Pro-Trump Media Shields Conservatives From Truth About Coming Electoral Disaster

If you want to find out what has led the Republican Party to the electoral cliff it faces in 2018, you have to look no further than the so-called conservative media which has abandoned any attempt at objectivity to spout pro-Trump alternative facts.  On Trump TV, aka Fox News, the President had a tremendously successful first year and the Republican Party is heading to a tremendous victory in next year's mid-term elections.   Back in the real world, neither assertion is remotely true.  

The sign that an alcoholic finally turns the corner on his malady is a confession that he has a problem.  But if family members and friends continue to assure the alcoholic things are fine, that he should even drink more to celebrate his success, the destructive behavior of the alcoholic will lead to even bigger

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich

problems down the road.  

That is precisely where we Republicans are.  We are being told by conservative news outlets, people like Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Laura Ingram, that everything is just hunky dory, no reason for alarm.  As a result, we Republicans delay the hard work of rebuilding the party and continue down a losing path that makes my party's fate much worse.  We conservatives need to be told the truth about what awaits the party when we chose to tie conservative ideas to Trumpism.  Unfortunately, Trump TV, like its namesake, has no interest in the truth.

Today's example of a so-called conservative media type hurting the conservative cause is former Speaker and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich who, contrary to every political analyst on the planet, claims that what is coming in 2018 is an enormous Republican wave.  Here is a bit of the article he penned:  

The great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory.

After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock. 

.... 

As I listened to the end of the year "analysts," I was struck by how little they know, how little they have questioned their own mistakes, and how mutually reinforcing their false information has been.
These are not analysts. These are liberal propagandists. Much of what they assert is just plain wrong. Fake news is, sadly, an accurate term. And the topic about which they have been the most fake is the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
...

The entire premise of Gingrich's article is that the "elite" media is misrepresenting the tax bill and the President's other accomplishments and when the public finds out about those and see the economy growing, the GOP will win in a landslide!  (I've resolved to use exclamation marks more often in 2017 because all great writers do so.  By the way, that was sarcasm!) 

Gingrich and company act like it is new that reporters lean to the left (more than 80% of journalists regularly vote for Democratic Presidential candidates) and that liberal bias inevitably leaks over into coverage. We conservatives have known that for about 60 years.  That does not mean conservatives should attack the American institution of a free press.  It means conservatives learn to play the game, use the media's other multitude of biases (bias for action, bias for conflict, for example) to earn favorable coverage.  Ronald Reagan, aka The Great Communicator, understood this.  Trump does not not.    Trump and his minions have instead chosen to whine about negative coverage and attack the legitimacy of our most important democratic institution - a free press.

But, I digress.  Gingrich's piece simply assumes that the word about the great tax bill will get out to the people despite the liberal media, apparently by political ads pushed by Republicans and conservative groups.  There is no evidence to support this whatsoever.    

Here is the fact that people like Trump and his minions on Trump TV ignore.  What has traditionally driven polling numbers is the economy.  Yet, despite the economy is already growing at a brisk pace and the stock market is soaring to new heights, Trump as a record low favorability rating and the GOP trails by double figures on the congressional generic ballot.   

What does that tell you?  It tells you that the performance of the economy is irrelevant to bailing out the GOP.   The Trump brand of politics, with its hate and divisiveness, is toxic to the Republican Party.  Many of those of us who opposed Trump knew he would for at least a generation stain conservative ideas, leading to a liberal resurgence.  That is what is about to hit the Republican Party in 2018.  Trump's win in 2016 will come at a terrible, terrible cost, especially for Republicans who choose to shed their integrity to warmly embrace the Trump brand of politics.  Conservatives can retreat to TrumpTV to hear people like Gingrich spin alternative facts, but that will not change the truth of what awaits the Republicans in 2018.