The reaction to Donald Trump's speech has been interesting to watch. The Democrats and the liberal mainstream media has basically used two responses, one major and one minor. First, the speech has been condemned as having a dark vision of America as a country in trouble rather than the optimistic tone that is needed. The talking points from the Clinton campaign must have used the word "dystopian" to describe the Trump vision, because so many of the second rate pundits repeated it. In fact, there was a lot more repetition among the liberal "pundits" than anything that Melania Trump may have repeated in her speech on Monday. The first class libs, however, used their own words. Today's New York Times has a banner headline across the top of the paper that begins with the wotds "Tone Dark" to describe the speech.
So will that attack on the speech work? Will Americans move away from Trump because he said things in the USA are bad and getting worse? Here's a clue. The pollsters frequently ask Americans if the country is on the right track or the wrong track. It's a way of learning if voters think things are getting better or getting worse. The average of recent polls asking this question puts the number who think we are on the wrong track at 69% and the number who think we are on the right track at 22%. That's an overwhelming majority of voters who agree with Trump's "dark vision". For them, it's not correct to call it a "dark vision"; they would instead call it "the truth". As for the other 22% who think things are getting better, they probably don't know much about the news (how could they?) so they won't even hear the portrayal of the Trump speech as dark.
The minor media response has been to attack Trump's accuracy in his speech. Most of this is based upon a rather hilarious piece written by some so-called "fact checkers" at Bloomberg News. These reporters try to twist the speech into being wrong, but no matter how hard they try, they really cannot. One example of their effort shows just how wrong they can be. Trump said last night that the number of police killed in the line of duty this year is 50% higher than last year. "Not true" scream the fact checkers. Then they admit that what they did is to look at how many police officers died this year from attacks in the line of duty and added in those who died in traffic accidents. If you take out the traffic fatalities, the number of police killed in the line of duty in 2016 is 50% higher than was the case in 2015. In other words, Trump was correct.
This kind of bogus fact checking never works absent something amazingly egregious. Few people read the stories and even fewer care about them.
Trump's speech appears to have been an overwhelming success. The quick polling shows that the public really liked it and that it had the effect of moving the needle in Trump's favor. Now that I can see the left's feeble response, it seems that the speech will be paying dividends for a long, long time.
So will that attack on the speech work? Will Americans move away from Trump because he said things in the USA are bad and getting worse? Here's a clue. The pollsters frequently ask Americans if the country is on the right track or the wrong track. It's a way of learning if voters think things are getting better or getting worse. The average of recent polls asking this question puts the number who think we are on the wrong track at 69% and the number who think we are on the right track at 22%. That's an overwhelming majority of voters who agree with Trump's "dark vision". For them, it's not correct to call it a "dark vision"; they would instead call it "the truth". As for the other 22% who think things are getting better, they probably don't know much about the news (how could they?) so they won't even hear the portrayal of the Trump speech as dark.
The minor media response has been to attack Trump's accuracy in his speech. Most of this is based upon a rather hilarious piece written by some so-called "fact checkers" at Bloomberg News. These reporters try to twist the speech into being wrong, but no matter how hard they try, they really cannot. One example of their effort shows just how wrong they can be. Trump said last night that the number of police killed in the line of duty this year is 50% higher than last year. "Not true" scream the fact checkers. Then they admit that what they did is to look at how many police officers died this year from attacks in the line of duty and added in those who died in traffic accidents. If you take out the traffic fatalities, the number of police killed in the line of duty in 2016 is 50% higher than was the case in 2015. In other words, Trump was correct.
This kind of bogus fact checking never works absent something amazingly egregious. Few people read the stories and even fewer care about them.
Trump's speech appears to have been an overwhelming success. The quick polling shows that the public really liked it and that it had the effect of moving the needle in Trump's favor. Now that I can see the left's feeble response, it seems that the speech will be paying dividends for a long, long time.
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