Unmasking the Illusion: Dissecting Trump’s Lead in 2024 Election Polls

[0:00] The 2024 election is not that far off. Recent polls have Trump ahead of Biden. How can that be? There is a reason some can’t quit Trump, and it isn’t anxiety over the economy, no matter how often the political press says it is. We know what the elephant in the room looks like. He’s orange, and he’s human garbage.

[0:20] Music.

[0:27] I’m Doug Berger. And this is Secular Left.

[0:49] At the time that this is being recorded, it’s the beginning of June, the start of summer. Summer, people go on vacation, things in politics kind of simmer down a little bit because a lot of the state houses, especially here in Ohio, they go on vacation for the summer. Then we have the political conventions coming up and then the election starts up pretty much after Labor Day. So, what I wanted to talk about in this segment is something that, to use an old family guy thing, grinds my gears. We have this, I don’t want to call media, media illiteri or elite or people in the media.

[1:48] They’re trying to basically they’re trying to find out who’s going to win the election before we even have the election. It’s a game that they play. People like me, we call it the horse race. They like the drama. It’s good for ratings. So they try to do things to cause anxiety among the electorate, in order to then say, hey, everybody’s anxious, or, you know, the election’s a toss-up, and anyway. Just to get started, I want to be very perfectly clear. There are two major candidates for office for President of the United States.

[2:35] You have a terrible human being that’s been married several times, cheated on his wives with another woman before divorcing them. They’ve had several children by these different women. Rarely, if ever, goes to church. In his business dealings, he’s cheated people, not paid their money. Um he’s racist in his business dealings he’s been racist he wrote an op-ed so many years ago complaining about the central park five that turned out that they were exonerated for the beating death of a woman jogger in central park many years ago and he wrote an op-ed saying that that they were guilty when they weren’t, and he’s never apologized for it. He’s currently on trial, or the trial just ended, the deliberations have started, in a hush money conspiracy. Basically what it is is he had an affair with a porn star.

[3:56] Thought it was going to affect his campaign. Had one of his lackeys pay this person off. Signed a non-disclosure agreement. And then he reimbursed his lackey. And then covered it up. While he was President of the United States.

[4:14] So that’s what he’s on trial for. This is a terrible human being. Then we have the Democratic candidate. Oh, did you think I was talking about the Democrat? No. I was talking about Trump. Then we have the Democratic candidate. He’s a very religious guy, which to me doesn’t matter. I’m just comparing and contrasting. Very, very relatively honest. I mean, he doesn’t lie with propensity. You know, he just doesn’t. It’s not like using his regular words that he lies constantly like Trump does. Uh was a family man uh he lost his wife and a son in a traffic accident in 1972 when he first got elected to the senate uh he lost another son to a brain tumor um his other son hunter has been in the news because he had substance abuse problems um and so the republicans have been trying to use that as a proxy battle against Biden, since there’s so little really crust that you can find on him. Biden has guided this country through a post-pandemic economics situation where it could have been much, much worse.

[5:41] And for some reason, some recent election polls have shown Trump to be more popular than Biden. And it’s insane. I’m sorry. It’s just insane. And the pollsters are like, well, we did the polls. And so we got to find out why people in America like Donald Trump and why Biden can’t connect with these voters and blah, blah, blah, blah, barf.

[6:12] I don’t believe that Donald Trump is popular in the country. Yes, you have the polls that show that he is popular, okay? Well, and I’m not going to say the polls are wrong for the conclusions that they draw, all right? Because I do believe in the science of polling. There is a science to it. There’s a particular way. Now, if you have, like Fred, let’s say I stand on the corner of Adams and North Summit in downtown Toledo with a clipboard, and I ask people stuff, and then I say, I extrapolate that saying, well, the whole country thinks that. Well, you’re going to think I’m full of crap. App. So there was a cut. There was no recent, uh, I don’t normally watch cable news, uh, punnet shows anymore. I used to, uh, in my younger days, I used to, and I used to get so angry.

[7:17] And so I had to stop watching. I get the gist. I get, I visit some blogs like, uh, crooksandliars.com is a good one. And Talking Points and Memos is another one. So I get the gist of what these pundits are talking about, but I don’t have to actually watch them. And then occasionally I will watch them because I have streaming services and I can watch them on demand when the situation counters. So there wasn’t anything. The regular TV channels, the TV season’s over, just completed. And so there wasn’t much to watch. And I just happened, I was trying to catch, see anything new about the Hushwiny trial. And I was watching all in with Chris Hayes and I like Chris Hayes. He’s relatively okay as a, as a pundit. And, uh, and I don’t, I don’t get, I don’t like throw things at the screen when he’s on the air normally. Anyway, so he had this guy on from Vox News. I can’t remember his name. I’ll have to look it up. Anyway, so he had this reporter on and, and show, and they were talking about how they were doing the, doing this polling.

[8:41] Analyzing this polling data that showed that, uh, um, uh, Trump was more popular. And one of the things that he had up was a, an infographic showing two lines. Uh, one line was support for Biden and it was near the top and he lost a little bit. Uh, when he was elected in 2020, 2020 he was uh plus five popular over trump and now he is plus two so he’s lost a little bit in the polling i’m talking about in the polling but but that he is still preferred over trump well then they added a second line and and this is what was wild about it okay it was people that were polled were people who did not vote in 2020. And they weren’t likely voters in 2024. And they showed that.

[9:53] They were, was it I think it was like plus 20 support of Biden in 2020, and now they’re a plus 14 support for Trump. It was just mind-boggling. These are people who did not vote in 2020 and probably will not vote, especially if they don’t support Biden now, and they won’t vote in 2020. And I know Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo talked about that dichotomy me with some of the polling is that it was showing that people that weren’t going to vote, weren’t likely voters, who didn’t vote in 2020, support Trump. So Brian Butler, who formerly worked for Talking Points Memo a while ago, he has a substack where he did an essay on that a lot of this polling that we’re seeing is a reflection of trust.

[10:56] That people who have a low trust in government tend to support Trump, and people who are really engaged and trust the government support Biden, which that makes sense. And so when this guy, this Vox guy was talking, they didn’t touch any of that part well they did towards the end he mentioned something about trust.

[11:24] And that if you’re not, if you don’t trust the government, you tend not to vote. You tend to boycott. And I’ve seen that from friends of mine who don’t think that their vote matters. They don’t like either candidate.

[11:41] And they’re not, and they decide that they’re not going to vote.

[11:46] Of course, then they don’t like it when I have to inform them that that’s a bad strategy. That if they want to see change, they have to vote. if if they want trump to get elected then they can not vote because that’s what’s going to happen you know get these disaffected people but the reason why i’m bringing all of this up that it’s ridiculous that that this uh serial liar and cheater and and uh adulterer and all the bad things and he wants to tear down he went he wants to jail his political opponents proponents. He’s threatening to deport any illegal immigrant that they find. Like if they pull you over because you don’t have your seatbelt on and you’re illegal, you’re going to get deported. Now, most people are like, yeah, that’s what we should do. But that’s not America. That’s not how America should work. You know, the fascism and the authoritarianism is not America. America and so he so Trump feeds into a lot of that and yes there’s a lot of that feeling in America and and so the the another article that touched on it and again why why I am bringing this point up, was a friend of mine posted an article from April.

[13:11] It was commentary from Doug Openlinger. I think, I hope I’m pronouncing his name correctly. And writes in the Ohio Capital Journal. And it’s commentary and it says, For whom the bellwether tolls is Ohio an omen. And he goes on and he gives a short history about how Ohio used to be a bellwether in elections that the presidential candidate who won Ohio in all of the elections up till recently won the presidency. The only time was, I think there was only two of them where it didn’t work. And then again in 2020, because Trump won Ohio by eight points in 2020 and Biden won the election. And so he’s lamenting the fact that Ohio is no longer a bellwether state. Mainly because we’ve lost so many people.

[14:11] And we’ve lost congressional seats because of it. I think we’re down to 16 congressional seats. And I believe at least 30 years ago we had 20. So, I mean, we’ve lost manufacturing jobs. We’ve lost congressional seats and population. And the fact that the gerrymandering GOP supermajority doesn’t help because a lot of the things like education and infant mortality and other lifestyle categories, Ohio is either in the last percentage or last, last in a lot of it. It’s not, Ohio is not a good place to live anymore for most people. This Doug Oppenlinger writes that there’s some other issues, and he points out, he says, Ohioans are significantly overrepresented in the list of people charged or convicted in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, ranking fourth among the states for arrest as a percent of population.

[15:26] A meeting of paramilitary groups, including some who would later be charged in the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, was held in an upscale suburb of Ohio’s capital city. The white male supremacist in the Charlottesville Unite the Right event, who drove through a crowd killing and injuring a counter-protester, was from Ohio. He is from Maumee, as a matter of fact. The only violence following the FBI raid on Donald Trump’s Florida home was an armed Ohio man who attempted to enter FBI offices in Cincinnati in a shootout. And in religion, the split in the United Methodist Church was profound in Ohio, which had the highest number of defections in the Midwest. The secessionist congregations opposed the big tent welcoming policy. Then he goes on to list the first energy bribe, that says in exchange for a $61 million in bribes, a gaggle of Republican and corporate leaders orchestrated a 1.3 billion utility rate increase in 2019 for people that are already struggling economically.

[16:40] And that a couple people have gone to jail, A couple people have committed suicide, and that rate increase is still on the books. The state withheld critical information that could have saved hundreds from opioid overdoses, that Governor Mike DeWine shut down access to the death data as he prepared for a 2022 re-election campaign. Then there was the outright disregard for the rule of law concerning redistricting. Um, you know, I’ve had a front row seat for that. Uh, the, uh, Supreme court came in and ruled that it was unconstitutional and they just dragged their feet, dragged their feet, dragged their feet until a federal court imposed it. The, the terrible one. So now we have even more gerrymandered super majority, uh, from based on an illegal map.

[17:38] And then there’s the dismantling of public education, where they removed the power of the elected state board of education and some other things that they’ve been doing. And then as the state Supreme Court, they changed it from a nonpartisan race to a partisan race and the Republicans won. So now there’s a Republican majority on the court and they approved the map. Then you have Senator J.D. Vance, who still is an election denier. And then Jim Jordan, who is Trump’s lackey, going after the Department of Justice for no apparent reason. And then the former presidential candidate Vivek Ramsemi, who would have also interfered with the election and stood behind Trump at his trial. And then he gets into more of the stats.

[18:43] In the last 20 years, Ohio’s homicide rate’s more than doubled. Ohio’s ranked 10th in the nation for hate crimes. Everywhere. Okay, so he’s painting this doom and gloom picture, which is fairly accurate. And the thing is, he’s talking about, he used to work for the Akron Beacon Journal, and they used to do focus groups. Newspapers used to do that. They’d get a group of citizens together and find out how things are going and report on the temperature of the community, put it that way.

[19:25] And so they were like, you know, people are anxious about things, they’re struggling, they can’t afford things. Things, and then they don’t trust the government, so they would rather tear it down and start with Trump. So that explains why Trump is so popular. The thing is, I’m with this guy on this article until he talks about what to do about it. I lived through several economic recessions when people had more anxiety than I’ve seen. Economic. I’m talking about economic anxiety. There has not been anything like I used to see back in the late 70s, early 80s, when President Carter used to talk of malaise has overtaken the country. And so much so that when Ronald Reagan was running, he tried he ordered or not ordered but asked the news media to stop reporting negative news.

[20:38] Because every night, you know, a steel mill was closing, an auto plant was closing. People were going with, were hungry and going without food. And every night, and it just bummed people out because they got most of their news from the news networks. And so, of course, the corporate media complied and they stopped reporting the negative news as much. And and believe it or not you know the business cycle cycled as it does and stuff started picking up so they assumed that that’s why and that’s not why it was just it’s just that everything dropped out the stock market went down the economy went down the GDP went down and then you get to a certain level and then it starts back up I mean even in the great depression You know, they hit the bottom of the barrel, but then it picked back up.

[21:36] Not as much and not as fast, but it started picking back up. And then once they started the massive federal spending for World War II, then it wiped out the rest of the Depression. So, you know, that’s basic economics, okay? You have business cycles that do stuff like that. You see that currently with people bitching about the inflation that that was manipulated by the corporations to jack prices up during the pandemic. You know, and you see story after story of companies claiming that they’re, oh, we’re going to help people. We’re going to cut back on prices. Well, because people are getting pissed off. So now they’re going to cut back on prices. they’re still going to make a profit.

[22:27] For more information about any of the topics covered in this episode, check out our show notes at secularleft.com.

[22:42] I used to drink fresh orange juice. I used to buy gallons of orange juice at the store. That was my morning routine. You know, most people have cereal. I’d have, you know, some toast or something, and I’d have a glass or two of orange juice.

[22:58] Well, within the last couple years, I can’t buy it anymore. I can’t buy it because it’s too expensive. I stopped buying it when it went over $4 a gallon. Well, I was in the store the the other day at my store and they were offering gallon jugs of orange juice for $7.29.

[23:19] And I was like, I have not heard anything because it’s a commodity, it’s agriculture, so it’s susceptible to weather and things like that. I hadn’t heard anything. So I did some research and it seems that the commodity price of fresh orange juice has risen 44% since January of 2024. For no real reason. I mean, they did say that some of the crops didn’t come in or there was some hurricanes or weather issues somewhere. But this was a constant climb, 44%. And you look at the chart and it’s like, you know, it shouldn’t be that way. And there’s no explanation for it. And so that’s how a lot of this talk about inflation is. So anyway, I believe this Erlanger guy that there’s anxiety, okay? But it’s not economic anxiety. Anxiety.

[24:30] It’s a little bit, but that’s not the primary anxiety. The primary anxiety, and these are the people that answer these polls, that still interact with the news media, is they’re racist bigots. They’re white old white or not old but white men white women that live in the country that live in the rural areas.

[25:05] They are freaking racist. They’re a basket of deplorables, as the coining the phrase from Hillary Clinton. That is the primary anxiety in the state of Ohio, is racism. People, and you can see it with the attacks on the trans community, with the complaints about CRT. Now they’re going after diversity, equality, and inclusion programs. And these conservatives don’t know what any of this stuff means. They just know that they’re going to not have a special place in America.

[25:50] That’s why you see some of these court cases where affirmative action type things trying to correct racial inequality is being overturned. And they’re saying that it’s racist against whites. A lot of these white people, they control the courts, they control the state governments. And that’s what they’re doing. Because look, if anybody has economic anxiety, it should be people that live in Toledo. People that live in Detroit. People that live in Chicago. And you don’t see these people wanting to tear the government down. You don’t see the people that live in the cities, Toledo, Columbus, Detroit, Chicago. You didn’t see them at January 6th at the Capitol trying to stop the election. You saw Ma and Pa Kettle from BFE, Northwest Ohio. These people that love Trump, that ignore his anti-Christian character while they go to church and pray to their God.

[27:14] And the orange one, the Beatles above, the Antichrist, they support. It makes perfect sense. And these news people are just missing the forest for the trees because they don’t want to say people are racist. It’s that whole backlash from the basket of deplorables remark Or what was it? President Obama talked about people at bowling alleys and carrying guns and he got a big backlash. People don’t like get pointed out that they’re racist and that they’re bigots, but they are.

[27:59] There’s just several, there’s at least a dozen state legislatures in Ohio right now. They’re white supremacists. They’re white Christian nationalists. And they support white supremacism. They don’t use the actual words. They don’t do the segregation today, segregation tomorrow. They don’t use all that old-timey stuff. they crouch it in legalese and and and they call it religious freedom and and liberty we need liberty for everybody and and all lives matter because they’re fucking racist they’re fucking racist bigots that’s why they love trump that’s why trump is polling because the people that don’t like Trump? They’re not doing the polls. They don’t watch the news. You know, they don’t get their news from the typical sources. Well, the Trump lovers don’t either, but they’re watching the Trump lover network. You know, they’re watching OAN and Fox and they’re listening to talk radio.

[29:16] Because you can draw a line from when conservative talk radio took over, rural radio stations and you can draw a line from that point after they got rid of the Fairness Doctrine and you can draw a direct line from that point to Trump, because everything has been a shit show since that happened, Because the reason why they love Trump is because he appeases their racial hatred, their bigotry. You know, he says the things that they say. And so they love him for it. You know, they go to their nice little church and they donate to the poor and do their little soup kitchens. And in the meantime, they’re supporting Trump because he’s a fucking racist.

[30:19] So my friend that posted that article that I read said that she had concerns about the nation in Ohio. I do, too. Because when you have a racist, bigoted people in charge of everything, it’s a shit show for everybody. So, you know, every election season I get these friends of mine that are on my political persuasion that gnash their teeth and bitch and moan and complain that they have to vote for the lesser two evils. Well, I’m telling you, if you don’t vote for the lesser of two evil, and I am vote-shaming you, if you refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils this time, all that shit that’s coming your way is on you.

[31:15] Because you are going to get hurt in some way. Either somebody you love is going to get hurt or you personally are going to get hurt. Because it’s going to be a bad deal. If Trump gets elected in November, it’s just going to be a bad deal all around. You know, and I could say, I’m leaving the country. I’m not going to say that because I’m a white cisgendered man. I’m good. It doesn’t matter who I vote for. That’s why when I do vote, I vote by thinking of my loved ones, my friends, people in the LGBT community, trans kids, women and their rights getting taken away constantly. And that’s all on tap, man. And so, you know, just go ahead and you just stick around and think it’s just the economy.

[32:17] You know, because imagine that. The economy, the stock market’s through the roof. Unemployment is at the same level it was pre-pandemic. You know, there’s still some spots where people are losing their jobs, and that’s going to happen, you know, it’s a business cycle. And so, you know, just go ahead and think that that’s all the anxiety is. That’s not. That is not the primary reason that Trump is popular. Because it doesn’t make any sense. It’s just irrational to think that that’s why Trump is popular. It’s because of economic reasons. It’s not. It’s just the people that get polled that they’ve been listening to are the people who don’t trust the government and they’re racist bigots. And so I just wanted to take this opportunity to secular-splain the whole election to you.

[33:19] And you’re going to see a lot more of that, not gnashing of teeth. Why do these people hate us? We need to talk to them. Let’s open a dialogue. It reminds me of the Terminator movie. You can’t reason with these people. You cannot reason with racist bigots you can’t it just doesn’t work because everything you talk about there it’s not going to change their mind they’re set their way so don’t worry about it don’t try to do this kumbaya moment sing around the campfire and try to have unity that’s what the end of this article was you know at least we need to talk to people i’m sick of hearing it.

[34:03] You know, and I’m telling you, it’s not everybody that’s a racist bigot. Let me clarify. It’s not everybody in America. It’s not every white person. You know, it’s not every man.

[34:17] It’s just the people they talk to that get polled, that say they like Trump. The people that control our, at least here in Ohio, the Ohio State Legislature. You know, this is a subset of the group. I mean, when you have 10%, 15% turn out for an election, that 10% or 15%, they’re deciding how you get treated. Is that fair, really? Is that fair that you’re sitting at home and then you bitch because the government isn’t responsive to you? Or, you know, or you complain, well, I’m not voting because Biden is giving arms to Israel and they’re killing people in Gaza. Yeah, that’s a problem. But the thing is, if Trump gets elected, you’re not going to be able to do anything about that at all. At all. At least there’s a possibility that Biden’s listening, and he kind of is. He’s kind of changed his talk about that. But sure, you think it’s just economics. You sit on the sideline because you don’t like Biden, because he’s just one of those old white men.

[35:36] And then we’ll see what happens in the day after the election. Election, trust me, it’s not going to be a fun time. You know, you’re going to want to wish it’s a fun time. It’s not going to be. It’s going to be a shit show, a big, huge shit show. And it’s going to be all your fault because you’re going to let the racist bigots win. So if you can sleep with that, more power to you.

[36:08] Thank you for listening to this episode. You can check out more information, including links to sources used, in our show notes on our website at secularleft.us. Secular Left is hosted, written, and produced by Doug Berger, and he is solely responsible for the content. Send us your comments, either using the contact form on the website, or by sending us a note at comments at secularleft.us. Our theme music is Dank and Nasty, composed using Amplify Studio.

[36:54] Music.