“All these signs of the media trying to portray this wave as coming, the numbers aren’t really showing it”
Democrats aren’t going to win the midterms just because the media wants them to win.
This year’s midterm elections could go either way. For the first time in years, the party which controls the presidency could retain control of the House and Senate. That is not the preferred narrative, however. Turn on almost any cable news show and you’ll hear about the big blue wave supposedly coming this fall.
It’s a possibility but it isn’t being framed that way. The media is actively trying to will it into existence by saying it over and over. That does not mean it’s going to happen.
On the FOX Business Network’s Neil Cavuto show, guests Elizabeth Harrington of the Washington Free Beacon and Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center made this point eloquently.
From the Washington Free Beacon:
Harrington Pours Cold Water on ‘Blue Wave’ Talk for Democrats: ‘I Just Don’t See It Yet’
With House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R., Wis.) decision to not seek re-election amid a flood of other GOP retirements, Democrats are bullish about seizing the House for the first time since losing it in the 2010 Tea Party revolution.
However, Fox Business host Neil Cavuto noted conventional wisdom suggested Trump would not be elected president and the “Brexit” vote would not be successful, asking if such a consensus over a “blue wave” being inevitable was dangerous.
Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor said the media’s fixation on the subject was a way of creating a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” and Harrington agreed the proof of one coming wasn’t there yet…
“The media have been trying to portray this wave is coming,” she said. “The numbers aren’t really showing it. Of course, a lot can change, but if there’s going to be a wave, there has to be a central issue that motivates voters, whether it was in 2006 with the Iraq War, 2010 with Obamacare. What’s the central issue this year?”
“It’s not Russia. It’s not Stormy Daniels,” she added. “Opposition to Trump is not going to cut it, and Democrats need to rally around something else, and I just don’t see it yet.”
Watch the segment below:
As Harrington mentions in the video, even Democrats are crediting Trump for improvements to the economy.
Mairead McArdle writes at National Review:
More Democrats Think Trump Responsible for State of Economy
A majority of Democrats thinks the current state of the economy is thanks to President Trump, rather than former president Obama.
Approximately 46 percent of Democrats say Trump is responsible for today’s economy, beating out the 43 percent who say it is due to Obama, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. Overall, only 34 percent of those surveyed gave credit for the economy to Obama, while 54 percent credited Trump.
The numbers are notable since most economists agree the economy is booming, and Democrats are not usually eager to give credit to Trump. The stock market has risen over the past year and unemployment has been slashed to 4.1 percent, its lowest level since December 2000.
Harrington also made what I think is the most important point about the midterms, which is that Democrats still do not have a unifying message to run on in an election which happens in less than eight months.
In 2010 and 2014, the Tea Party was successful because it had a clear message and strategy. The Resistance is built on the premise that progressives don’t believe Trump was supposed to win the 2016 election and their hatred of him.
That may not be enough to carry Democrats over the finish line in November.
Featured image via YouTube.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor said the media’s fixation on the subject was a way of creating a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” and Harrington agreed the proof of one coming wasn’t there yet…
That’s not what a “self-fulfilling prophecy” is. A person certain he’s going to bungle his debut performance at Carnegie Hall is more likely to crash & burn than one who doesn’t predict his own failure. People who are sure that they’re going to die under anesthesia are—by some reports—slightly more likely to do so. A job applicant who talks of nothing during his interview but his problems landing a job is unlikely to be hired by the typical employer. These are self-fulfilling prophesies. Suppression of Republican voter turnout in Florida in the 2000 election risked being another one; the news channels’ premature and incorrect call of the state for Gore arguably discouraged late Republican voters from bothering to cast their ballots, thus increasing Gore’s percentage of the vote.
The blind faith that Hillary would waltz into the Oval Office, the fervent wish that the Electoral College would go rogue and elect some loser as President, the possibility that the 25th Amendment would allow a rewrite of the election, the impending Blue Wave; these aren’t “prophesies”, self-fulfilling or otherwise. They’re closer to a form of “magical thinking”. There’s nothing about the beliefs themselves which make the wishes more likely to come true.
You and I know that, but they don’t.
They think they are motivating dems to go out and vote, while discouraging Republicans and conservative-leaning independents. So their strategy is indeed to create a “self fulfilling prophecy”. It’s working exactly as it did in 2016.
Correct, it didn’t work that way in 2016. But it did work that way in 2006 when the Dems got the House and Senate back, and it has worked in other elections.
Just because you don’t score a touchdown every time you run a certain play isn’t a reason to forego running that play again.
Trump was able to beat this play because he blew up the communications embargo the media puts on the Pub candidates. Trump tweeted and spoke; people heard him directly and the media was forced to cover him. Your average candidate for the House doesn’t have those advantages, and none of them are Trump.
There are a number of Pubs who I’d be happy to see lose just to send a message, but turning the Congress over to the Dems worries me even more.
YES!
Remember according to the Lie-Stream Media (MSM?) this is supposed to be year 2 of Queen Hillary’s Thousand Year Reich, because Hillary had a 100 Percent forecast of winning in 2016.
Exiliado is absolutely right.
All the non-stop screeching about the fall 2018 “Blu Waive!”
will encourage leftists and progressives to not register for voting. If they are already registered, then they’ll feel no need to actually inconvenience themselves by having to get up and go out to physically vote.
The media is “Prophewishing” …
Dare we say the MSM is “whitewashing” with propaganda again?
“There is a 97% chance of a blue wave” sez prog pollster partisans everywhere.
Sounds kinda like the old “97% of scientists agree on Global Warming” fantasy.
Or Hillary has a 98 percent chance of winning the presidency.
There’s a 100% chance that I will be laughing my arse off when the Dem crybabies fail again in November.
Same media talking about a blue wave was telling us in 2016 that Trump had “zero chance” to become President.
They were telling us so when Hitlary and her sidekick were showing up to almost empty venues, while Trump was gathering tens of thousands without even stepping out of his airplane.
So, you know, that’s me not buying it.
One of the better moments in the 2016 election was 5:30 pm Election evening. Hillary was getting off the plane in New York to travel to the Javitts Center for the coronation, and her aides were referring to her, to her face, as “Madame President”. Just love how all that changed in about six hours.
So why did she cancel her triumphant fireworks show shortly before she became Madame Loser? That’s the only thing about the election I still don’t understand.
The will of the media and the “I have this in a bag” mentality worked out well for Hillary. Please, keep it up.
Well they were right about Hillary winning the Presidency…
What I see is a media that looks to report on things such as polls (though only select ones) as news and facts, when they are closer to opinion, and they latch on to it as a lifeline for their wishes. In some cases, these media personalities want things to go a certain way, so that becomes their narrative.
I believe they do this for a couple of reasons. First, it is their desire to not report news per se but to “change the world”. That has become the overriding reason for the leftists to go into journalism, not to report the news, not to inform people, but to change things. While news can change things, because it informs, and reveals possible damaging or criminal things going on, it shouldn’t be because they attach an opinion to it to push their ideas and agenda.
Second, with the echo chamber that work in, and the views held by almost all the people that they surround themselves with, they hear their own desires echoed back to them. They want their team to be in power, and anything that happens to support that, even if it isn’t a wide view or a big event, they want it to an indicator so it enforces their desire to a larger extent than it should. We all do this to some extent, but we tend to be more cautious in attaching importance to election results on a small scale, in select races, than they pin their hopes on.
Third, they have a major voice across the country, and their continual repeating of their dreams can affect enthusiasm and emotions related to going out to vote. They can, and try to, suppress Republican voting through their stories and opinion pieces. When you keep hearing something over and over about poor Republican chances in various challenges to seats, it can push some to think that their vote doesn’t matter because it is foregone conclusive that their choice will lose anyway. It had been done in Presidential elections, where Florida was not finished casting votes, and they reported that Florida was already a sure thing for Gore. It caused some voter suppression for Republican votes because lines were long and people left rather than vote. They did change their policy on doing that early reporting, but all this prior talk of a Blue Wave being inevitable can have a similar result… or at least that is the hope.
The mockery and the demeaning of any who would consider to vote for whichever Republican is running is meant to silence those who would vote for that Republican. It definitely happened with Trump, where people who supported him rarely said so because of fear of being ostracized for their choice.
The left media cannot accept that Hillary lost, and that has shaped their reporting (which are closer to opinion pieces than true reporting)on everything Trump and the Republicans have done. They characterize every move in a negative light, and latch on to whatever parts of the news and give more importance to things that align with their desires.
A lot can happen over next 5-6 months which can solidify voting against the Republicans, but at this time, the Blue Wave is a wish of the media that they are pushing with the hope they can help make it come true.
It’s activist journalism. Something that I’ve seen only becoming more mainstream over the past 10-15 years. And it attracts younger voters and/or millennials.
I just saw a political ad on tv for a North Carolina Democrat. In addition to the usual “friend of the working man walking through a factory”, all the candidate said is we needed to elect him to “fight Trump.”
I’m pretty sure the “working man” (and woman) in the Tarheel State were responsible for Trump’s victory here. Good luck with that, buddy.
“No path to 270.”
—Trump-hating media.
This election will have nothing to do with Trump or with the “accomplishments” of the Dems. It will be about the lack of performance of the GOP Congress Critters. While some politicians are really dumb, long term politicos know what is going on with their constituencies. That is one reason why you are seeing so many Republicans bailing before the midterms.
Touche!
Of course – like rats fleeing a sinking ship, or Ryan fleeing…but I repeat myself……
It’s the economy, stupid.
When people go to the booth, it’s going to be about whether they are better off than they were tw years ago, and whether they believe things in general are getting better.
As to whether people bother to vote in the midterm at all, I think that’s a wash. Dyed in the wool democrats will be dragged to the polls. Republicans will be angry about the fraudulent investigations, about Facebook, about corruption in the federal police.
Touche!
RE: “Republicans will be angry about the fraudulent investigations, about Facebook, about corruption in the federal police.”
If the Democrat-Uni-Party RINOS thought “we the people” were mad about things in 2016, then they “ain’t seen nothing YET!”