This is a total disconnect from reality
In the two weeks since the Supreme Court’s far right extremist rampage, the media and pundit class has sought to convince us that… the Democrats are somehow screwed? We’ve seen a consistent narrative across the mainstream media and social media, claiming that Democratic voters are pissed off at the Democratic Party for not having somehow magically stopped the Supreme Court from issuing this ruling. We’ve even seen one prominent liberal Twitter pundit after another insist that the Democratic Party is somehow in freefall and needs to be gutted. But here’s the thing.
Even as this absurd, idiotic, backbiting, self destructive hysteria has played out within the media and pundit bubble, something different has been going on out in the real world. For instance, the polling averages now point to the Democrats having a small but clear lead in the generic congressional midterm ballot. And in specific key Senate races, individual polls are now showing John Fetterman having as much as a nine point lead, Tim Ryan having as much as a nine point lead, and Raphael Warnock having as much as a ten point lead.
This kind of radical divergence between what the media and pundit class insists is going on with Democratic voters, and what’s actually going on with Democratic voters, is just the latest reminder that the media and pundit class now almost exclusively chases contrarian hot takes in the name of trying to gin up ratings and retweets. But it actually points to two different concerns.
The first concern is that, obviously, the media and pundit class has completely jumped the shark. This is never a good thing. We rely on media outlets and pundits to steer the discussion in a factually supported direction, and when they’re just making up histrionic fiction, it means we’re flying blind.
The second concern is that these isolated poll numbers we’re seeing right now are almost too good. Even with the anti-Republican outrage that the Supreme Court has stupidly engendered, can we really believe polling that says the Democrats are ahead by nine or ten points in statewide races in purple states like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Ohio? I mean, Ohio?
In reality, we shouldn’t accept the premise that the Democratic candidates are this far ahead these states. The unprecedented nature of the Supreme Court implosion has put us into the kind of murky political territory where pollsters – who rely in part on established voting trends when coming up with their methodologies – can’t be as sure of their footing as they might otherwise be.
The reality is we don’t know what we’re looking at here. The polls suggest that the Democrats have pulled ahead in key Senate races and are becoming competitive on the House side as well. So let’s take that as winning momentum, and as a sign that we need to put in more work than ever when it comes to actually winning these races. Let’s act like we’re winning, but let’s treat no lead like it’s safe.
The trick is that we have to simultaneously block out any feeling of defeatism from the jackasses in the media and pundit class who are telling us to rabidly turn against the Democratic Party just to teach it a lesson, and block out any feeling of complacency from the increasingly rosy but not necessarily reliable poll numbers. The bottom line is that the midterms are going to be competitive – and competitive races are always won by the side that puts in the most work on things like voter registration, donating, volunteering, phone banking, and spreading the word.
