An interesting article today in Useless Toady from Jason Williams, who was given an assignment to run back to the middle of Ohio and talk to the folks there about who they would support for president.
I quickly came to the realization that this was going to be a challenge soon after arriving for my 2½-day stay in early September. I found that a lot of folks didn’t want to talk about Trump. They didn’t want to put themselves out there for fear of being verbally bludgeoned on Facebook and Twitter or in the grocery store or even at church.
And those who did want to talk, well, they seemed to speak for those who wanted to remain silent: They’re tired of certain cable news networks and the leftist political class stereotyping them as a bunch of toothless, racist, backwoods rubes.
“I don’t want to talk about it because you can’t have an opinion unless it’s their opinion,” an African American Trump supporter said about the left. “Either you believe the way they believe, or you’re a racist or a homophobe. The reason I’m working is because of what Trump’s done. I just want to put my hard hat on and go to work every day.”
Hmmm.
The first thought that occurs to me is, this well-justified anger and mistrust of the the media is the simple and direct answer to the question of how the pollsters got 2016 so very wrong.
History tells us repeatedly, that this is exactly how every socialist from Hitler to Stalin came to power. The voters recognize this, and they’re simply not willing to play that game.
The second… as I said yesterday, the electorate has even more to be angry about, amazing enough, than it did after eight years of Obama…. even if they’re not overly talkative about how they feel about it.
I propose a new phrase to describe these folks: “The Silenced Majority”. (I add the “ed” on the end to differentiate somewhat from the group that Nixon was talking about.)
They will figure very large on election day… Much larger than any polling will indicate.
