Many of you may have noticed that the national media has decided to take Democratic concern trolling to a new degree the past week. Such concern trolling has no basis in fact, and it’s important that we on the left disregard it. Join me over the jump to see why!
Exhibit 1 of Baseless Concerning Trolling: Misreading Polls
The Claim: The Very Serious People of Morning Joe this morning talked this morning about how far behind the Democrats have fallen.
The Actual Evidence: The Morning Joe talkers are discussing a new national poll that shows the DEMOCRATS, not the Republicans, with a 9-point lead in the generic congressional ballot. Yikes. Somehow such a 9-point lead is actually good news for Donald Trump? Somewhere Mark Halperin is still saying that it’s good news for John McCain, too.
Exhibit 2 of Baseless Concerning Trolling: Overemphasizing Republicans’ Chances
The Claim: Democrats have no shot of winning the Senate. The Hill blares today, “Democrats Slide in Battle for Senate.”
The Actual Evidence: According to FiveThirtyEight, the Democrats have a 22% chance of winning the Senate. Though just an outside chance, the Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate (despite a historically unfavorable map) is actually greater than the Republicans’ 14% chance of winning the House. But, we are subjected to headlines about the Democrats’ sliding in the Senate as opposed to any discussion of the Democrats’ excellent probability for the House or governorship pickups.
Exhibit 3 of Baseless Concerning Trolling: It’s Just What They Do
Remember that as every election day grows closer, the media turns to their favorite pastime: describing Democrats as in disarray, with no message, and no chance. They’ve turned to this whether it was pre-Trump or post-Trump. Indeed, watch this Morning Joe segment from the day before the Virginia governor’s race in 2017. Ralph Northam was criticized as a dead man walking because he was soft on crime and ran a message-less campaign. What happened after this segment aired? Northam won by the largest margin for a Democrat since 1985.
Many of us just refuse to listen to this type of political “analysis,” and I get that. But, we need to understand that that analysis is out there and that sometimes it can trample down our voters’ enthusiasm. Don’t be a victim of that and don’t let your friends be victims, either, because the analysis is based on bad information.
In short, don’t let the national media concern trolls get you down. Avoid the noise, canvass, phonebank, and VOTE.