Is it time to retire the donkey and make an angry old man waving a cane the Democratic Party’s new symbol? Such a display, of course, was precisely what got Representative Al Green (D-Texas) expelled from President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday. It well reflects the Democrats’ general antics last night, too, behavior which went over like a lead balloon.
Meanwhile, Trump soared like an eagle, with most Americans giving his speech a resounding thumbs-up.
Yet it wasn’t just John Q. Public who noted that Trump sailed while his opposition failed. Democratic campaign consultant Doug Schoen likened Trump’s speech to, respectively, JFK’s and Ronald Reagan’s historic 1961 and 1980 inaugural addresses. In contrast, he writes, his Democrats don’t have “any answers at all” and have “become trivial and almost irrelevant.”
Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was also disappointed in his party. He called the Democrats’ behavior a “sad cavalcade of self owns and unhinged petulance” on social platform X Wednesday. “It only makes Trump look more presidential and restrained.”
“We’re becoming the metaphorical car alarms that nobody pays attention to,” he continued. Fetterman then added, in what could be the understatement of the month, that “it may not be the winning message.”
Trump Triumphed
Trump’s message, however was a different story. As The Hill informs today:
Seventy-six percent of people approved of the president’s remarks, while 23 percent disapproved as reported Wednesday in CBS News and YouGov survey results.
A majority of respondents, 63 percent, said Trump spent a lot of time on issues they cared about compared to 28 percent who said the opposite. Another 9 percent said he spent no time at all on their topics of interest.
Respondents also noted that his speech left them with a positive feeling overall….
CNN’s instant polling captured a similar response, with 44 percent of speech watchers viewing Trump’s remarks as very positive. About 25 percent said his remarks were somewhat positive, and 31 percent felt they were negative.
In our polarized time, where it’s hard getting robust American majorities to agree on anything, 76 percent approval is striking. Note, too, that CBS and CNN are leftist outfits. So, if anything, Trump’s speech may be even more popular than their results reflect. And what explains this approval? Commentator Monica Showalter has some idea, writing:
The pollsters found that Trump was addressing issues that mattered to voters — ending waste, fraud and abuse in government spending, closing the open border, getting rid of men competing in women’s sports, explaining tariffs, outlining the new initiatives of Bobby Kennedy in making America healthy again, [and] honoring heroes and those who have bravely endured obstacles.
It also doesn’t hurt that Trump delivered his remarks with style and humor. (Example below. You may have to turn up your volume; the video’s is low.)
Even Better by Contrast
And what did the Democrats respond with? Showalter adds that
all [the] Democrats had were crazy protests, getting thrown out of the session for uncivil behavior, waving weird paddleboards, color-coordinating wardrobes, doing walkouts, and making robotic talking-point videos….
Showalter then presents the incredible example of the latter below.
Only, it wasn’t just the three senators above. According to the following, it was more than a score of hive-minded Democrats.
As the above indicates, too, Elon Musk was so struck by the collective message that he’s offering a free Cybertruck to anyone who reveals the propaganda writer’s identity.
Of course, this isn’t the first time pseudo-elites have been caught coordinating their talking points. It’s well known, for instance, that Democrats do it regularly. Another example is the 100-plus newspapers that agreed to simultaneously run anti-Trump editorials in 2018. But then there’s a deeper point.
Dawning of a New Media Age?
Note that the media entity above bringing us the truth about Democrats’ coordinated post-Trump-address message is a social-media entity (X). Note, too, that had only the mainstream media existed in 2018, most Americans would’ve never heard of the editorials story. The point?
The new media landscape has completely changed the equation.
It’s my sense that 2024 was a tipping point. The so-called alternative media finally achieved, I believe, greater power and reach than the so-called mainstream media (MM). This loss of MM control means that the Democrats can no longer control the “narrative” via the MM.
The result is that left-wing deceptions that previously would be successfully covered up by the MM are now exposed.
Put differently, under the old media, the Democrats could appear as an impressive Wizard of Oz.
Under the new media landscape, more and more people see the pathetic little man behind the curtain.
And they laugh at him.
There’s still more to it, though. With the jig being up, some MM entities now realize they must reform themselves to compete. The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times are two examples.
Moreover, this spread of accurate information, what the pseudo-elites call “misinformation,” has altered the Overton window. (That’s the range of socially acceptable public discourse.)
Just consider “transgenderism.” When I criticized it back in 2009, even some conservatives complained about my analysis. Why, a wonderful (and it really is) conservative site that had published my article even considered deleting it over the pushback. Now, many of the “controversial arguments” expressed therein have become axiomatic for conservatives. The difference?
Previously, the powers-that-be could, by magnifying the propagandists and suppressing dissent, make the pro-“trans” message appear the default. But now, with people publishing and interacting more freely in the new media, the Truth is more effectively spread. And more Americans can see that the Truth on “transgenderism” is actually the dominant view — and that the “default” just reflected the machinations of the little man behind the curtain.
And as this process continues, with issue after issue, that little man gets littler all the time.
