signalmankenneth
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Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 in part by creating a parallel universe where everything was going wrong. Violent migrants were flooding into the country, Trump argued. Crime was at an all-time high. Democrats are scheming to rig elections and mandate socialism in your kid’s school. Being a part of the MAGA movement meant signing on to Trump’s warped view of reality.
In 2016, Trump found plenty of voters willing to buy into his message of “American carnage.” That’s not proving so easy this time around.
The last month of campaigning has seen the media finally fact-checking Trump’s absurd lies — with the result being that the former president’s campaign has been revealed as a disorganized mess led by some of the most odious names in the far-right influencer universe.
From a hoax about Haitian immigrants eating Ohioans’ cats to the return of fired adviser Corey Lewandowski (and the addition of influencer Laura Loomer), it’s clear Trump’s campaign is running out of ideas. Now it is also running scared from a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The MAGA movement’s world was always a fragile one. Now it’s on the verge of shattering.
That doesn’t mean Trump is fated to lose. Record levels of political polarization have led to a race where tens of thousands of votes in a mere handful of states will prove decisive. But unlike in 2016 and even 2020, the facts on the ground are making it harder for Trump to sell his doom-and-gloom vision of an America in decline.
For one, fewer Americans feel pessimistic about the economy. That played to Trump’s benefit in 2016, but earlier this month the Wall Street Journal recorded a nearly 10-point jump in the number of Americans who believe the country is on the right track. In the key state of Georgia, nearly six in 10 residents think the economy will continue to improve over the next year. Back in January, that number was just 36 percent.
More Americans are also feeling safer in their homes and communities, despite Trump’s repeated lie that crime rates are sky-high. In fact, the Biden administration is presiding over a historic drop in crime rates, including a nearly 12 percent year-over-year drop in murders — the biggest single-year decline in two decades.
The FBI dealt another blow to Trump’s fantasyland this week with the publication of its annual nationwide crime statistics. They confirmed not only a huge drop in murders, but also a 9.4 percent decline in rapes and a 7.6 percent decline in property crimes. Across almost every metric, crime statistics disagree with Trump’s cries about violence in the streets.
Republicans’ disinformation has successfully convinced too many Americans that crime is rising; paradoxically, Republicans in the House are pushing to slash law enforcement funding. That’s making it awfully tough for Trump’s key surrogates, who are torn between portraying their constituencies as crime-ridden and taking credit for the real reductions in crime seen during the Biden years.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-voters-aren-t-buying-140000841.html
In 2016, Trump found plenty of voters willing to buy into his message of “American carnage.” That’s not proving so easy this time around.
The last month of campaigning has seen the media finally fact-checking Trump’s absurd lies — with the result being that the former president’s campaign has been revealed as a disorganized mess led by some of the most odious names in the far-right influencer universe.
From a hoax about Haitian immigrants eating Ohioans’ cats to the return of fired adviser Corey Lewandowski (and the addition of influencer Laura Loomer), it’s clear Trump’s campaign is running out of ideas. Now it is also running scared from a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The MAGA movement’s world was always a fragile one. Now it’s on the verge of shattering.
That doesn’t mean Trump is fated to lose. Record levels of political polarization have led to a race where tens of thousands of votes in a mere handful of states will prove decisive. But unlike in 2016 and even 2020, the facts on the ground are making it harder for Trump to sell his doom-and-gloom vision of an America in decline.
For one, fewer Americans feel pessimistic about the economy. That played to Trump’s benefit in 2016, but earlier this month the Wall Street Journal recorded a nearly 10-point jump in the number of Americans who believe the country is on the right track. In the key state of Georgia, nearly six in 10 residents think the economy will continue to improve over the next year. Back in January, that number was just 36 percent.
More Americans are also feeling safer in their homes and communities, despite Trump’s repeated lie that crime rates are sky-high. In fact, the Biden administration is presiding over a historic drop in crime rates, including a nearly 12 percent year-over-year drop in murders — the biggest single-year decline in two decades.
The FBI dealt another blow to Trump’s fantasyland this week with the publication of its annual nationwide crime statistics. They confirmed not only a huge drop in murders, but also a 9.4 percent decline in rapes and a 7.6 percent decline in property crimes. Across almost every metric, crime statistics disagree with Trump’s cries about violence in the streets.
Republicans’ disinformation has successfully convinced too many Americans that crime is rising; paradoxically, Republicans in the House are pushing to slash law enforcement funding. That’s making it awfully tough for Trump’s key surrogates, who are torn between portraying their constituencies as crime-ridden and taking credit for the real reductions in crime seen during the Biden years.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-voters-aren-t-buying-140000841.html
