Dispatches from the front lines of the culture war #666

(Spoiler alert: humanity survives)

Last Tuesday, voters in twelve US States went to the polls to have their say on who should be on the ballot in November. The democratic turnout was astonishingly high, the republican turnout was understandably muted, and the commentary was largely predictable.

Which is to say, regardless of the political leanings of any given media outlet or commentator, the commentary – left and right – was all about explaining the results, not reporting them. Or (heaven forbid) asking any particular voter, or focus group, what it is that they might be worried about.

Thus, according to Maham Javaid of NPR:

‘The results highlight the ongoing conflicts within both parties ahead of the November midterms.’

[So] ‘Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Connecticut signaled what the party’s base may want from new leaders: a harder line against President Trump’s immigration crackdown and younger, more progressive nominees, as a 14-term congressman was swept aside by a candidate under 50.’

[While] ‘On the Republican side, the night tested how far Trump’s endorsement still carries, even with his approval at a second-term low, and the answer was mixed. His endorsements won in some states and stumbled in others.’

Remember that these are all primary races. In other words, these races are all about the internal battle to be selected as a candidate to run in an election. So, it is understandable that in the coverage of the results the press will canvass the various internal policy debates that have been occurring within the political parties. This is necessary background information. However, I suggest that to propose (as our featured journalist does above) that ‘the results highlight’ these ongoing conflicts is an entirely false statement. It is a spurious and provably false assertion that is ever masquerading as fact.

Within the same article, the results that are reported are largely unrelated to the very same polls that had been the obsession of all the press outlets, for the entire campaigning period. For the Dems, incumbents generally lost. That is about the only takeaway generalization available. The polls were proven to be as much as 20 points wrong (in both directions). Which makes them largely redundant as modes of outcome estimation.

In The Australian, Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney was reported as being sharply critical of the current polling in the US. Observing that:

“The polling has been extraordinarily bad this entire election cycle; we’ve just had some primary races where the polling was off by 10 or 15 points, that is unheard of in this country.”

In the Wisconsin Gubernatorial Primary, polling averages heading into the primary had progressive candidate Francesca Hong 20 to 22 points ahead of her opponent David Crowley. She lost. In the Michigan Senate Primary not a few pollsters predicted a landslide. A late-July Zenith Research sample indicated that the progressive Abdul El-Sayed had a 19-point lead. An Emerson College poll put it at 15. He beat the (incumbent) moderate by 1 point.

All of this has prompted Nate Cohen, a long time poll watcher and commentator, to publicly tear his hair out in the New York Times, in an article entitled Are Political Polls Accurate? This article is noteworthy only in providing a readable digest of the many lame excuses for the utter failure of the press (in all the western world countries) to provide an unbiased and informative dialogue regarding the activities of our political class.

What of the GOP? Where the left leaning press was busily mining the various polling regarding who was thought to be the most progressive, or a closet socialist, or who might want to have soup with Bernie, the right leaning press had an entirely different conversation going regarding the fitness for office of ‘their’ candidates. Yet when the results of the election and the polling questions and discussions prior to the elections are assessed, it is much the same story; they seem to be entirely unrelated. Like Nate Cohen (see above) some long term poll watchers and commentators on this more southern side of the political fence have also questioned the recent divergence of polls and reality, and have similarly dismissed it as a passing artefact of the times.

The GOP results – across these many districts and voter groups – are considered first and foremost as a test of fidelity to Trumps’ wishes. According to the ABC, the two questions most often posed to voters were;

‘Would you be more or less likely to vote for a Republican congressional candidate who has been explicitly endorsed by Donald Trump?’and, ‘When choosing a nominee, which is more important to you: a candidate who strictly protects and advances the Trump legislative agenda, or a candidate who prioritizes local district issues?’

So, what happens in all of the districts where Trump is now deep underwater? How do these polling questions then relate to the attitudes and likely opinions of right-wing voters? These questions can be readily assessed as there are exit polls available.

Yet it is also notable that these exit polls ask questions that are largely unsettling for any right-wing ear that might be accustomed to hearing and consuming FOX or AmericaFirst type coverage. This is because they ask bland questions that prompt starkly worrisome results. Leaked internal polling from Ragnar Research Partners was recently reported in the Punchbowl News (see Bad new polls for House Republicans) reveals that right of centre US voters consistently nominate the economy – their economy in particular – as their most pressing voting concern. ‘Cost of living/Inflation, Border security, Government spending, and Housing affordability’ are at the top of the list. Because Trump ain’t on the ticket.

Which all makes one wonder (for a microsecond or two) ‘Why is Trump at the very epicentre of the press focus when he is not on the ticket? Why are voters and their concerns not guiding the news coverage? Why focus on questions re Trump that measure something that voters are not concerned about and are not actually voting about? Then you realise that we are not talking about a news industry so much as a variety of gradients of PR exercise, by large information conglomerates.

If a poll fails to measure a tangible and likely response to a particular question being posed for them by a ballot paper, then it is of little consequence as a predictor of likely outcomes. Yet our mainstream press are addicted to polling as they suppose that it is an activity that provides for an endless list of questions that can be asked regarding an upcoming election. Yet this single grievous misapprehension regarding the utility and validity of polling has now led to a talk industry that is addicted to polling as content and spin. It has thus bred an audience that is averse to any news that may be electorally visceral and personal. Moreover, this critique applies to the entire corporate news structures that now abound in all western world countries.

Commentators, on both sides, will commentate. Which means they will spin, stretch, analogize, and apologize, until the cows come home. All in service of demonstrating that their political narrative is superior. This is what I mean when I say the commentary that was generated regarding the recent primaries in the US was entirely predictable, in that it sought to explain the results as they came in in accord with the current suite of political narratives that are current within either ‘the mainstream’ or ‘the right-wing’ information ecosystems.

Are we all suitably depressed? Have I at last dragged you down to the same level of gut-wrenching distress and misery at the prospect of all of this malign dysfunction becoming a permanent state of affairs throughout the information universe? Well, it’s not so bad really. If you are young, have money, are white and privileged, and statistically male. Only the majority are stuffed, which has always been the way. The old regime is done with and the new one is fascist and repressive?

No, I do not think so. Depression is not a suitable response. If only because it is a downer. But more because this is all a corporate bullshit problem that we all acknowledge and know about in our everyday lived experience. It is not a consumer problem. It is being forced upon us. A guinea pig is not responsible for their dirty cage.

Let’s face it, we all now have to sort an awful lot of newsprint and media to be able to sift out our daily share of actual information. Bullshit abounds. On the left and the right. In the corporate mainstream (buy one get one free) world. Our modern information systems have regularized the provision of soft information porn that is PR managed and tailored to (one or another) narrowcast (particularly titillated) audience. Yet this is not in response to consumer demand. Rather the opposite is the case. It has been as a result of a combination of technological advancements and fascistic encroachment on our regulatory environment.

In simple terms, both sides of our political spectrum have simply rolled over and allowed the oligarchs to pat their respective tummies – while stealing the farm. Our farm. We have watched as our once vibrant domestic marketplace in news and information has been carved up and eaten by big corporations, with tens of thousands of jobs thrown away as regional newspapers and radio stations were bought up and serially closed down; amalgamated first into ‘regional networks’ then national information grids. The Public Interest Journalism Initiative (reported behind a paywall in Crikey) is reported to have tracked at least 160 newsroom ‘closures’ ‘in recent years’.

And so we all now huddle in little refugee packs, on sites like the AIMN, and seek out scribblings from others who remember the ‘before times’, even as we try and invent a new language to talk about all of this nonsense, in a somewhat less nonsensical manner.

I cannot and will not hold out to you the false candied pineapple of hope. I don’t do hope. Nor do I need to resort to such mediaeval urges.

Rather, I take heart in observing that not only are our corporate news outlets becoming ever more surreally detached from the everyday concerns of their consumers, the consumers have been jumping ship. Or, to be more precise, since the advent of the mobile ever online media world the expectations and sensibilities of the consuming public have evolved. There is now a general expectation that all news is partisan, biased, and likely corporate, or communist, or fascist. Nor is there an expectation that there is any sort of available explanation.

Granted, to make a point I am becoming slightly histrionic, but if you are older than forty then you too will have witnessed the collision of our once fairly sheltered and cohesive domestic news and information satellite with the much larger ‘planet of the oligarchs’. Our little asteroid never stood a chance and got hammered. But we got Facebook, and Instagram, and video phones, dick picks, and instant porn, American movies, European and Asian food and ideas, all while on the move, in an information dense, cool dude media world (with sponsorship from Nike).

Which leaves Aussie consumers of news and politics where? We refugees on this floating information ark are all jaded and cranky. If you are old enough to entertain a long view then you are probably already medicated, so drop a couple of whatever’s and calm down while I note that we are not going to hell in a handbasket. Trump will fade. The polling is all over the place on Trump but he is not on the ballot. And the polling regarding the issues that really matter for voters in the US is pretty dire. Spieling off a long list of his misdeeds does not address what the heck the voters are thinking about. He is not on the ballot.

One third of the senate and all the House are up for election in November and the only really consistent thing that you can take from most of the polling re the recent results is that the pitchforks are out for incumbents. That does not mean that there is a swing to the right. Enthusiasm on the right wing is lower than has ever been before measured. Everywhere else wants to smash something and scream. So what could possibly go wrong? Fr’chrissakes people, I heard a mainstream democratic politician mention single payer healthcare the other day.

So, Trump will eventually be on the ballot, in 2028. But only if he survives a hostile House and Senate, several more impeachments and inquiries, and criminal charges (at the state level) against many of his associates.

Or will the forces of niceness and not hitting people fall in the face of the military industrial complex, tyranny, billionaire penis-rocket fanciers, and petroleum gluttons, all of whom own one or more media conglomerates? Stay tuned. More to come.