‘Conservative’ Websites Out To Get Trump?
There are no Trump supporters in Pennsylvania?
Political opinion columnist Salena Zito says “Republican voters across Pennsylvania are much less wedded to Trump than you think.” She knows this, because during a two-week ride around the state, she talked to four voters who said they plan to vote for Gov. Ron DeSantis in their state’s Republican Party presidential primary next year, and one voter who’s undecided between DeSantis and former president Donald Trump.
A recent poll of about 320 of Pennsylvania’s 3.4 million Republican voters, by Susquehanna Polling and Research, found that 37% support DeSantis, 32% support Trump, 17% are undecided, and the remainder support some other Republicans. And nationally, Trump is ahead of DeSantis by more than 2-to-1. But Zito didn’t find a single Trump supporter.
The Washington Examiner published Zito’s article on Monday, which is no surprise, not only because Zito is one of its staff reporters, but because it doesn’t like Trump. Last year, it called Trump “unfit” and “a disgrace,” based on somebody named Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony to the Democrats’ J6 kangaroo court inquisition, testimony later discredited, as explained by reporters here and here.
But it’s not only the Washington Examiner. American Greatness published Zito’s article on Monday too. And Real Clear Politics, which linked to the Examiner item on Monday, published it outright on Tuesday. And so did Townhall.
I point this out not to defend Trump. On the one hand, there are some very good things about him, including that—Hallelujah—he prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming president, and when he was in office the economy roared, the employment rate among various demographic groups was at an all-time high, and lots of conservative judges were appointed to the federal courts, including three to the Supreme Court, resulting in Roe v. Wade being overturned and New York’s onerous concealed handgun law being struck down.
On the other hand, Trump is self-absorbed; adolescent in temperament; surrounds himself with too many sycophants, amateurs (family members and not), and enemies; and refuses to listen to smart and loyal advisors when he has them. Also, he doesn’t master the details of important issues, thinking he’s always the smartest guy in the room by default. For that reason, he got taken to the cleaners by China and corrupt people in the medical components of the Executive Branch during the early days of the Covid crisis, and by his arch-enemies in the DOJ/FBI and intel agencies throughout his term.
My point is that it’s not just CNN and MSNBC that think their audiences are easily manipulated rubes. With the exception of The Federalist, under the banner of which Margot Cleveland, Joy Pullmann, David Harsanyi, and several other smart and industrious writers shine above the competition, and Roger Kimball, who writes for several sites, the goal of certain “conservative” online news and opinion websites and the people who write for them is not to inform readers or give them ideas about how to defeat the Left.
The goal of those sites and writers is instead to generate ad revenues, mostly with clickbait headlines and a few thrown-together paragraphs—often rants about things previously reported by higher-caliber news sources, and often laced with links to more clickbait articles on their sites for increased ad revenue, plus a plea for donations.
Their business model depends on addicting anxious readers to a daily dose of outrage over what the Left is doing, addicting willfully demoralized readers to daily reminders that they’re losing to the Left with every passing minute, and duping gullible readers into believing we have the Left on the ropes because some conservative outsmarted some blue-haired, tatooed, ring-in the-nose halfwit during a Q and A session after a speech on a college campus.
Maybe Zito’s goal is to push Republican voters away from Trump and toward DeSantis. Maybe she and the websites that published her article believe that only DeSantis might beat Biden in 2024. Maybe she and they realize Trump will likely get the Republican nomination, so they’re trying to convince him to correct his mistakes now. I don’t know.
What I know, is that even though the outcome of the 2024 presidential election may be a foregone conclusion, when the Texas Republican presidential primary rolls around next year, I’ll dutifully vote for the candidate, among those who have a chance of winning in Texas, who has the best chance of beating the Democrat in the general election. I won’t base my vote on a five-voter survey disparaging the candidate who, at least right now, is favored by an overwhelming majority of Republican voters nationwide.
© 2023 Mark Overstreet