Good — Thomas Friedman is one of the best columnists in New York Times. He is the author The world is flatis a fixture on Sunday morning talk shows and part of the national political dialogue. We talk about the closed media. We talk about the distance liberals have from other Americans who don’t live in cities, have college degrees, six-figure salaries, and time to think about useless nonsense like global warming, plastic straws, or whether ordering coffee “black” at Starbucks is racist. Yes, Hillary’s America is different — and it’s also a mecca for some of the whiniest, most insufferable people in the country.
So what has Mr. Friedman written recently about Trump’s ongoing war on the press and his administration in general? Well, the media he should cover everything he does and do it as aggressively as possiblebecause it hurts him. Really? It hurts him. This is a guy who thrives on attacking the liberal media — and his base loves it, too. After all, we have a guy who is taking potshots at liberal institutions that have degenerated into a total meltdown of progressive emotional toxic waste. Allthis man is doing it wrong. Everything is criticized. And every time the media starts DEFconing Trump, he gains more supporters. Even the most skeptical Republicans are being pushed into his camp by the liberal media’s inability to shut up: bias, hypocrisy, and horrifying episodes of amnesia. In 2012, “Romensia” made them laugh, but you’d think the story never got going until 2016. Friedman wants every aspect of the Trump White House covered in depth… because it worked so well in 2016. Does he forget that the media gave Trump $2 billion in free media in 2016? The end result: President Donald J. Trump.
There is a well debate going on in newsrooms across the country right now about whether the mainstream media should be covering every tweet and rally from President Trump. My answer: Absolutely! It is the right thing to do professionally, and as yesterday’s election results showed, it is the right thing to do politically if we want to see a check on Donald Trump’s power.
It seems that the toxic lies, intimidation, and unpresidential behavior that Trump most often exhibits at rallies and in tweets — and that we in the media so constantly report on — are turning off the very moderate, most educated Republicans and suburban women who Trump needs to maintain a GOP majority in the House, let alone get reelected.
So let there be a report.
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Yes, I want every American to know that two Trump supporters were spotted at the president’s recent rally in Ohio wearing T-shirts that read, “I’d Rather Be Russian Than a Democrat.” That’s an captivating data point. That’s who you’re voting for when you vote for Trump.
I want every American to hear Trump’s tweet that CNN anchor Don Lemon, who is African-American, was “the dumbest man on TV” and that Lemon made LeBron James “look smart, which is not easy.” Lemon was interviewing James about the school he had just opened in Ohio for low-income children.
I want every Republican running for office to hear every syllable of Trump’s intimidating arrogance as he warned at his Ohio rally that he would destroy any GOP politician who dared to oppose him, saying, “I’m destroying their careers just because they said bad things about me, and you defend yourself and they go down — and that’s OK.”
I want all of this to be heard and spread from sea to sea. Because while these words do unite Trump’s base, they also unite Democrats and apparently embarrass moderate Republicans and alienate independents.
Yes, except that Trump has won more converts since his 2016 victory. Pew Research found that these voters were not overly enthusiastic about Trump, but she “warmed up” to him—huge league. Well — I wonder what that could be? Oh, right, just watch an hour of MSNBC, CNN, or any liberal news outlet to understand why:
Key chart from the recent @pewresearch a study on how voters’ views of Trump have changed. Trump has many more “converts” (people who voted for him but didn’t like him and have since warmed up) than those who liked him in 2016 and have now cooled down. photo:twitter.com/dFUeOHcVCu
— Kristen Soltis Anderson (@KSoltisAnderson) August 9, 2018
After Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the enormous majority of people who said they voted for him had “warm” feelings toward him.
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Many voters who ultimately supported Trump in the general election did not always feel so warmly toward him. In April 2016, shortly before Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination, a significant share of those who were expected to vote for him in November expressed mixed or even lukewarm feelings toward him: while a majority (65%) viewed him warmly or very warmly, about a third (35%) felt cool or neutral toward him. About one in five (19%) of those who ultimately voted for Trump felt very cool toward him (rating him below 25 on a scale of 0 to 100).
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About one-third of Trump voters in November 2016 (35%) had had chilly or neutral feelings toward him earlier in the year. By September 2016, a majority of those voters had warmed to him, including 24% who felt very sultry toward him. And shortly after the election, three-quarters of those once chilly or neutral voters (74%) felt sultry toward him, including 43% who rated him very warmly.
Among the 65% of Trump voters who felt sultry toward him in April 2016, there was much less change in their opinions of him. Of that group, 90% or more felt sultry toward him in September and November 2016.
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Converts make up the second largest group of Trump voters (23%). These voters were lukewarm or neutral toward Trump before he received the Republican nomination. In April 2016, nearly half of Converts (44%) supported Ted Cruz for the Republican presidential nomination. However, during the September 2016 campaign, 73% of this group had sultry feelings toward Trump, including 31% who gave Trump a very sultry rating. By March 2018, 71% gave him a very sultry rating.
Oh, and we can’t leave without this part [emphasis mine]:
It turns out that there are thinking Republicansfor whom character, decency, and truth-telling still matter in a president. It turns out there are thinking Republicans who have watched Trump’s Twitter rants, his turbulent performance in Helsinki, the unbridled bile he spews at rallies — and the blind, delighted reaction of his core base — and found them disturbing and unworthy of their support. That’s what the polls and the polling booths told us last night.
Yes, liberalism remains the politics of condescension. There’s that aged story about Adlai Stevenson, the two-time Democratic presidential loser, and his supposed conversation with an assistant. The assistant supposedly offered encouraging words about Mr. Stevenson’s chances because he had thinking people on his side, to which the Democratic candidate replied, “Oh, but I need a majority.” And let’s be sincere, these “thinking Republicans” are probably the Never Trumpers who have become the front-runners for the biggest nuisances in American politics. They’re few and far between. They’re often ignored, as they should be. And to Friedman’s credit: They’re not liberals. They’re conservatives who just don’t like Trump.
So go ahead, double down on calling us idiots. It didn’t work the first time. It probably won’t work the second time – the definition of insanity.
These people will not oppose Trump. I am a convert — and there is nothing, nothing that will make me vote against the president in the next election. The stakes are too high, and challenging the GOP primary is just plain stupid. Moral victories mean nothing. And, and we all know this, Trump is better than any Democrat. Any Republican is better than any Democrat, especially as they go through a leftist transformation. I can’t wait for the media outrage machine to go into overdrive — all of which will culminate in Trump’s reelection in 2020.
