For the last year plus, the Democrats and their division of propaganda, otherwise known as the mainstream media, have nonstop breathlessly informed the American people that the “Russia scandal” is the Biggest Story Ever In the History of the World.
With all the rumor, innuendo, illegal leaks, a fake dossier and a bogus special counsel investigation about the fairytale of Trump-Russia collusion, one would be forgiven for thinking perhaps the American people would actually buy into all of this and think this is in fact a massive, important issue.
Except it isn’t, at least not to the normal, everyday American people who live outside the frenzied alternate universe of the Acela corridor.
In a recent USA Today-Suffolk University poll of 1,000 registered voters, people were asked what were the most important issues for them in the 2018 midterm elections.
Mind you, in this poll, Democrats had a plus-15-point advantage in the congressional generic poll, which is a bit of an outlier when you consider the recent polls of The Economist-YouGov had Democrats at plus two and the Reuter-Ipsos poll had them at plus six. Put simply, this sample skews heavily to the left.
However, the respondents’ top four issues for 2018, in order, were immigration, taxes, gun control/2nd Amendment and Jobs/Economy. After those came health care, national security and an assortment of other issues. The least important issue of all the issues was Russia/Election meddling.
Precisely five respondents, three men and two women, listed it as their most important issue, or 0.5 percent of those polled. Heck, Russia/Election meddling lost out to None/Nothing by over a 3-to-1 margin.
How can this be? The “wise men” of the liberal elite have duly informed the American people as to how they should think, nonstop, for months, yet the American people have responded with a shrug and moved on with their daily lives.
While the left insists, for purely political reasons, that the collusion narrative should be important to the voters, the voters have responded by informing the world what their most important issues are: In a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll of nearly 2,000 registered voters, respondents listed their top two issues as being the economy and security issues.
On the economy, voters said they trusted Republicans by a margin of 11 points to handle the economy better than Democrats, by nine points to better handle the jobs issue and, by almost 20 points, the issue of national security. If the media’s coverage was actually proportional to how much Americans care about the collusion narrative, it’d be a few minutes in an overnight rerun at 2 a.m.
So the mainstream media wants to tell its narrative and the American people are telling theirs, and those narratives are worlds apart. Quite simply, the American people aren’t picking up what the mainstream media is putting down. Looking at the numbers, one might even conclude that many in the mainstream media are detached from reality and living in an alternate universe.
So Trump and Republicans should ignore the chattering class and focus for the remainder of this year on what the American people have prioritized and then signaled on what they trust Trump and the Republican Party: the economy, jobs and national security. Democrats and the left will continue to harp on Russia, rattle the saber on impeachment and pound the table on banning and confiscating guns. To which I say: Knock yourselves out.
Which, in fact, they might very well do in the 2018 midterms, if they don’t come up with a better message.
Ned Ryun is a former presidential writer for George W. Bush and the founder and CEO of American Majority.