Why 40% of Americans continue to approve of President Trump
Because ignorance. Because disinformation. Because Fox. But that's just the start.
This newsletter is produced w/ Zach Peterson (@zachprague).
Scroll down for Read Something; Watch Something; Listen to Something; a new weekly medical show I’m co-executive producing with two surgeons: She’s On Call.
The best way to know when I’m on the air, and see all my archived Covid19 shows, is to subscribe to my YouTube channel. We’ve been going for 116 straight days and we have no plans of stopping!
My team is working with companies and nonprofits around the world to create virtual events. We ran the production of T4, the world’s largest gathering of teachers - 100,000 educators in 88 countries, in English, Spanish, Arabic. We can help you, too. Don’t cancel or postpone your conference - contact us! sree@sree.net
***
The president’s approval ratings are tanking, and national polling shows Joe Biden with a healthy lead among voters looking toward November. But, somehow, just over 40% of Americans (and about 90% of Republicans) still approve of the president - from FiveThirtyEight’s poll aggregator:
How is this possible? How could anyone look at the most recent 3+ months - let alone the last 3+ years of his presidency - and say they approve of the job Donald Trump is doing as President?
I remain convinced that a significant contributing factor is that a large percentage of people simply do not know the extent of the president’s malfeasance. Surely a great number do and either don’t care, or actually sort of like it out of some misplaced sense of envy mixed with resentment. But others are good enough people who been mislead, lied to, and taken advantage of.
Look no further than QAnon conspiracy theory followers for a prime example of the latter group. I don’t want to amplify any of those voices, so here’s a good start on what exactly QAnon is:
- “How three conspiracy theorists took 'Q' and sparked QAnon” - Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins, NBC
- “Down the rabbit hole: how QAnon conspiracies thrive on Facebook” - Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian
Now, several QAnon supporters have won primary elections, and these baseless conspiracy theories are getting unprecedented air time. All of the candidates are Republicans, which tells you all you need to know about how they got where they are.
Fox News is the easy one to blame in all of this, but it’s merely one (admittedly very important) node on a complex web of conservative, nationalist, and generally toxic right-wing media ecosystem. Breitbart, The Federalist, The Daily Caller, and others come to mind right away.
While these outlets and their ilk may not directly, overtly support things like QAnon, they act as laundromats for memes and threads from places that do. It seems like the effect is far broader than we give it credit for.
Like 41% approval for the president as of last weekend - even after all of this. Like Trump supporters telling First Nations’ People to “Go back where you came from” at Mt. Rushmore.
These sorts of things.
Chance are you see this stuff in your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feeds - it’s almost too prevalent not to show up. My advice is to report it as spam whenever you can. It may not do much but it can’t hurt. As Kevin Roose tweets (almost) every day, if you’re on Facebook, you’re probably seeing these things.
The harder ask requires significantly more energy - provide counter facts. It’s a tough engagement for sure, and most of what you send or post will be dismissed as “corporate media lies” or “Soros-funded” or worse, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t making a dent offline - and that’s where it counts. One way to make it a bit easier is to just have an active document with a few good, unassailable links and information. And don’t suffer trolls - just stick to the facts.
Look at the replies to this tweet from Texas Governor Greg Abbot, if you dare. He’s doing the right thing by requiring masks in most of Texas, but remember that he has firmly and publicly stood against the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci up until last week. As far as the discourse goes - we’ve got a ways to go.
Election day is 4 months away and it’s not too late to change some minds. You may even save some lives.
- Sree
Read Something
🤷🏻♀️ It’s worth your time to go through the back story to this. Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) is inarguably one of the best reporters working today, and the recording leaked to Vice of a bunch of Silicon Valley VC-types trashing her - and journalism more broadly - isn’t a good look. Tech folks need to educate themselves on what journalism is, and they need to do it fast.
🚀 I’ve talked about it here before - Elon Musk is a man who’s doing some truly world-changing things, but he remains his own worst enemy in so many ways. Check out his Twitter feed, and the very strange interaction with journalist Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein), for an idea. Sensing a theme here…? Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) wrote a great piece on Musk for GQ back in May - read “The Provocations of Elon Musk” here.
Listen to Something
It’s been clear for some time that Ben Stiller (@RedHourBen) is one of the good ones. But comedy, like essentially every other aspect of American culture, is under more scrutiny for current and (some very recent) past transgressions, and he’s certainly not immune to that. This an excellent interview with Ben on “The Last Laugh”. Listen here or on all major podcast platforms.
Watch Something
CNN’s Brian Stelter (@brainstelter) joined The News Project Live (@tnp), a Digimentors client (let us help build you a talk show!), to discuss what we’re discussing above - reliable news and information. America’s cultural divisions are on full display, and so much of it is exacerbated and animated by outright lies. Brian does his part to combat it, but there’s only so much we can do on the news side of things. News consumers NEED to be more discerning - the republic likely depends on it. And you should be subscribing to Brian’s indispensible newsletter!
Odds & Ends
🗞 My Sunday #NYTReadalong, executive produced by Neil Parekh (@neilparekh), where we read the print NYT out loud every week, 8:30-10:30 am ET: This week’s guest was Trish Hall, former editor of The New York Times Op-Ed page and author of "Writing to Persuade" an insider's look at the NYT Op-Ed page. Watch it on FB.
The Readalong is followed Sundays 11 am-noon ET by a new medical show I’m co-executive producing with surgeons Sujana Chandrasekhar, M.D., and Marina Kurian, M.D., called She’s On Call (watch live or later).
The Sunday #NYTReadalong is sponsored by Muck Rack, Magic Bus USA and Strategy Focused Group. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email sree@sree.net and neil@neilparekh.org.
🎧 Every Saturday, I host a call-in show on WBAI 99.5FM (@wbai) - "Coping with Covid19" - focused on being helpful, hopeful, and focusing on the pandemic's effects on society’s most vulnerable - the workers, the poor, the marginalized - and talk to ordinary citizens & experts on how we can emerge stronger.
Listen live Saturdays from 12-2pm EST, or later. And, of course, call in or tweet questions for us using the #wbaisree hashtag! Listen to an early episode here!
📺 A reminder to watch my Daily Global Covid19 Show. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll learn something every time. We’ve had 100+ shows and 200+ guests. Check out the archive and please subscribe to my YouTube channel. And/or sign up for my WhatsApp alerts list (it’s not your typical WhatsApp group, just a text when I’m live!). We are in partnership with Scroll.in, one of India’s best news and culture websites.
Recent highlights:
Sapphire, whose novel became Oscar-winning “Precious” (she’s newly on Twitter!)
Dr. Keiji Fukuda of HKU, former pandemics expert at WHO & CDC
👀 Did we miss anything? Make a mistake? Do you have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let us know! Let’s collaborate