Q&A of the Day – Did the 60 Minutes hit piece on Governor DeSantis make him stronger? Part 1
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: I heard some people say they think the 60 Minutes hit on the Gov made him a stronger 2024 contender. What do you think?
Bottom Line: I’ll start with an illustration of a broader point that I feel factors into this conversation using the 2020 election controversies as an example. Many of President Trump’s claims of the potential for voter fraud in states and cities across the country were well founded. According to the Heritage Foundation’s Voter Fraud Database, there have been 1,317 proven instances of voter fraud and 1,134 criminal convictions of voter fraud since 1979. In fact, did you know that eight of those criminal convictions have already taken place in 2021 – stemming from the 2020 election cycle? This after 16 criminal convictions last year. And of these 24 criminal convictions of proven voter fraud – they occurred in West Virginia, Virginia, New Mexico, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, California, Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Arizona. What’s more is that commonly it takes up to two years to fully prosecute cases of voter fraud – meaning we won’t have a full picture of evidenced voter fraud from last year’s cycle until next year. The cases I just cited are only the beginning. Notice something interesting in the context of those states? Three of them: Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania which team Trump challenged, have now been shown to have had evidenced voter fraud. Don't expect this to be reported by news media. As I consistently mentioned after the election and before the certification of the results in Congress, it’s not a question as to if there was voter fraud. There’s been extensive voter fraud evidenced and prosecuted in every election cycle in American history. The question is only if the fraud that’s committed is extensive enough to overturn election results.
About now you’re probably wondering what this has to do with DeSantis, the 60 Minutes story and what impact if any, it will have for him. Using the example of Trump’s claims of voter fraud here’s where it ties into the same idea. President Trump would commonly exaggerate the extent of misfeasance, misreporting, etc. There was never any question as to if the news media was by and large overwhelming opposed to him, biased in their reporting, etc. Be mindful that most of the country no longer trusts mainstream news media. According to Edelman Research’s 2021 report – trust is at a record low of 46%. Consider that even if trust was at zero among every Trump voter, you’d still have millions of Biden voters who also say they don’t trust traditional news media - as Biden pulled over 51% of the popular vote. Trump frequently overplayed his hand by exaggerating claims beyond what he could produce evidence to support. This allowed an already hostile news media to ignore the elements of his claims that were often valid. That’s where this is different with DeSantis. And that’s the point I’ll pick up on in the second part of today’s Q&A.
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