HOW WE GOT HERE: "Are we [Blues] just talking to ourselves?"

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2025

Are we helping President Trump? At the time, it probably seemed like a good idea. We can't say we recall.

We the people would now be blessed with a 24-hour "news" channel! At the time, it may have seemed like a good idea. The overview goes like this:

CNN

Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, CNN was the first television channel to provide 24-hour news coverage and the first all-news television channel in the United States.

[...]

The Cable News Network launched at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on June 1, 1980. After an introduction by Ted Turner, the husband and wife team of David Walker and Lois Hart anchored the channel's first newscast. Burt Reinhardt, the executive vice president of CNN, hired most of the channel's first 200 employees, including the network's first news anchor, former ABC News Capitol Hill senior correspondent Bernard Shaw.

It probably seemed like a good idea. Fifteen years later, CNN was joined by MSNBC and by the Fox News Channel. 

In certain quarters, the performance on these channels got worse, and then got even worse than that. Last Tuesday night, in prime time, one oration on one of these "cable news" channel went on and on like this:

COMPAGNO (4/29/25): ...This person [Kilmar Abrego Garcia] was someone who was already deported and then came back against—again, he was a recidivist illegal enterer in the country. And what I don't understand is this sort of wiping the slate clean that the Dems do when they are blurring out the signs on the White House and levying this guy, lifting him up as the "Maryland father." 

I don't quite understand why—it's as if their memory has only started from like two seconds in, so the conversation is just administrative. But the point was that this guy was a wife beating, violent, gang-affiliated asshole that kept coming into our country multiple times. 

For fuller context, see yesterday's report.

"How did it ever get this far?" Don Corleone once asked. A sensible person might ask the same question after watching Emily Compagno bungle her way through a longer oration on last Tuesday night's Gutfeld! debacle.

For the record, Kilmar Abrego Garcia had not "kept coming into our country multiple times." He was not "a recidivist illegal enterer." He had not already been deported on one or more prior occasions.

Compagno didn't seem to know what she was proselytizing about. By now, what may have seemed like a good idea had deteriorated to the point where an array of utterly clueless droogs were filling the air with bogus claims about an array of high-profile topics.

These performances lie at the heart of the rapidly failing American imitation of discourse. 

For all we know, Compagno may be the world's nicest person. But as she continued to speak that night, she was soon saying this:

COMPAGNO: ...Here are the stats that matter: Ninety-six percent of Trump voters are glad they did. They know it was the right thing to do. Eighty-six percent know that his economic policies will make us stronger. ...

So the media on the left— Hair on fire, their hundred days is, "Everything is blowing up. We tried 'constitutional crisis.' We tried everything. Now we'll try impeachment, since the lawfare didn't work, since illegal voting didn't work."  

That's where they are now. But the rest of the Americans are glad they are on the ship that has finally been righted thanks to President Trump.

[CHEERING, HOOTING, APPLAUSE]

For the record, "the media on the left" have not been pushing impeachment.  That claim is simply absurd.

Meanwhile, is it true that "the rest of the Americans" are glad that they're on the ship that's been righted by President Trump? As Compagno broadcast that claim, the latest poll by her own employer, the Fox News Channel, showed that only 44 percent of "the Americans" approved of Trump's job performance. 

To appearances, Compagno was rattling propaganda on what identifies as a "cable news" channel.

That's the way "the news" is now presented to viewers of this flailing nation's most watched "cable news" channel. A studio audience cheered and applauded as the co-host of a daily "cable news" program offered this bizarro picture of reality. 

It may have seemed like a good idea, but "cable news" has been transformed by the practice of "segregation by viewpoint." However it may have been intended, Compagno's oration was corporate propaganda, delivered on one of the messaging programs on this 24-hour "news" channel.

How in the world does President Trump maintain his current degree of job approval? It's true that his job approval is low by historical standard, but it remains high enough—especially among Republican voters—to keep Republican senators in line.

In part, the president retains his current levels of approval because millions of voters in Red America are exposed to corporate messaging on an unbroken, round-the-clock basis. That said, those of us in Blue America tend to have a very hard time coming to terms with the way our own behaviors and assessments may have helped Candidate Trump get elected, and may be helping to keep his approvals from going even lower.

Candidate Trump won last year's election by a bit less than 1.5 points. He managed to attain that narrow win over an accidental opponent who didn't enter the race until last July, following the withdrawal of the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

Even in the face of that chaos, the president only managed to fashion a narrow win. As a general matter, he simply isn't well-regarded, as these things get scored.

Still, he managed to squeeze out that win, and he has managed to maintain approvals in the low 40s. How did any of this come to pass? Last week, Charlie Sykes stated his view about this important matter in an interview with Mediaite.

Sykes said that some of the blame rests over here with us Blues! In our own view, we Blues have had a very hard time coming to terms with some of things Sykes said.

Why did "swing voters: vote for Trump? Why do some such people still linger in his camp?

In part, relentless misinformation campaigns help provide the answer to such questions—but Sykes offered a different type of explanation:

According to Sykes, those of us in NeverTrump and Blue America have enabled this president too.

"I'll be specific," the gentleman said. Then he rattled a list:

Is ‘Never Trump’ Dead? Charlie Sykes On The One Thing That Could Actually Restrain Trump

[,,,]

SYKES: I mean, the reality is there are a lot of swing voters that actually were concerned about inflation. So simply denying that inflation was a problem was a mistake. 

There are swing voters that were concerned about crime, and simply telling them that crime is a myth is basically says we don’t care about what you think. 

The border was a real problem during the Biden years, and that needs to be addressed. 

There was a reason why the Trump campaign spent more than a hundred million dollars on one ad, one ad involving transgender surgeries and athletes. And yet, if you listen to Democrats and folks on the left, that issue didn’t exist at all.

So simply saying "These are fake issues, don’t pay any attention to them" means that you shut yourself off from things that voters are talking about. 

The Joe Biden age story was very frustrating for a lot of folks because you could not engage in a conversation with a voter anywhere in the country without his age coming up. 

And yet, if you brought this up in progressive media or on certain Never Trump sites, you got flooded with what we began to call "Blue MAGA," which was, "Don’t talk about it, don’t bring it up. It’s not relevant."

I do think that if you’re going to confront the enemy, you need to understand your enemy’s strengths as well as his weaknesses. And I think that this is one of those moments. 

You know, are we going to confront Trumpism by denying Trumpism’s appeal?...Are we serious about confronting it? Or are we just talking to ourselves? 

"Are we just talking to ourselves?" According to us, all too often in recent years the answer has seemed to be yes.

Sykes provided a list of the ways we Blues may have enabled Candidate Trump. The southern border was an obvious unexplained problem. We kept pretending it wasn't.

President Biden's apparent problem with aging was widely visible to voters. We kept pretending the situation didn't exist.

Inflation was a topic of great concern to voters. According to Sykes, we responded by simply denying that it was a problem.

Sykes also mentioned "transgender surgeries and athletes." More on that topic tomorrow, with a related piece of videotape thrown in.

How does President Trump maintain his level of support? What keeps his job approval at (maybe) 42%? Why hasn't it dropped to 35? We hasn't it gone even lower?

It sems to us that we the people of Blue America still don't understand the role we played in getting President Trump elected again, and in keeping his level of support where it is. 

The Fox News Channel keeps pimping the delusional propaganda. As it does, the people we trust in Blue America insist on averting their gaze.

Those of us in the Blue rank and file accept this institutional cowardice. It's one of the ways we denizens on Blue America may have helped keep President Trump afloat.

We Blues! With respect to the southern border; with respect to the southern border and crime; with respect to those "transgender surgeries," those of us in Blue America have a whole lot of splainin' to do. 

Sykes didn't mention another way we may have enabled Candidate Trump. We devoted ourselves to locking him up all through the last campaign. As we focused on that impossible dream, we kept refusing to talk about the issues which many swing voters confronted.

In our view, we Blues have a whole lot of splainin' to do. It isn't altogether clear how such splainin' should, even could, be done.

Tomorrow, we'll offer a few examples. But even on the Fox News Channel, it's almost impossible for people like Compagno to be completely wrong in the claims they make. 

It's easy to be one of Red America's talkers. In the end, all you really have to do is make accurate claims about us! 

Tomorrow: An accurate statement to Welker