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I Don’t Trust the American People
Politicians on both sides of the aisle insist that they can trust the American people. Since I have also believed there are reasons to have faith in our citizens, I always silently nod in agreement at these words. But this morning, I asked myself: What does that statement even mean?
At first glance, I assume that those of us who make this remark believe that ultimately citizens will learn/recognize/figure out the truth of a complex political situation. But do we really believe they will make that effort? Do we honestly think that the American people will get through the maze and hyperbole of the information they receive from the media to get to the “truth”?
If we review the last hoax perpetrated on the American people, also known as the Mueller Report, do you think that most people know at least the final results? Or in spite of the report’s conclusions, do they still believe that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice?
The sad news is that a poll was taken to get people’s reactions to the report and the results were no surprise: for the most part, no one’s mind was significantly changed, even though Trump was not found guilty of obstruction or colluding with the Russians. The poll also points out, however, that few people had reviewed the results of the report. That suggests that most of the people polled had only received input from social media, the mainstream media or their friends (who more than likely share their views).
You may not be surprised by these results, but I’m greatly concerned about them. Once again, the Democrat and media partnership are attacking Donald Trump and his administration through their impeachment fiasco. (I refuse to call it anything else.) To some degree, the Republicans and President Trump are pushing back.
One example of this push-back is the eight-page letter sent from the White House defying the illegitimacy of this action. In part, it said:
Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it. Because participating in this inquiry under the current unconstitutional posture would inflict lasting institutional harm on the Executive Branch and lasting damage to the separation of powers, you have left the President no choice. Consistent with the duties of the President of the United States, and in particular his obligation to preserve the rights of future occupants of his office, President Trump cannot permit his Administration to participate in this partisan inquiry under these circumstances.
And yet the letter is described by some as a “tantrum.”
And this was Nancy Pelosi’s response, in part:
For a while, the president has tried to normalize lawlessness. Now, he is trying to make lawlessness a virtue. The American people have already heard the President’s own words—‘do us a favor, though.’ The president’s actions threaten our national security, violate our Constitution and undermine the integrity of our elections. The White House letter is only the latest attempt to cover up his betrayal of our democracy, and to insist that the president is above the law.
It makes sense for the President to refuse to cooperate. At the same time, you can be sure that the Democrats/media will continue to chastise Trump for his lack of cooperation, stating that he has something to hide. We can see the results of the propaganda being disseminated in this latest Fox Poll:
For those who prefer the 538 polls, here is a partial statement from that site:
According to our average, 48.8 percent of people support impeachment, while only 43.6 percent don’t support it.1 That’s an increase even from last week, when the share of people who supported and opposed impeachment were roughly the same. What’s changed? Early this week, we got a couple new, high-quality polls that showed a majority of Americans in favor of an impeachment inquiry. Most notably, a Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 58 percent of Americans agreed with the House’s decision to start an impeachment inquiry, and only 38 percent disagreed with it. And an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP found that 55 percent approved of the House’s decision and 44 percent disapproved.
We can hope that the Inspector General’s report and the DOJ report authored by John Durham will have an impact on the current chaos and misrepresentations. But I’m not optimistic. The media will challenge the legitimacy of the information, mischaracterize it, or ignore it.
The public has demonstrated that even though it doesn’t trust the media, it continues to go to them for information. The public insists that it can weigh all the information and come to a legitimate conclusion, even though it doesn’t actually read the original sources or trust those who publicize this information. As long as the Left continues to control its message, we need to worry about the 2020 election.
Frankly, I don’t trust the American people.
Published in Politics
I’m guessing the next presidential election will be between Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump. And the only issue will be not the character and personality of the candidates but socialism versus capitalism. Perhaps one needn’t be a news hound to make that decision. With any luck, conservatives will do a good job selling capitalism.
Well, in a way they already are. There have been huge political successes that don’t seem to have a lot of popular support, but which are tacitly approved. So the political arm of conservatives is taking the risk to push their agenda and discovering that a lot of people who are ostensibly opposed to abortion restrictions or immigration enforcement don’t actually care very much at all. So the people who do vote for conservatives are satisfied and the center doesn’t put up much argument.
The other side of this, the cultural arm, is where I think the most exciting things are happening. The best political comedy channels on YouTube are by conservative content creators and disaffected liberals who have been effectively exiled. There has been a concerted effort to promote individuals from unlikely conservative demographics as well, which do well to encourage boldness among the particular community, and can help white conservatives to be more effective in their outreach attempts. Further, there’s Jordan Peterson, who might be the most well known academic since Milton Friedman. There are plenty of other promising examples, but you probably get the idea.
And all of this goes without adding the genuine push to force middle schoolers to buy into transgenderism or to put special emphasis on the gayness of some particular figure in history. I think anybody who has ever met kids would probably know that this is a bad idea.
So the thing to capitalize on is that the opposition is throwing away votes – and secondly, that we could probably pick up a few of them.
I agree that lawyers should not be running everything. Law is about setting up the system of rules under which everyone else is free to go about their business effectively.
Detailed regulation requires collaboration between lawyers and technical experts (though detailed regulation may often be a bad thing). Detailed regulation is not always a bad thing. As an example, there is a complicated body of law regarding “negotiable instruments” that underlies banking and finance, governing everything from paying by checks to negotiable debt instruments (such as promissory notes and mortgages).
A few examples of my last comment:
When I first found Patricia Dickson’s channel, she had about 10 thousand subscribers, she’s close to 100 thousand now. I believe she’s from California.
I’m not sure if this guy is still making content, but he was absolutely extraordinary while he was. There are others similar to him (Sargon of Akkad is one of the big names on YouTube). Part of the disaffected liberals cohort.
Also, there are good channels to supplement the education kids are supposed to be getting at school. There are plenty of other examples: Fire of Learning, Epic History, Intellectual Deep Web; just to name a couple I’m familiar with. This one is called “School of Life.”
Please consider doing a post on this subject! It’s very encouraging!
I’ve written a few recently that touch on this a little. (I’ve been posting a lot more as of late – just for you, Susan :) Here, here, and here are the ones I’ve got so far.
I’ll think on what I should add to these and I’ll tag you once I get it done. If you’ve any suggestions, let me know.
Our republic had many safeguards built in at its origin. Originally who qualified to vote had to have property to protect from government. While it was necessary and appropriate to expand the franchise to vote, our system still required a certain understanding of government by the electorate and fidelity to the checks and balances. Sadly civic training has been lacking or deliberately transformed into progressive indoctrination, and the checks and balances have been substantially disarmed by the delegation of lawmaking to the Administrative State. Add to that the “progressivification” of the media and we have put our nation in dire straits. And massively importing future voters with even less affection for what really lies at the foundation of our national success will accelerate the decline. It is worrisome.
Well the evidence is pretty good that Biden is corrupt and Hillary is crooked. As… Trumpy as Mr Trump is, he often has a genuine point. A point expressed in a loud and vulgar manner but genuine nonetheless.
Me either. I used to, because while most people are not engaged in daily politics, they once had at least had a good foundational understanding of American principles and patriotism. Now, many people are spoiled ingrates and have no instinct that I can trust. They are too often ignorant unloyal lemmings swayed by virtue signaling Marxists.
Elizabeth Warren seems like a weak candidate to me. She is as shrill as Hillary Clinton and it doesn’t seem she likes America, or people, or smiling. While she isn’t as corrupt as Hillary, she is a much worse liar than her and her skeletons are more easily explained.
I was thinking about the stories of how Americans in the 18th and 19th century seemed to keep up with what was happening in their new country and the political publications that were offered. Maybe those stories were overblown, but I was certainly moved and impressed by them.
I hope you’re right. A lot of people seem to think so – and many of them knew something I didn’t last election.
Every twelve years or so have a basic citizenship test. If you pass, you get an extra vote.
So the checklist so far:
-Fox News polls are biased against Trump
-Voters are all idiots and can’t be trusted
-Bad news is all based on a series of hoaxes
-Trump is the adult in the room
Swap out “Trump” with any generic Progressive name and the people on the Left could say word-for-word the same things. You guys went so hard at owning the Libs that you absorbed some of their victimhood mentality and their constant, ceaseless whining about how the people can’t be trusted. I thought the whole point was to oppose the Left, not adopt their insufferable attitude.
Trump gets it . . .
That’s pure gold. Mark Twain would be proud of you.
I might have stolen it from him. It’s an old story.
As long as we’re in a joking mood, I recently heard this riddle.
If the husband is always wrong, what does it mean when he tells his wife, “Honey, you’re right.”
I suspect Trump is toast. It is a miracle he made it in last time over the normal Democrat government corruption. Now that the Democrats, the Federal government, the intelligence agencies, Hollywood, mainstream media and the tech companies have allied, I doubt we will see another GOP POTUS in my lifetime. He caught them off guard last time because they knew it was rigged so they got complacent, it will not happen again.
But, (in no small part because of Trump) half the country knows how corrupt they all are.
It’s hard to sell “Look at all the stuff you can have if you work for it” in the teeth of “free stuff.”
You don’t sell an alternative to the corruption and you don’t sell capitalism — you sell “freedom”. People want to be free. People need to understand what the price of freedom is and how they lose it if they don’t pay that price. “Free stuff” is not freedom, it is servitude to the people who give you “free stuff” which will become increasingly less desirable. Freedom never survives corruption. So people need to see that corruption is the enemy of freedom. That is why “third world country” is such a powerful phrase if the people are made to understand its meaning: a system of corruption in which free people who simply seek to be left alone must increasingly modify their behaviors to avoid personal disaster. That is not freedom.
@susanquinn, you might want to rethink your statement that Hillery won the popular vote:
https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/commentary/new-report-exposes-thousands-illegal-votes-2016-election
She only won the so-called “popular vote” because of California, and that’s pretty much a foreign country now, right?
Hillary +2.9 million national, +4.3 million in California
Trump won the other 49 states by 1.4 million
Lol
Particularly the under 40 crowd who are painfully undereducated.
My thinking on the polls you mentioned? Well, the Fox poll has already been shown to be skewed in the sampling taken—48% Democrats, 40% Republicans, and 12% ‘other’. Of course it would show favoring impeachment! I question the make-up of the other polls for that reason. Also, how well did the polls do in 2016?
“Like most people, I have never seen a pollster” – Thomas Sowell
“You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Unreliably attributed to the man who has fooled almost all the people all the time.
They are painfully undereducated because of the over 40 crowd. They deserve some blame but the over 40 crowd also screwed them over.