Yes, Talking Heads, We ARE Paying Attention

For the last year, ever since Donald Trump announced his run for a second non-consecutive term as president, the political pundits have told each other that “no one is paying attention.”

They did that for one reason only – because Trump has been consistently ahead in the polls, and the pundits didn’t want to believe that voters might actually send Trump back to the White House. If voters were taking his candidacy seriously, the theory goes, Trump would lose in a landslide.

Remember, the overwhelming majority of the elites who provide the commentary and analysis of politics are either far-left propagandists or proponents of the “governing coalition” theory that sees compromise as the mechanism by which things get done, which presupposes that getting things done is by definition better than fighting for things you believe in.

These elites think they know more than you do, and since they believe Trump is an autocrat, a dictator, an evil self-obsessed criminal – take your pick – then they have to believe you aren’t paying attention because despite all their negative commentary, you the voters still want Trump back as president.

Most worrisome to them, it seems you want Trump more today than you did on Nov. 15, 2022, when he announced his re-election bid. Just look at the Republican primary polls recorded at RealClearPolitics. In the Harvard-Harris poll conducted on Nov. 16-17, 2022, Trump had a 46%-28% lead over Gov. Ron DeSantis, his nearest competitor. In a couple of polls in the following three months, DeSantis came within a point or two of Trump, but that was his high-water mark. As soon as the Democratic establishment launched their first indictment against Trump in March 2023, the former president strengthened his lead over DeSantis to 50%-24% in the Harvard-Harris poll of March 22-23. Since then, with each succeeding indictment, Trump has risen higher and higher. In the last Harvard-Harris poll in November 2023, Trump led DeSantis by 58 points. Virtually every poll in the last three months has Trump ahead by 40 to 50 points.

All along, the talking heads on MSNBC and CNN persisted in claiming that Trump is beating DeSantis and Nikki Haley because voters aren’t yet paying attention. But this isn’t the 1980s any more. We have something called the Internet, with 24/7 news coverage and social media trying to convince the world that all conservatives like Trump are hatemongers. It’s impossible for anyone who is interested in politics not to have been paying attention.

In other words, anyone who hasn’t been paying attention up until now will never pay attention. And by the way, the Iowa caucuses are now less than 30 days away. The whole argument has fallen apart.

What the talking heads don’t want to admit is that voters have been paying attention for months, and they are sending a message to the elites that they will make up their own minds, thank you very much. And that goes for blacks, Hispanics, and young voters, too – not just MAGA Republicans. Polls show Trump gaining support in all those demographics, and either tied with President Biden or ahead of him nationally.

What must terrify them even more is the latest report from Morning Consult and Bloomberg that in the key battleground states that will determine the winner in 2024, Trump has a commanding lead of 5 points overall and as much as 9 points in North Carolina.

So what are voters paying attention to? As the polls show, they have been paying attention to the persecution of Donald Trump by his political opponents, and they don’t like it. They are paying attention to the variety of third-party candidates who have said they will run in 2024, and when those candidates are included in polls, Trump’s lead in battleground states increases from 5 points to 7. They are paying attention to the blossoming debt crisis that Congress and Biden have shown no interest in addressing. They are paying attention to the border, where millions of military-age males have been arriving from Africa, the Middle East, and across the world, some on the terrorism watch list. They are paying attention to the unaffordability of housing, whether rental or purchased, and they are paying attention to their own growing credit card balances and their shriveled savings accounts. They are paying attention to those Ivy League college presidents who think threats of genocide are only a problem if they are carried out.

Sorry, Democrats. Sorry, Joe Biden. Sorry, congressional dead weights of both parties. Sorry, elites and talking heads. We have been paying attention, and we are coming for you. You can’t hide behind your fake narrative any longer. The truth has set us free.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.