I was away from home, meaning I was subject to whatever news channel was offered at the hotel I was staying at. Unfortunately, that channel was CNN. I watched the coverage from early on – which started as a complete fawning over Nikki Haley to the point CNN anchors were convinced she was going to “give Trump a run for his money” in Iowa, all based on one Des Moines Register poll. As the pre-game speculation went on the analysis was dominated by Trump, in contrasting fashion. CNN’s ability to craft a narrative that hates Trump – but ultimately admits he is awesome if that makes sense. This was the case up until 8 pm when the first numbers started to roll out, and by 8:30 pm, Donald Trump was declared the winner of Iowa.
It was at this time I found some interesting narratives being presented that show how MSM plans to act during the 2024 cycle, and if you have been around long enough, a familiar strategy that we have seen played out before. First, I want to point out the key narratives presented, that were so inorganic during the newscast, that I can’t help but point them out.
The Stolen Election Narrative
This started with the first entrance poll before the first votes came in showing 68% of caucusgoers felt that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election fair and square. Every time this poll was brought up by David Chalian, Jake Tapper, or Anderson Cooper it involved a disclaimer that this information was false or that “68% say, wrongly, that the election was not free and fair”. Of course, CNN has no nuance when it comes to this narrative as they believe a binary story when it comes to the 2020 election: either you believe that the election was 100% fair with no wrongdoing, or you believe the election was 100% rigged – no middle ground. Well, the truth is that there is a middle ground with the 2020 election not being above board, much like many elections in the past.
All you have to do is refer to the Time Magazine article from February 2021 titled: The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election, which explicitly states how the election was orchestrated behind the scenes by various groups, corporations, and big tech conspiring against Trump to have him lose the election.
“Trump said on Dec. 2. ‘Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint the winner, even while many key states were still being counted.’ In a way, Trump was right.”
Then goes on to admit there was a conspiracy between the left-wing activists, business leaders, chambers of commerce, and the AFL-CIO that needed to come together to stop Trump at all costs. Ironically by doing this to keep the election free of corruption and fair, they made it corrupt and unfair. By going to swing states and changing voting systems to massive campaigns over big tech to suppress information beneficial to the president. This, in a way, is a stolen election, but not in the way CNN wants you to think about stolen elections. This narrative, of course, is satisfied by the news station’s low-information viewers. (Remember, I’m not a regular, I was forced to watch this station).
The Empty Podium Effect
A classical remnant from the 2015-2020 era. CNN’s fixed camera on the empty Trump podium in anticipation of his speech. The key word there is anticipation as it is used as a mechanism for entertainment to build up to his speech and what he is going to say. This again, goes back to CNN’s ‘kind of brilliant’ way they can bash Trump, yet at the same time raise him as a God-like figure worthy of everyone’s attention.
In 2016, The Washington Post was one of the first ones to point out this phenomenon that the empty podium is a clear business strategy for cable news to drum up excitement for what Trump will say – followed by outrage from the panel afterward. This came back again in Iowa where they had a fixed camera on Trump with heightened anticipation of what Trump was going to say, only to cut away when he talked about immigration. MSNBC did the same thing as they thought his speech was “dangerous” and “could harm” people. CNN just denounced it as anti-immigration rhetoric.
This is the game though, this is the anticipation that cable news wants to continue, think of those psychological blue balls the stations just gave their viewers. Show his podium for 20 minutes only to cut his speech short. They know what he is like and know what he says on immigration – he has said it many times. This is not about “dangerous rhetoric”. This is, I must admit, a brilliant plan to enhance Trump’s popularity and to make conversation about him. This is how he will win the nomination.
Jesse Watters made a statement about this, but this whole anticipation of a dangerous figure is reminiscent of the “Parental Advisory, Explicit Content” sticker on music albums. Of course, this was implemented to deter the sale of music that had explicit content too harsh for a general population. What happened? Artists made the parental advisory a staple of their marketing, and people became addicted to controversy and increasing desirability, to what John Corbett refers to in his book Extended Play: “It is clear that warning stickers increase the desirability of certain music objects, lending them the kind of transgressive appeal through which much commodity exchange now occurs” (p. 69).
The Early Call
As I stated, Trump was declared the winner of the Iowa Caucus by around 8:30 pm. The mainstream news, including CNN, declared Trump the projected winner at that time. Much to the chagrin of the DeSantis campaign who felt this was unfair considering individuals were still voting, and calling it for Trump this early, discouraged many caucusgoers at that time. I agree and empathize with the DeSantis supporters, given how fast information travels. One DeSantis surrogate said that individuals were checking their phones while they were in line to vote seeing that Trump was declared the winner – and some leaving the line and going home. I mean can you blame the caucusgoers and the DeSantis surrogates for being upset? Even though the early call was correct, Trump ended up winning, but it certainly changed the perception of the vote that night.
One might ask, how do they develop this “projection” in politics? Information from Illinois Election Data provides some insight into how projected votes are displayed. For this, three ingredients need to be present:
- Early Actual Votes
- The number of precincts reporting
- Modeling Formulas
You can make an early projection on the flow of votes that have already come in. With that initial information, many election experts make an early extrapolated hypothesis based on previous information. For example, if candidate A earns 1500 votes and candidate B earns 1200 votes, and polls leading up to the event had candidate A holding a 55% to 44% lead in the polls, one can extrapolate that future vote totals will follow that trajectory even if 10,000 people voted. That is why you see projections happen even when 27% of the counted votes have come in. Of course, closer races cannot do this, so if it was in the margin of error from previous polls, they would use the phrase too close to call.
The number of precincts that report matters as well. This uses historical numbers of vote share, election turnout, and weighted averages to determine a projection. Essentially, projected winners are an educated guess using real-world data adding historical data for a cross-reference, and predicting with some certainty future outcomes – this is basic business forecast modeling. The real question is, is this the correct way to do this? I am not a statistician, but I have engaged in quantitative research methods, and this seems like an offshoot of your basic regression analysis formula:
Yi = f (Xi β) + ei
Or even more basic linear regression
Y = a + bX
The Y formulas are the most basic in understanding regression analysis as Y represents the independent variable and X the dependent variable, or Y = predicted vote totals, for X = candidate. Again, I am not a statistician, but the main question to ask is whether this is the right way to judge an outcome truthfully. As we all know, “models” were used during covid, and we all remember the errors they produced (here, here, and here; also read Frost’s Eight Challenges in Phylodynamic Inference).
The General Election Predictions
It was so abundantly clear that after the media called Donald Trump the winner, they analyzed and speculated on the general election in November comparing Trump to Biden, and how this is the best outcome for Joe Biden and the Democrats. This comes from the belief that one event, January 6th, will be the catalyst for helping Joe Biden in 2024, considering Joe Biden’s prime campaign strategy is to hit Donald Trump on the theme of “a threat to democracy”. Even though feelings on January 6th do not fall in the Democrat’s favor showing the massive change in feelings as a YouGov poll reflects that 51% disapproved strongly in January 2021, as opposed to only 32% in January 2024.
This is due to more information coming out about January 6th, notably the information about a federal law enforcement presence at the site on that day. Also, the Democrat’s narrative is not helping them as they are still using the word “insurrection” to describe Donald Trump and his act that day. Insofar, that courts in Colorado and the State Secretary in Maine have stated Trump cannot be on the ballot in those states due to violating the 14th Amendment citing insurrection. Let it be very clear – Donald Trump was not now, nor never, charged with insurrection. No individual from the 2024 Trump Campaign was charged with insurrection. No individual from the Trump Administration at the time was charged with insurrection. When it comes to the narrative foisted by the Democrats and the media, it may be their awful semantic defamation that sinks them in this regard.
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What are some outcomes we can take from the MSM narratives presented during the Iowa Caucuses? I think we all feel some familiar feelings from back in 2015/2016 – and I think that it’s by design. I have reluctantly called some of the CNN coverage brilliant during the night, and it was brilliant, for the Trump campaign as it will be the media and their kayfabe coverage of him that will win the election.
Trump Bump 2.0
It is no secret that the Trump Bump phenomenon was a real thing and cable news executives knew all about it. Trump drives ratings and gets viewers, especially the people who hate him. I must say, the people who hate him are the viewers, the actual producers and on-air talent do not hate him (this is my personal opinion), but are given a script to act out hate against them to create an opponent. I used the word kayfabe – which means the portrayal of professional wrestling as a legitimate competition or a scripted storyline, maintaining the illusion that the events and characters are real – because that is what it is, political kayfabe. CNN is playing the heel which attracts both haters of Trump, and haters of CNN to one place. Now I don’t want to ascribe or predict that Trump will surely win in November, but if he doesn’t, I can see MSM being quite upset about him not winning.
Overall, the media and the power brokers want Trump back in the White House. Just look at the recent CNBC Interview with Jamie Dimon – head of JP Morgan and Chase – who warns about disavowing and ridiculing MAGA and telling the Democrats, and their voters, to “grow up”. This was another weird MSM segment. First, why are they treating the WEF Davos meeting like the Winter Olympics? Second, Jamie Dimon loves the Ukraine War, because he loves nothing more than entering a destabilized country with investment and reaping the rewards from its rebound into “Ukraine 2.0” – see this very telling piece by The Economist: War is Reshaping the Ukrainian State – For the Better. This is all telling on who Jamie Dimon is. He feigns political emotion to achieve his real goal – massive amounts of money. The war in Ukraine is about money, and even he knows, he benefited the best with investments under Trump.
This all creates a normalization around Trump, that he is the best choice in 2024, regardless of whether you think so or not, the media narrative makes it so. Reflecting on the 2015/2016 media cycle, they did the same thing involving Trump, they made him out to be the cool dad and Hillary the b-word mom with the non-stop coverage of him. I truly feel this is another installment of this. Only this time, without the shock and awe on election night, and a greater understanding that the media/power brokers want this.
Political Kayfabe for the Win…Again
I wrote about political kayfabe in a previous piece titled: The WWF-ication of our Political Discourse. That piece summarizes that our media, political leaders, and businesses have taken the WWF, or WWE, model and shaped it into their narrative about politics. Creating bad guys and good guys, double-cross matches with revenge – but only if you purchase the PPV. What is Trump going to do with these indictments? Will the Democrats get the win again? Will Trump prevail in the face of scrutiny and hardship? Find out next week on Monday Night Raw!
The challenge is that our political system to choose who we want to lead is diluted to mere entertainment. We have no say in who we want to be our leaders – our leaders are established already via career politicians, lobbyists, the revolving door of legislators and regulators (i.e. regulatory capture), media conglomerates, Wall Street, and military contractors. Perhaps I am looking too much into this, and we have to wait and see what happens moving forward from the Iowa Caucus, but an all too familiar feeling is coming over me that we have all seen this play out before – or it hasn’t. Regardless, you will stay tuned.
P.S. After finishing this, I realized it was quite the black pill description of government. Here’s a tip for everyone, want to make a difference? Join local and municipal government.
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