Billy Long: President Trump made the Republican Party more appealing to women and minorities

(From Seventh District Congressman Billy Long)

I figured out early on in my first race for Congress that polling was an inexact art. That’s right, art not science. The polling companies poll inexactly, and the art comes in on figuring out how much they can charge their clients without losing their business in the next election cycle. Witness Tuesday’s results which was another bad night for the media and their pollster friends. 

Pollsters offer predictions and the media touts their skewed analysis and numbers hoping against hope that at best they can sway the electorate and at worst it will be different this time. 

The media throws caution to the wind, leaving any sense of skepticism they learned to adhere to in journalism school at the door. They then wrap themselves up in the comforting thought that this time figures won’t lie and certainly liars haven’t done the figuring. 

How do the pollsters consistently get it so wrong, and why does the media always come back for more? It all boils down to an echo chamber of elite liberals and the media they control deliberately ignoring the facts in a desperate attempt to legitimize their claim that the President’s support is waning. 

Well the silent majority is stronger than ever, and this time President Trump widened the G.O.P. appeal and strengthened our brand. Republicans have always struggled in getting the minority vote and we were all told women would abandon Trump in droves. 

Well guess what? Women did not abandon the President and he did so well with minorities in Miami-Dade County that Florida was in the President’s column before most of us had settled in to watch the results. 

He set records with both the Black and Hispanic voters. This is now the party of Donald J. Trump - a Party of blue collars not blue bloods, a Party of First Responders and Law Enforcement officers not lawlessness.

 I don’t remember John McCain or Mitt Romney drawing crowds 5% the size of your average MAGA crowd. Now if we could just get all of the Never Trumpers to toe the line or join the Democrat party we’d be set.

Ask a Democrat who they voted for, and they’ll gladly tell you and brag about their newfound “Wokeness.” 

Ask a Republican and they may very well remain silent. I wasn’t polled this cycle, but a friend reported that he was polled three times. While an ardent Trump supporter, he claims to have answered each pollster the same - “I’m voting for Joe Biden and you can’t talk me out of it so don’t even try.”

 

The fact that Trump supporters— and the Republican Party at large— are increasingly afraid to express their political beliefs isn’t paranoia but a frightening reality. President Trump’s supporters have become the “silent majority” because in the age of the cancel culture, the risk for many to outwardly show support for their chosen candidate is too great. 

In a time where verbal expressions of aggression, obscene gestures, overt threats, and varying degrees of violence towards conservatives paired with attempts to destroy their businesses or livelihoods is met with thundering applause on social media and CNN with zero condemnation by liberal leaders, it’s no wonder that many conservatives think twice about saying “Make America Great Again” or putting a political bumper sticker on their car. It’s even more unlikely that they’re going to honestly answer a poll about who they plan to vote for.

Thanks to the media and their mob mentality, wearing a MAGA hat can be likened to a modern-day scarlet letter, and the Democrats’ battle cry to abandon all forms of decency towards their conservative counterparts means that any act of aggression towards a conservative is now met with applause, not admonition. But it’s more than that. 

Social media and major news networks have become gaping echo chambers for people seeking like-mindedness, usually for those of the liberal persuasion. 

Gone are the days of nonpartisan reporting; now news networks definitively—and shamelessly— pick sides. 

These echo chambers are fueled by confirmation biases, and if it were up to the fake news media, they’d have you believe President Trump and Congressional Republicans were going to be defeated in a tsunami of blue on Tuesday night, but that’s not what happened.

Take Florida for example: President Trump won Florida by 3.5 points, tripling his 2016 margin of victory. The polls, however, had Joe Biden winning Florida by 2.5 points. 

Michigan and Wisconsin were supposed to vote against President Trump by roughly 8 points. Instead, they’re down to the wire with possible recounts. Even when factoring in their margin of error, they still got it way wrong. 

I’ll admit, maybe some polls got it right, but the few that did were treated by the media as outliers that couldn’t possibly be correct. Just like in 2016, the media wanted you to believe Hillary Clinton was the president in waiting. 

Copies of Newsweek with Hillary’s face and the caption of Mrs. Clinton “Madame President” hit stands on election day long before the polls had closed, confirming to many of us who the media’s darling candidate was. And yet, we know that President Trump secured the highest office in the land with resounding and sweeping victory.

I felt strongly that Donald J. Trump would become our 45th president the day he came down that escalator in Trump Tower and declared his candidacy, but the media did their best to convince people like me that we were painfully divorced from reality. 

Regardless of the outcome, one thing is clear: once again, the media got it wrong. There was no blue wave; the Republicans picked up several seats in the House, retained the Senate, and while there was no clear champion on Tuesday night, Biden didn’t run away with it like the talking heads predicted. 

Either way, their effort to reduce President Trump’s supporters to “paid actors wearing MAGA hats” has failed. They can’t deny our existence by refusing to cover it, and their efforts to silence us has backfired because the “silent majority” turned out for President Trump, and we’re sick of being quiet. 

With the President growing our tent and making us more appealing to women and minorities hide and watch, don’t be too surprised if Donald J. Trump has a lasting impact on the GOP. 

Much to the chagrin of the Never Trump crowd who said his White House was the most dysfunctional ever, but I say they are not taking into account the Dole, McCain or Romney White Houses... oh, wait they never got there or put anyone on the Supreme Court, did they?