So before the relatives arrive and the turkey is carved, let’s recall the liberal media’s predictions for the 2018 midterms. There was this at CNN: “A 'blue wave' is probably coming. Or maybe we should call it a 'blue blizzard'”
From the Washington Monthly: “Is a Blue Wave Coming in 2018?”
This crystal ball said:
I would add that, to the extent that antipathy for Donald Trump is a major force that is driving all of this, we can be pretty certain that he is not going to finally “pivot” and improve. If anything, he’s likely to get worse over the next twelve months.
….The big shoe that is likely to drop in the next year is the possibility of more bad news from Mueller on the Trump/Russia investigation. When/if that happens prior to the election,
Republicans will have to decide how to respond to his findings right in the middle of campaign season.”
At Bloomberg, Al Hunt headlined: “The Blue Wave Is Receding? Not Really.”
Hunt began this way: “Two surveys popped up this week that seem to show improved prospects for Republican House candidates this November. Disregard them!”
At NBC, this was the headline in October of 2018: “Voter registration data suggests Democrats' longed-for 'blue wave' will crash over Republicans in November.”
Note well: The Trump loss in the House hovers in the 30ss. For Obama’s first midterm it was in the 60s, for Bill Clinton in 1994 in the 50s.
Also at NBC, former New York Times editor Howell Raines predicted: “Kavanaugh hearings underscored the sexism of Senate Republicans — just in time for the 2018 midterms.”
The GOP won even more Senate seats in the election, solidifying their control of the upper chamber.
But over in Politico, the common sensical Kellyanne Conway warned: “Conway: Blue wave forecasts coming from 'same geniuses' who predicted Clinton win.”
She explained:
“Widespread predictions of a “blue wave” of Democratic victories in next month’s midterm elections should be taken with a hefty grain of salt, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway warned Wednesday morning, because they emanate from the “same geniuses” who all but guaranteed a landslide win for Hillary Clinton in 2016.”
One could Google all day and find endless stories from the liberal media “geniuses” that predicted utter disaster for the GOP in 2018. And, as Conway noted, they were wrong. Yes, Democrats re-claimed the House - but that’s it. And the win was so narrow that it is easily reclaimable in 2020 when, once again, President Trump will be on the ballot.
But the real question is the one noted by Rush Limbaugh in the wake of the elections, as reported here in The Washington Times.
Speaking of the large number of Republican House members who retired because they bought into the media’s blue wave jabberings, Rush said:
“‘These moderate RINO Never Trumper Republicans bought in to a gigantic scam that the media and the Democrats ran on this blue wave business,’ he said in addition to playing a media montage of such rhetoric. ‘They bought it hook, line and sinker. They thought there’s no chance, Trump is hated and despised, we’re getting out. And so they did. And when you lose 45 incumbents, [I] don’t care who they are, because 98 percent of incumbents win reelection in the House, 98 percent. When 40 to 45 of your sitting Republicans get out of there, that presents another challenge, because those are open seats, become brand-new candidates on both sides. Incumbency is lost as a benefit.
‘[Democrats] lost huge in the Senate,’ the host continued. ‘What happened in the Senate last night is bigger than anybody knows right now because the Republicans that did retire and are gone were anti-Trump Republicans: Corker, Flake, McCain. They’re gone. They’re replaced by people who owe their futures to Donald Trump. Every Republican who retired is now realizing they could have won. … The Republican Party still doesn’t get it. They still haven’t figured it out. They’re still listening to the wrong people! They’re listening to the media.’”
Bingo. The blue wave nonsense was a liberal media scam. And inside the bubble that the media exists in even the media personalities listed above and many more believed their own propaganda.
Somewhere along the line mainstream, Establishment Republicans - burned twice in a row in 2016 and 2018 - need to learn to stop listening to liberals in the liberal media who are so busy talking to themselves that they pay no attention to the reality on the ground in an election.
I have my own personal tale along these lines. The Halloween weekend before the 2016 election, I took my then-97 year old Mom into the Pennsylvania countryside to get a pumpkin. What did I see as we drove along? Trump signs - everywhere. In one case even hand-painted on the slanted roof of a barn.
Hillary signs? I counted - literally - one. When I told this story on CNN the following Monday I was dismissed with sage explanations about polling data. Polling data which, come election night, turned out to be exactly wrong. Pennsylvania went into the Trump column, the first time it had voted for a GOP nominee since 1988 - 28 years earlier. Those Trump signs were what is called in the stock market a “leading indicator” - just as was that lone Hillary sign.
The lesson cannot be learned enough. The liberal media is biased. And that liberal bias produces flawed analysis. The “blue wave” of 2018 hit a red wall. A red wall that was always there, but was completely ignored until the returns were in.
Will this lesson be learned in 2020? I doubt it. There will be endless stories about the hot prospects of the Democratic nominee, whomever that turns out to be. It will be the end of the Trump era - yada, yada, yada.
The best advice? Don’t listen to a word of it.
And for heavens sake, don’t believe the polls either.
