with the Trump endorsement and won his primary without a runoff.
Georgia: Former University of Georgia football great Herschel Walker is still expected to win the GOP nomination going away on Tuesday, without any need for a runoff.
Pennsylvania: Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor endorsed by President Trump, leads very narrowly in the vote count over David McCormick as the last few overseas ballots arrive and litigation begins. Oz seems likely to come out of this ahead, in which case Trump can claim another endorsement victory.
Considering the environment, Oz would appear to be the favorite over the Democratic nominee, the ultra-woke Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who was recently hospitalized for a stroke. But don’t underestimate Fetterman — Democrats did, to their own chagrin, when he seized his current elected position over the party-supported candidate by force.
Also, keep in mind the fear Republicans have that Pennsylvania voters will buck the 2022 trend altogether because the top of their ticket is weaker than usual. It is not a fait accompli, but Democrats hope to make the Republicans’ eccentric gubernatorial nominee, Doug Mastriano, an anchor around other GOP candidates’ necks.
