The PR battle of the impeachment of President Trump
Bottom Line: Just about everyone has an opinion about President Trump and the impeachment hearings and most don’t know what’s going on. That’s evidenced in a couple of the related polls that have come out over the past few days on the process. From the AP’s polling...
- 47% said it’s hard to know who to trust for the truth (that was the case for all news and information – not just impeachment coverage)
- 60% said they regularly see conflicting reports
In today’s era of fake and agenda driven news, even when people seek out information, they can’t easily discern what’s real from what’s fake/agenda driven. And then take some of ABC’s polling with Ipsos. Only 21% of people report have closely followed the impeachment hearings, yet 70% of people think they’re going poorly for President Trump. Now why would that be? Is President Trump’s disapproval anywhere near 70%? Not by a long shot. In fact, the only accredited poll to be released on Monday showed President Trump gaining 2% on his approval rating over last Friday to sit at a positive 1% approval rating (50% to 49% in Rasmussen). Even the single most negative poll that’s happened over the past week, which happens to be Ipsos incidentally, has his disapproval at 58%.
So, what’s going on? This impeachment mess is hard for most to follow, even when they try. We aren’t confident in who we can trust. But here’s the thing. The Newsbusters team, at the Media Research Center, found 96% of impeachment coverage to be negative for President Trump. That can help explain why 70% think what’s happened is bad for the President thus far. When almost all news coverage is negative and people have trouble understanding, you don’t have to operate with any truth or objectivity to attempt to win the PR battle.
This is in part, why I illustrated this impeachment was based on a false premise from the onset. If news media were interested in truth and true conspiracy, they’d investigate where the entire Russian coax came from to begin with and why former FBI Director Andrew McCabe has been recommended for criminal indictment by the Justice Department over alleged impropriety during the 2016 election cycle. This is why I do what I do.