North Americans and especially those in allied countries including Australia see virtually no news from the real middle America. Local TV news doesn’t really cover what the candidates say. Even if they did only local viewers or readers of local newspapers would know what is happening.
National news and metropolitan newspapers seldom have journalists who live in central America they just interview a few “interesting” people when there is a disaster or a political rally (some of which also qualify.)
They often repeat what VP Harris actually says, and even what VP candidate Vance says, but not so for her real opponent.
Even CNN and MSNBC tend to “interpret” what Trump meant rather than just report what he said.
I live in the quintessential small town America reintroduced to the world every February as the home of Groundhog Day. You probably haven’t been among the approximately 30,000 tourists who come here either on Groundhog Day or throughout the year. (I often go to Gobbler’s Knob where the daily events begin on cold Winter mornings) and there are usually tourists visiting in the warmer months, tourists, often from only a day’s drive, who are happy to talk with a local reporter.
So I normally have a pretty good handle on what rural swing state voters are thinking but this year not so much.
Trump vs Harris Yard Signs
As I drive around I have seen only one house with Harris/Walz signs and only two with Trump signs. (Update, a week later TWO Harris and THREE Trump signs.)
In 2020 I saw dozens of Trump signs and one or two Biden signs. I am referring to the purchased political party signs, there is also one small business with giant stacks of insulation with Trump written all over but that and a few similar handmade signs have been around off and on for a decade.
It is difficult to say what people think since they tend to lie when they speak to reporters or pollsters, one reason both often make poor predictions on races, but going just on the signage I would say there is either very little interest in the race or a lot of fear over being identified by their neighbors as supporters of either side.
An Ohio sheriff has asked neighbors to report Harris supporters to him. “Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski: when the Illegal human ‘Locust’ (which she supports!) Need places to live…We’ll already have the addresses of the their New families…who supported their arrival!” Facebook posting apparently by the candidate for reelection Zuchowski.
But almost no one had to wait to see that posting to suspect supporters are “Taking Names and Kicking A$$.”
Therefore counting signs is only one indication. Many supporters on either side may simply be afraid to have their neighbors know their voting preference.
Punxsutawney residents are not usually shy about sharing their most basic beliefs.
Another strange indicator can be read in two different ways.
Trump vs Harris and the Press
In preparing to write about the campaign I have repeatedly contacted local and Commonwealth (State) Democratic party HQs and have been completely ignored. Harris has avoided one-on-one press interviews and I wasn’t requesting an interview except with some local supporters, rather I wrote as a journalist asking to be put on their mailing lists. (Although I have a small medical blog and a puppy blog, I’m not a “blogger.” I’m a credentialed foreign correspondent with many decades in press clubs and for 25 years I wrote a column for a major Washington D.C. newspaper).
That total dismissal by Democratic campaign offices combined with the lack of campaign signs leads me to two possible conclusions and right now I have no idea which is true.
First – Either the Democrats have completely given up on rural votes in this swing state because they feel they have no chance of winning outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
OR
Second -The Democratic party has decided they have the state in the bag and don’t need any additional press coverage.
Either way it doesn’t seem like a good “sign” to me. (apologies)
Of course, the campaign may just be too busy to get back to me but several others have told me they have the same response, or rather, lack of it.
Newsblaze gave the Democratic offices an opportunity to comment on this.
They failed to reply.
By comparison, getting mailings from the GOP or the Trump campaign is almost impossible to avoid! They want publicity.
Local Trump vs. Harris News
Watching American TV news you would think that practically everything is more newsworthy than Mr. Trump’s statements.
Some journalists find that appalling.
D. Earl Stephens, The retired Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes (the daily American military newspaper) recently gave U.S. journalists and their newsrooms a royal reaming accusing them of cowardice for failing to just honestly report what candidate Trump actually says instead of working hard to explain what they think he really meant.
“Corporate media keeps hiding the the truth about madman Donald Trump | Opinion
.” ..we have bitterly learned that we can no longer count on the fourth estate.
It’s a terrible thing. They have catastrophically failed us like never before.
We [presumably the editorial WE, meaning the author] have been forced to wait helplessly, and wonder if these incompetent, ponderous idiots [U.S, reporters and assignment editors] will ever stop ignoring what is so clearly right in front of our tired eyes: a dangerous maniac backed by a massive propaganda network that disgracefully fills his dark, billowing sails, allowing him to rumble unchecked and uncovered across the American countryside, taking a blowtorch to the truth, dead aim on our vote and our election workers, and repeating insane, dangerous and racist conspiracy theories that assault our senses, and could well result in the death of our democracy and many of our citizens.”
https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/trump-madman/
Trump vs. Harris Latest
If you missed it, the latest big conspiracy theory (vehemently denied by Springfield Ohio officials, police, and citizens) is that immigrants are stealing and eating household pets. Threats against Ohio government agencies and buildings as well as against schools quickly followed Trump repeating this nonsense.
J D Vance, Trump’s Vice Presidential running mate, admitted on CNN that he (Vance) made up the story but he isn’t ashamed of doing so. Mr. Vance also told reporters he would continue to make up fake stories to boost the Trump campaign.
“The major news outlets regularly describe Trump supporters as “left behind,” “stigmatized” or even “marginalized.” That is patently false since many of his supporters seen on TV and at rallies are one, White, two Men, and three evangelical Christians, none of which are oppressed minorities in the U.S..” Opinion: What the media still get wrong about Trump voters – Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-09-15/white-men-christians-trump-supporters-psychology
Considering that Candidate Trump designated journalists “enemies of the people” During the 2016 election and presidency and that journalists do get murdered even in the U.S. simply for reporting the truth, I can see why big media is running scared of their major advertisers as well as Trump followers.
If they report honestly on what is said at Trump rallies and Trump wins they will be in danger for apparently opposing him by reporting the truth (brave sample below but from a European). If they don’t emphasize his gaffs and Harris wins she won’t come after them just for not helping her campaign.
Luca Versteegen, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna in Austria wrote in an opinion piece, that Trump had the following to say about affordable child care:
“Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down – you know, I was, somebody, we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that – because, look, child care is child care. It’s, couldn’t, you know, there’s something, you have to have it – in this country, you have to have it.”
(More of the same is left out but the quoted parts are unedited and the redacted paragraphs do not make any more sense.)
… .”We’re gonna have – I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country, because I have to stay with child care … .
I want to stay with child care, but those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just, that I just told you about.”
I have seen that quoted elsewhere and still have no idea what Trump thinks about childcare or how he plans to eliminate the deficit by cutting taxes further on the rich and very rich.
Trump vs Harris Election Consequences
Trump vs Harris is probably the most important election in our lifetimes (Hitler’s election was before my time) not just for or perhaps not mostly for the U.S. but for every ally. I am not comparing anyone to Hitler but that election had an enormous implication for the world.
(NOTE: Most people don’t know the Nazi party had growing electoral support and in 1933 President of Germany von Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor of Germany quite legally. Hindenburg was a field marshal during World War I and the second president of the Weimar Republic. Of course, once in, Hitler never gave up control. People kept saying that he really wasn’t that bad despite his laying out his entire plan in his only book. Even that renowned paranoid Stalin refused to believe Hitler would attack right up to the day AFTER Germany invaded the U.S.S.R.)
This single U.S. presidential election in 2024 could mean the end of the U.S. as a world leader. I’m not Trump bashing, he keeps saying that he only cares about America, not the rest of the world. The U.S. would still be the most powerful country but how can we be leaders if we are strictly for America and America only?
Remember that Trump told Putin to do whatever he wants to NATO members who fail to pay as much as Trump requires.
At the first and likely only Trump-Harris debate and later, Ex-President Trump refused to say if he would support Ukraine in its battle against invading Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/11/us-presidential-debate-donald-trump-ukraine-war
So, just how should Australians, Indians, Japanese, and even Filipinos in democratic or fairly democratic countries feel about U.S. support for them vs China if Trump/Vance win?
Since the former President has had a long love fest with North Korea’s dear leader, praised Putin, and even Chinese dictators (If you’re elected but there is no opposition, that doesn’t make a democracy – Putin was elected too) just how much support do you think he would provide any country being pushed around by China?
How quickly would the U.S. Navy (Seventh Fleet) be pulled out of the Western Pacific if China increased its belligerent stance?
Arguably democracies around the world have more to lose in America’s election outcome than they do in their own domestic elections.
How happy Phil will be next year is yet to be seen.
