THE STATE OF THE RACE FOR PRESIDENT

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

The ridiculous level of dishonesty in election campaigns and the media is a major issue in politics today. The desperate attempt to win at any cost has left too many voters in this cycle with the familiar feeling of having to pick between the better of two difficult options. The polls show this and even something as data-driven as polls become the subject of manipulation by die-hards on either side. The data should be objectively observed and reported, but such is not the case.

What we are left with is the bogus poll patrol, and both sides are guilty. Political polls are public opinion surveys that gauge sentiment at the time they are taken. The better polling organizations use sophisticated methods to construct questionnaires, collect data, analyze the data and provide the results with a reasonable margin of error. If we look at many of these polls over a period of time, we can deduce trends to indicate whether a candidate has a lead outside the margin of error, or not. Polls, therefore, are not necessarily predictive but can give us a sense as to where a particular election is heading. Hopelessly biased media “journalists” only look at the data that shows their candidate in the lead or catching up, the other candidate badly failing, and then make impossible-to-support flat predictions in declarative language. Nowhere to be found is any nuanced discussion of margins of error or the methodological difficulties inherent in collecting meaningful data from verbal questionnaires by cell phones.

But back on the campaign trail the Democrats went for the quick fix, the easy route (leveraging Biden out, deciding Kamala is in). But they are not going to solve the Biden problem with a Biden clone. Newly anointed Kamala Harris (so much for “democracy is on the ballot”) is now trying to verbally distance herself from the Biden-Harris border disaster. And Trump is back to his old self, neither chagrined nor informed by the favorable reactions to his mellower convention speech, nor the assassination attempt. Just days ago he called VP Harris “a bum.” How does this help?

Both sides will have an abundance of money, surrogates and talking points. But most of these assets will be bulls-eyed at the other candidate and it will get even uglier if that’s possible. We will be told, umpteen times, that a vote for the opposition is an existential threat, and that our candidate is the savior and the only choice to save the planet. Their candidate? Fuhgeddaboudit. Facts do not matter as each campaign will have legions of realty re-constructors that will design a never-ending air attack designed to destroy the opposition and woo the undecideds. Still, in the end, a more rational electorate will decide which presidential candidate will inherit the most complex job in the world, campaign silliness notwithstanding. This show will go on the for the next few months, with the focus sharpening in the fall, reaching a fever pitch in late October. Let’s hope that somewhere in the circus there may be some actual substantive policy discussion where we can get a glimpse as to what the winning candidate might actually do.

TIPPING POINT

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

“The critical point in a situation, process, or system beyond which a significant and often unstoppable effect or change takes place” (Miriam-Webster Dictionary).

Donald Trump has been the focal point of the American political discussion since he first walked down the escalator in Trump Tower in 2015 when he announced his candidacy for president. Since then much has happened. A good economy, a lousy economy, a pandemic, 2 wars, 3 new Supreme Court justices, elections, court cases, and more political fights than anyone can count. Trump has been at the center of it all.

Thus the political world has divided into 3 camps: those who love Trump, those who hate Trump, and a lot of people in the middle. The current presidential polls show Trump and Biden within the margin of error nationally but Trump with a lead in most swing states. Biden’s approval ratings have been negative for quite some time, and Trump’s aren’t much better. Most polls show that much of the voting public, in general, would prefer 2 other candidates.

Trump has been living on the political edge since he first ran for president. That’s because he put himself there, and the not-so-mainstream media, hardly his fan club, has attached him to almost every story. They just can’t stop talking about him, and they hurl the most bitter, vindictive accusations at him at every chance they get, proving once again there is a dark lining in the silver cloud of public service.

Trump gets forgiven his ranting and personal attacks by his supporters, as his administration had a good record in many ways. Certainly, his time in office compares well against the seriously challenged Biden record of high inflation, the border crisis, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the mismanagement of 2 wars and the deal with Iran that almost guarantees this terrorist state a path to deliverable nuclear weapons.

But even with all that, there remains the issue of Trump fatigue – have too many people heard Trump stories too many times. This has been analyzed and discussed, but his lead in the polls show no evidence of that. There is also the New York hush money trial, with a biased judge who precluded defense witnesses and manipulated the jury instructions so that any 4 jurors could find Trump guilty of any of 3 underlying crimes and did not have to be unanimous in doing so. Any objective reading of the presiding judge’s obvious attempt to manufacture a guilty verdict would lead a reasonable person to conclude that the trial was skewed in favor of conviction.

But is this one issue too many, in a political career jammed with issues? Even if one concedes that Trump had a good record in office, and that this latest trial was a sham, have we just reached the point where some likely voters have reached the Trumpian saturation point and will begin to finally peel away from the Trump-is-better-than Biden logic? Trump is setting fundraising records off his guilty verdict, but will millions of dollars be enough to hold the soft Trump voters, and to persuade the undecideds? Does Robert Kennedy Jr. edge more into the weaker part of the Trump base?

Polls give us trends, not necessarily predictions, and we will see in the coming weeks which direction the political needles point, but let’s not be surprised if there begins a new attrition in Trump support, and perhaps correspondingly in Biden’s as well.

THE CORRUPTION OF THE MEDIA IN A POLARIZED POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT

By Ken Grossberger, PhD

The media, both liberal and conservative, would have us believe every paranoid notion they foment, like Biden will sell us out to Iran and Trump will be a dictator. Believing this nonsense is the intellectual equivalent of going to a bar at 2AM and taking notes. Journalism, as we used to know it, was about providing information on the critical topics of the day. Now it’s an opinionated free-for-all with a can-you-top-this attitude in sensationalism where commentators cannot pile it on enough in a desperate attempt to bash the other side on a daily basis. They are down to name calling on a level that would embarrass the occupants of a junior high school locker room.

So CNN beats up Trump and Fox beats up Biden. Every day. All day. Each candidate is described in the most horrific, belligerent terms, and each is labeled a criminal and an existential threat to democracy, depending on the media outlet (oh yeah, and our guy is the savior). They would have us believe (whichever side they are on) that we certainly could not survive the election of the guy they don’t like. Yet we just survived a combined seven years of both.

Too many politicians, like many media types, cast ethics to the winds, and have no more respect for civility and honor than a storm has for the grains of sand on a beach. The negative lessons for the young may have lasting effects, as many continue to be lost in the dark hole of the internet/cellphone void. Yet, oddly, the percentage of voter turnout has been on the rise in recent elections. Below is a chart of the presidential elections since 2000:

US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION TURNOUT
2000-2022

YEAR	TURNOUT
2022	66.6%
2016	60.1%
2012	58.6%
2008	61.6%
2004	60.1%
2000	54.2%

ave.	60.2%

This represents an increase from the 1990s and 2000s when the average turnout was in the mid-fifty percent range. Perhaps voters are driven by party loyalty, anger, or fear but certainly not by respect for the political system. Below are the average approval ratings for the last 3 presidents in their third year in the White House:

Biden 40%

Trump 42%

Obama 44%

All three were disliked by more than half the country. All were in office during the attack-media period. Not that the media was all that kind in previous years, but it has gotten much worse.

It is routine to tune into one of the major media outlets and witness outright bashing of politicians and candidates, even making jokes about them in these “panel” discussions of so-called experts. They make up alternative realties to suit their tribal narratives, and facts don’t seem to be a concern. To add fuel to the neurotic fire social media is a sea of uninformed opinion, vindictive hyperbole and hysterical vitriol and it seems more like a therapy session on steroids than a marketplace of intelligent ideas.

So where does the voting public go from here? Perhaps the one critical issue that is not mentioned is the need for political education, so people know more about how government works and what the candidates really stand for. Maybe then voters can intellectually separate legitimate policy ideas from the hysteria.

A HOUSE DIVIDED, OR IN THIS CASE QUARTERED

by Ken Grossberger, PhD

In the United States we have two political parties, but two major groups each within each of those two parties. The Republicans still have the mainstream, traditional GOPers, and also the Freedom Caucus-Trump nationalist types. The Democrats have their own mainstream, left of center group plus the progressive left wing. There are a scattered number of liberal Republicans (e.g., Sen. Susan Collins) and conservative Democrats (e.g., Joe Manchin) in Congress. Each party is thus divided, and therefore the country is divided. In Lincoln’s famous speech in 1858 he warned of such political divisions and feared for the country: “it will become all one thing, or all the other.” His way of saying be careful what you ask for.

Where does this leave voting Americans? There are still many who are unenrolled (note: we register to vote but enroll in a party) in a major party or have cast their lot with minor parties. The independent and minor party voters make up almost 40 percent of the electorate. But a Pew Research Center survey (2019) suggests that even among independents, most lean to one major party or another (see Political Independents: Who They Are, What They Think – Pew Research Center), but choose to remain officially unaligned. Why is this?

We may infer an inherent distrust of the two major parties among many independents as both have displayed a good deal of corruption in recent years. The duplicity and animated rhetoric test the tolerance of even the most loyal members outside the base of each party. The language is abhorrent, and the ethics are scandalous. Its win at any cost: say anything, do anything, just get and maintain power. Once in power each side investigates the other and weaponizes government institutions, the media and public policy, on a massive search and destroy mission of their opponents. They just can’t stand each other, and the American public suffers from an overload of bitter, vindictive rhetoric designed to damage each member of the other side to the maximum extent possible. Lincoln warned, in the same speech, of a such a “battle” in the political arena raging “under the constant hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and pampered enemy…”

Thus the two major political parties divide America as they themselves are also divided. It becomes a free-for-all in a rule or ruin atmosphere and a vulgar display of exactly how the founders did not want our government to work (“of the people, by the people….). The hot topics exacerbate the fight: abortion, the border, inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, and others. Each side leverages virtually anything to force the hand of, or better, to bury the other side. The outright lying is ridiculous and the media on both sides have become wholly owned subsidiaries of their political masters. Each party forces a different reality that excludes the other, and that reality is further parsed by the division within each party. And there is no end in sight as we are eight months away from the general election. There are many reasonable people in politics, yet the current conversation is dominated by shallow thinking, paranoid types like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Green.

The electorate needs to better educate itself on the issues as well as the candidates. The test for those who choose to vote is to resist the party label, to see beyond the ideological divide, and to vote for reason, thoughtfulness, and a better chance for a decent future.

THE DEMOCRATS RHETORICAL LOOPS

Ken Grossberger, PhD

In order to make excuses for their failed policies, the Democrats, and their Not-So-Mainstream- Media allies, have, either in coordination or due to some neurotic impulse to repeat their word or phrase for the day, routinely blurted out responses in reaction to criticism of their positions. Once that word or phrase is spoken by a leader, by the White House, or by some other lefty forum, the talking heads all start saying the same thing.

Remember the increases in energy costs due to Biden’s policy decisions? It was called the “Putin Price Hike.” And Biden’s deflection from the Democrats’ failures in Congress blaming the GOP? He said, “this is not your father’s Republican party.” And Biden’s flip on soaring inflation? He whispered, “Bidenomics is working.” And the multiple catchphrases repeated by his Homeland Security Secretary and others, “the immigration system is broken” and “the border is secure”, and not to forget “the border is closed.”

This constant repetition, with the presumptive force of rhetoric, perhaps satisfies the base, but further antagonizes the political right, and frankly puzzles the political center. Each of these lines is severely challenged by facts and believability. To whom are they speaking? They can only win their base once; the right and the center just aren’t buying into these. This not-so-subtle attempt at deflection is mawkishly transparent at best and ludicrous at worst.

Repeating nonsense doesn’t make it less nonsensical. Perhaps it satisfies having said it, perhaps it reassures when it is repeated, but it surely insults when measured against reality. The White House and the Democrats get stuck in these rhetorical loops because quite often they have no other answers.