January 25, 2023
Commentary
So Here's My Endorsement
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, October 28, 2024
This election does not come
down to a choice between two candidates. It comes down to a choice between two forms of government, blah, blah, blah...
That's how I originally began this post, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it's really about a far more fundamental decision: a choice between two perceptions of reality: One based on facts and the other based on something else.
Yes, that can probably be said to some degree about almost any election. But this one is different, because our perceptions are so polarized, and because so many of us believe in something else.
I've been struggling to understand why so many people I know to be smart, well-intentioned, patriotic Americans would buy into something that for me a reality that is so transparently un-American.
It's something I've brought up in recent posts, including one in which I asked readers to help me understand why. I didn't get much of a response, but one reader did reach out to me saying, "We get it – you despise Trump. Enough."
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So I asked him a follow-up question: "Why don't you despise Trump?"
I didn't get a response.
If you're still reading this post, fear not, I'm not going to spend the rest of it trashing Trump and try to persuade you that Harris is the right choice. I'm pretty sure any reader of this blog has already made up their mind and there is nothing I could do or say at this point that would change that.
The rest of this post is about the "why."
The history of human endeavor has been written by lots of people who ignored or defied facts and went with their gut to do something that may have seemed illogical and counter-intuitive, but somehow manifested in success, evolution and ultimately got us to where we are right now.
One of the things that makes us human is our ability to sometimes tap into irrational things that motivate us to do something we would not have otherwise been able to do. For good, or for bad.
In another recent post, I reported on findings of new research from Ipsos' political tracking team revealing that voters who got fact-based questions wrong about the main issues in the election leaned markedly in favor of Trump vs. those who got the facts correct, who leaned in favor of Harris.
The second part of that post reported Ipsos' data correlating that with the media voters used as their primary source for information about the election, and the fact that those who primarily got their information from conservative news outlets like Fox News Channel, and/or social media, were much more likely to believe the wrong facts.
It's not the first time the Ipsos political tracking team presented data like that, and I recall in the run-up to the last election, Ipsos' Chris Jackson showed similar data, concluding that American voters were not just divided along factual lines, but in reality-based ones.
“This is really important to understand,” Jackson said about this same point four years ago, adding, “we’re not even necessarily talking about the same reality. In a lot of ways, some of us are talking about Mars and others are talking about Venus.”
After more than a decade tuning into the Ipsos' monthly election updates, I asked the team a somewhat personal question: "Given how close you've been to this, how are you feeling anxiety-wise? Are you experiencing any PTSD?"
To my surprise, they actually answered it.
"I think we're all hanging in there," said Sarah Feldman, editorial director-U.S. public affairs at Ipsos, adding: "You know, going on our little mental health walks and getting our little treats to get us through the day, but yes, anxiety is definitely high. It's been a long, long couple of years.
"And a long couple of months. When Chris mentioned that Harris came on the ticket three months ago, I was like, 'Three months ago? That felt like three years ago at this point.'
"I think we're excited to see what happens. Excited to get the work done, but it's certainly anxiety-producing for sure."
I asked the question because the Ipsos team has been so relatively dispassionate in presenting what I've regarded as highly professional research and insights, I was curious given what they know, how they actually felt about it.
Their response caused me to recall my own feelings -- and more importantly, the feelings of others -- following Trump's original election win in 2016.
Personally, I had a realistic sense that Trump could win, so I wasn't actually surprised when he did, but I immediately began experiencing feelings of unease in a way I never felt before, because it felt not just like an unfavorable candidate or party won, but because something about our reality had shifted with it.
I remember immediately hearing similar anecdotes from others, including violent, involuntary physiological reactions like spontaneous vomiting, panic attacks, even hospitalizations. Some weeks later, when I ran into a professional psychologist, I asked if she was hearing similar things from her patients.
"It's off the charts," she said. "I've never seen anything like it."
The funny thing is, I know that people on the other side of that reality were probably experiencing opposite feelings: probably feelings of elation, power and "reality" finally being set right for them.
And I suspect these alternate versions of reality played out to some extent in to 2020's violent insurrection, and fear that they could play out once again this election, regardless of who wins.
Adding to that unease is the sense from pros that it's unlikely the election will even be called on November 5, or maybe not even for days, which will likely have us all twisted in a knot.
I've come to understand and accept that America is a composite of many different versions of reality and that if we really have an exceptionalism, it's that we've managed to coexist for so long -- a Civil War and violent insurrection aside.
So yes, I am endorsing a candidate, her party, and the form of government I want to lead America in the next term, but I'm also endorsing a version of reality based on the facts supporting that.
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
First - you already endorsed her. You claim to be an independent but there has never been a Red White and Blue blog where you remotely sided with conservatives.
Second - the biggest disappointment for me with MediaPost is its resistance to change. Legacy news outlets have fractions of audience compared to individuals on YouTube and Substack. Mediapost is stuck in the dark ages of reporting on how people are getting their information. You can add all the news networks together and they still don't achieve viewership numbers like a Joe Rogan or Bill Maher or the Breakfast Club or Ben Shapiro who have conversations with people on all sides of the political and scientific spectrums...without bias or interruption...and their audiences can hear unfiltered conversations and make their own informed decisions.
Legacy media does not = mainstream media. Sad that MP hasn't evolved along with the mediums it's supposed to be covering.
What facts support the view that legacy media have smaller audiences than individuals on YouTube or substack? Don't count followers. Count actually minutes spent. You can have your own opinions, but you don't get to establish your own facts. When you make a data claim post your source. That's what is expected, at the very least.
Hi Dan Ciccone --
Joe Rogan and Bill Maher are comedians. Ben Shapiro is a pundit. None of these people create news.
Joe Mandese's piece is opinion, and we're all entitled to one. I think you're confusing news with opinion and entertainment. News is supposed to be unbiased; whereas, opinion is inherently biased.
When I worked for conservatives at Cambridge Analytica and was caught up in the Facebook scandal, the news media wouldn't allow us to tell our side of the story. It didn't matter what we said, they wanted to write about a scandal. MediaPost has been the only publication to give me a voice and let me express some of what I experienced there.
I can understand you frustsration, but at the same time I think it is misplaced.
Best regards, Ed
@Dan Ciccone: You're hilarious and I guess you don't follow my endorsements very closely. I literally endorsed one of the most conservative Republicans back in 2022, Liz Cheney:
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/375297/why-im-endorsing-liz-cheney-for-president.html
You also confuse Conservatives with Opportunists, because Trump never was the former. (Check his voting record before he ran for office as a Republican.)
People call me "Liberal," "Progressive," and a bunch of other names, but those who know me well would say I'm kind of Conservative about some important issues, like defense, the economy, etc.
Personally, I think of myself as being on the right side of issues, not polarized Left or Right.
But when it comes to Donald Trump, it's not even a political discussion. It's just that he's been using politics as a means to his end, and for some reason, people who call themselves Conservatives, Republicans and other names, seem to be following him to it.
@Ed
First, you're missing the point and you obviously don't watch Maher or Rogan or Shapiro. Rogan's podcast is not comedy. He has hours long conversations about a variety of subjects with renouned scientists and well-known and not well-known politicians. He has conversations and doesn't pretend to be a journalist and lets his followers make up their own minds while often not offering his own opinion
I watched his three hour conversation with Trump. Trump spoke at length about taxes, the history of income taxes, and tariffs. It was a very thoughtful presentation of his approach to taxes whether you agree with him or not.
A ten minute conversation about taxes was boiled down to "Trump wants to abolish income taxes" as headlines across legacy media outlets.
First, that's not what he said. Second, it just gives more reason to anyone who watched or listened to the conversation to not trust legacy media to provide objectivity or truth.
Second - even Bill Maher says he does not trust legacy media because they are caught in lies. Often.
Finally @Mandese - the only reason you endorsed Cheney is because she openly expressed her hatred for Trump.
I really don't care about your partisan leanings and personal opinion. What I care about is how MP does a terrible job of evaluating tectonic shifts in the media landscape and is as desperate to hold onto the importance of legacy media as legacy media executives who haven't figured out that the average American is seeking truth and objectivity and not partisan, false narrative bullshit.
Go where the audience is going and report on those shifts and why consumers of media are abandoning legacy news outlets in droves instead of making excuses for "news" networks that can't figure out how to adapt.
Still waiting for the facts supporting audience size of substacks, Individual YouTube channels vs mainstream media. Facts matter here. Show them or just admit error.
I'm voting 3RD party once again like in 2020 as I don't vote for the 2 evils which I'm not ever going to do. And I'll vote GOP on the down-ballot I hope they keep the house & retake the senate and I'll be fine with Kamala as president I don't want one party rule by either side.
Mr. Ciccone:
You said:
"I really don't care about your partisan leanings and personal opinion. What I care about is how MP does a terrible job of evaluating tectonic shifts in the media landscape and is as desperate to hold onto the importance of legacy media as legacy media executives who haven't figured out that the average American is seeking truth and objectivity and not partisan, false narrative bullshit."
So tell us, what are you doing wasting your time here?
Given your views, if you wish to un-subscribe just send me a note at ken@mediapost.com and I will expedite.
-Ken Fadner, Publisher