What Paul Ryan’s primary win says about the Trump media

A month ago I read in Breitbart that Paul Ryan’s approval rating had dropped to 43% in his primary fight against challenger Paul Nehlen – whose popularity had improved to 32%, according to the poll cited in the article. I thought, wow! Paul Ryan is about to go the way of Eric Cantor. This was followed up with articles announcing that Ryan is “running scared” ahead of his primary.

To my great surprise, I also came across articles in the non-Trump media (basically everything but Breitbart and Drudge) stating that Paul Ryan is cruising to an easy victory, and that his challenger Paul Nehlen is a nut who nobody takes seriously. They also referenced polls, but these polls had Ryan’s support among likely primary voters pegged at upward of 80%, with Nehlen polling in the single-digits or low teens. I thought, wow! Talk about dueling narratives.

My second thought was that the nice thing about this storyline clash is that we don’t have to guess which is right. We will know soon enough. Since the stories are so divergent, one will have to turn out to be completely false. My third thought was that this is an interesting test of the Trump media’s reliability. Are they telling a story that everybody else is ignoring and lying about, or are they are just pushing agitprop?

On Tuesday, Paul Ryan beat Paul Nehlen 85% to 15%. All the mainstream polls had predicted this result. The only outlier was the poll that Breitbart touted. It was so singularly divergent from all the other polls - as well as the final result - that its methodology and purpose can be legitimately called into question.

With regard to Paul Ryan’s victory, when you win 85% of the vote, your support is as universal as it is ever going to get in a free election. All politicians naturally accumulate enemies, people who hate you for purely personal reasons or because they are under the sway of some eccentric ideology. That Paul Nehlen only received 15% means his level of support was little more than white noise.

You know, Andrew Breitbart is a hero of mine. He was a bully who liked to bully bullies. He loved to fight for the little guy. The last thing he would ever do would be to shackle himself to some politician – even a politician he more or less agreed with. I cry when I think about what a Goldman Sachs alumni has done with his organization.

Comments

[Ward]

Hey cincinatus. Just thinking about the fake Bush national guard docs that were proven faked within 24 hrs of their release and the fact the media ran with the story right up to the election anyways.

Now we have a presidential candidate where we have verifiable documents that show she broke the law and lied repeatedly about it, that the FBI is complicit in the coverup, that the Clinton foundation is simply operated as a slush fund and that there is ample reason to belIeve Hillary has been forward selling access to the whitehouse.

Yet you spend so much time and effort on trying to divert attention away from this.

Again I'll say you belong on a left wing board not a conservative one.

[Cincinnatus]

All of what you say is true, but the choice is still between a crook and a psycho.

This is why HIllary is beating Donald.

[Eric Doll]

"This is why HIllary is beating Donald." Wrong. There is great confusion across the land, and the duplicitous pollsters and media are taking full advantage of it. Your and other conservatives' crying "wolf" over a Trump presidency is the only reason for mainstreet America's not going with their gut and declaring for Trump. Fortunately, their reticence will likely evaporate on voting day because, like you, they know that Trump is not at all in Hillary's league as a danger to civilisation.

[Eric Doll]

Censored out another of my comments, I see. Whatsamatter, Cincinnatus, a little thin skinned? You say, "This is why HIllary is beating Donald." and I corrected you. Why not man up and let my comment pass?

[Cincinnatus]

Dear Eric:

1. When Trump was winning in the primary polls he was holding up the products of these very same companies for all to see.

2. You do realize that I am a volunteer and can attend to this blog only when timer permits?

[Autoguy]

Eric, Cincinnatus is as open minded a blogger as I've 'met'. He and I don't always agree but we debate amicably. I would take exception to your 'thin skinned' comment.
Also, he and I disagree about Trump at a base level, but that doesn't mean that many of his points are wrong.

[Cincinnatus]

Hi Autoguy:

Thanks for those kind words.

For what it's worth, even though I can't stand Trump, I am sympathetic to many of his supporters. Immigration, political correctness, the cravenness of the GOP leadership, the border are all common ground. This is why I initially approached Trump with sympathy.

In a future article I will argue that for the GOP to be made whole again after Trump loses, the surviving GOP leadership will need to begin championing those issues.

[bmatkin]

Would you like to explain Cincinnatus why you think Trump is Psycho?
Your reason for not supporting Trump is that he is Psycho. So, point out something that would suggest he is mentally off.
Then compare to the pathological liar on the other side of the Aisle.

[Cincinnatus]

I said that The Narrative is that Trump is a psycho.

In painting this narrative, Trump has given Hillary a lot of ammunition: offering to pay the legal bills of people who assault hecklers, making fun of a reporter with cerebral palsy, encouraging the Kremlin to interfere in the election campaign, openly contemplating the use of nuclear weapons, making assassination jokes, etc., etc., etc. Trump is making it very easy for the Clinton campaign.

Having said that, my reason for opposing Trump are different. My reason is that Donald Trump is an unwitting stooge of a nuclear power that regards the US as its "most important strategic adversary". This situation is simply unprecedented in American history. The last open Russian stooge to run for American president was Henry Wallace, who was the Progressive Party candidate in 1948. Fortunately he lost.

To me the Kremlin's open interference in the US presidential election is the most important unreported story in this election cycle. It goes much, much further than that dirtbag, Paul Manafort.

I have already written about this before. THere is much more forthcoming.

[bmatkin]

Wow, what universe did you say you woke up in this morning, cincinnatus?

You just took a couple of remarks by Putin and turned it into an entire conspiracy theory.
Manafort is gone. Too bad you can't see the future.
Writing back to you with hindsight shows just how far off your ideas are.

[Cincinnatus]

Dear Bmatkin:

I notice that in your above remarks you did not once challenge my article's core point, that the pro-Trump press is mendacious.

[Hermes]

Email to canadiancincinnatus@yahoo.com returned as undeliverable.