The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people.
Justice Hugo Black (1971 opinion from New York Times Co. v. United States)
It speaks volumes that Trump named “controversial” Tulsi Gabbard, Matt Gaetz, and Bobby Kennedy for key positions, inviting his detractors to awfulize his decisions as proof he’s a wannabe dictator (Tulsi’s a Russian mole, Matt’s a sex addict and Bobby’s a science denier). Hardly, not after the man openly promised to disrupt an un-elected bureaucracy, and steadily added supporters to his populist movement – for nine years!
Elections have consequences, sayeth the great Obama.
Only 37.5% of voters viewed Trump favorably in 2016, but The Economist now reports he’s at 49% in their latest poll. His vote total’s risen from 62.9 million (3M below Clinton) in 2016 to 76.5 million (50.8% of the popular vote and 2.7M above Harris). He’s swept every battleground state, won over 80% of the ballots in 706 of the country’s nearly 3,000 counties, and has not seen Antifa or Black Lives Matter rioting anywhere.
If Trump thinks he’s right and his detractors are blind, who can blame him?
Trump – Not Liberal Media – Won
The press that hated on Trump for nine years might not live to hate another day. Right before the election, owners of the LA Times, Washington Post, and USA/Today refused to endorse Harris. Now, the LA Times’ owner is terminating his editorial board, CNN is downsizing again, and Comcast is trying to unload MSNBC. Probably because Fox News (up 34%) has added viewers, and MSNBC (down 51%) and CNN (down 36%) have lost viewers (source: Nielsen).
Meanwhile, Twitter X has 40 million daily users aged 25-34, Elon Musk has 156.8 million followers, and it sure looks like Twitter has become the online “town square” Musk envisioned for millions of “citizen journalists” to fact-check and rebut Big Media in real time. What began with Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi exposing government-media collusion culminated with over 100 million streaming-video “shares” of Biden’s senility, Kamala’s stupidity, and woke-liberal school boards.
Then, events confirmed Trump’s cries of fake news; those “shares” on Twitter X and TikTok were corroborated by the Democrat Party and Harris campaign. If Biden weren’t non compos mentis and Harris weren’t dumb, Democrats would’ve left him atop the ticket and her handlers would’ve allowed her to actually answer interview questions. Americans know a “free press” is supposed to “bare the secrets of the government” rather than hide the President’s senility, and “serve the governed” rather than protect the Democrat Party.
So, after his 3-hour interview with Joe Rogan got 40 million views in three days, President Trump should not give two hoots about what MSNBC says about Bobby Kennedy.
Trump De-constructs Obama’s Machine
The foundational principles of the America First movement were (1) kill the politics of identity before it kills e Pluribus Unum, and (2) mobilize middling folks into a “too big to rig” mandate against left-liberal elites. Trump simplified the MAGA strategy: the enemy was the Obama Machine, the battlefield was seven swing states, and the key to victory was turning out low propensity voters that liked his policies and positions. Mission accomplished!
The Obama machine was fueled by the “coalition of the ascendant” that twice elected Obama. It looked sustainable because non-white immigrants would forever feed its numbers, and identity politics (stop white bigotry) would forever fire up the troops. But, success is biting off more than you can chew and then chewing it, and Trump shattered the Obama coalition. A simple exit-poll comparison of Harris 2024 to Obama 2012 says it all.
Start with the majority of voters; the working class, which Obama 2012 won by 3 points and Harris 2024 lost by a whopping 13 points. Harris under-performed Obama in every segment, losing to Trump because she only won the non-white working class by 32 points (down 35 points); down 30 points with the black working-class and 35 points with the Hispanic working-class. And, she lost the white working-class by 30 points (10 points worse than Obama).
Democrats could not see a black woman in 2024 dropping 30 points from Obama 2012 with non-white voters. Harris won non-white voters by only 34 points; falling behind Obama 2012 by 26 points with black voters, 42 points with young blacks and black males, 27 points with Hispanics, and 17 points with young Hispanics. And, she lost Hispanic male voters by one point (down 33 points).
Color me shocked by Trump’s votes from young voters. Obama 2012 carried voters aged 18-29 by 23 points, but Harris 2024 won them by only 4 points. Obama’s 18-29-year-olds are now millennials, whom Harris carried by only 3 points. Which is to say the circle of life (i.e. the arc of maturation leans toward conservatism) has created Republicans. Trump won 56% of married voters, 53% of parents, and a whopping 60% of men with children. And, because of married moms, he increased his total female vote by 3 points over 2020.
No question, the silver bullet of 2024 was Trump’s decision to turn out “low propensity” male voters who agreed with him, rather than change the minds of soccer moms. He sent Turning Point USA onto college campuses, winning 52% of young men (aged 18-29) with college degrees and 63% of young white men. Turning Point USA registered hundreds of thousands of young men on college campuses, and its founder Charlie Kirk says, “we literally walked into a fraternity house, asked ‘who wants to vote for Trump,’ and filled up a bus.”
Trump – Not The Polls – Knew America
There should be no way my one-man shop foresaw election results (Trump winning electoral and popular-vote majorities, and the GOP retaking the Senate and holding the House) that the polls missed again. Compare the Real Clear Politics polling average to the actual election results (see table below):
| RCP Average | Election Results* | |
| Trump’s Popular Vote | 48.6% | 50.8% |
| Trump’s Electoral Vote | 287 | 312 |
| GOP Senate Seats | 50 | 53 |
| GOP House Seats | 201 | 220 |
(* results on November 17, 2024, at 9:45 AM from Decision Desk HQ)
Let me say the quiet part out loud. For nine years, Big Media accused Trump of touting the polls when he’s ahead and dissing the polls when he’s behind and used “conservative polling firm” to preface Trafalgar and Rasmussen, repeatedly two of the most accurate; so, the lack of genuine curiosity and intellectual honesty is obvious. After they made much ado about Ann Selzer’s wildly inaccurate Iowa poll four days before the election (Harris +3 and Trump won by 13 points), the “fake news” looks like a real thing.
Now that he’s turned Tulsi Gabbard, Bobby Kennedy, and Elon Musk into Republicans, won a majority of the popular vote, and seen the biggest proportional shifts toward the GOP occur in New York, New Jersey and California (source: The Jordan Times), Trump knows he’s right and his detractors are wrong. Now that his party controls every branch of the federal government – and 60% of state and local governments – Trump has a mandate that the polls missed by a country mile.
It’s Mea Culpa time across America, starting with country-club Republicans like me. Like the polls, I left Trump for dead after the 2022 mid-terms, only to watch the middling folks in America resurrect him. After this election, my eyes are opened to three incontrovertible truths.
Legacy media have no influence over voters.
The multimillionaire Obamas have no influence over working-class voters.
Trump’s agenda has a democratic mandate.