Ahead of Election Day, things are getting really weird. After years of acting as stenographers for the Democrats’ preferred narratives, legacy media outlets are signaling a shift. Perhaps a modicum of self-reflection made the media realize that reinforcing their viewers’ far-left biases hurts Democrats.
A media and social media echo chamber made the party believe issues like abortion and climate change would generate turnout. Instead, the driving issues are inflation, the economy, and crime. And despite the breathless coverage about extremist Republicans, poll after poll shows voters, especially those in swing states, trust the GOP on these issues. In one startling finding, a Democrat pollster even found that voters trust Republicans to fix education while they trust Democrats to throw money at it.
Of course, it is also possible CNN, MSNBC, and other media outlets are just backing away from tomorrow’s predicted electoral wreckage. They keep propping up President Biden’s prediction that election results will be delayed for days or weeks, so we should all pray that key races are beyond the margin of cheating tomorrow night. However, they are also taking on Democrats who have been deaf to real electoral concerns. Even NBC News admits in their last pre-election poll the most common message Republican and Democrat voters intend to send tomorrow is “Fix the Economy.”
On Meet the Press, a full panel seemed to agree that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris don’t energize a room and might turn off voters. Daniel Dale at CNN did a brutal fact-check on Biden’s entire closing message. And MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle took New York Governor Kathy Hochul to task on crime. Hochul’s opponent, Republican Lee Zeldin, has been hammering this issue on the campaign trail, and one Democrat firm, Third Way, ranks it second among voter concerns.
In an interview with Hochul on Friday, Ruhle observed that the governor was running against herself to get elected as governor for the first time; Hochul took over when Andrew Cuomo was chased out of office by Democrats. In the interview, Hochul attempted to paint Zeldin as an extremist backed by Trump for his actions on (scary voice) January 6th. She called him the architect of the “Big Lie” and criticized his stance on the Second Amendment, implying that legal gun owners drive crime in New York. The state already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation.
Hochul and Ruhle also discussed whether, if Zeldin were elected, it might end some of Attorney General Tish James’s politically motivated investigations into Donald Trump. That could be important to four or five people in the state. Then Ruhle snapped back to the real world. “What New Yorkers care about is their health, their safety, and their well-being. Crime is clearly the reason this race has gotten a lot tighter,” Ruhle said.
Related: CNN’s Daniel Dale Throws Biden Under the Bus and Chuck Todd Runs Him Over
She continued, “Lee Zeldin has made it clear he would address crime by making bail adjustments and getting rid of Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg. You do not want to do those things.” Then Ruhle pointedly asked, “What three things would you do, would you commit to, to address public safety? Crime is a problem here.”
It is hard to believe no one told Hochul this question was coming. When she started to speak, she began to criticize Zeldin. Ruhle immediately stopped her, repeating, “What is your plan?” Hochul said she was already working on her plan, starting in January 2021. She said she used the N.Y. State Police for gun enforcement and she is working with New York City Mayor Eric Adams. They added more cameras in the subways.
Ruhle had heard enough. “Okay, I am going to have to interrupt you, then. Here’s the problem.” Then she hit Hochul with a cold dose of reality: “We don’t feel safe. You may have been working closely with Mayor Adams, and you may have spent a lot of money. But I walk into my pharmacy, and everything is on lockdown because of shoplifters. I am not going in the subway.”
“People don’t feel safe in this town,” Ruhle continued. “So you may have done these things, but right now, we are not feeling good. We’re worried we could be San Francisco.”
Hochul declared New York would never be San Francisco. (Actually, it is worse than San Francisco in a lot of ways. I haven’t heard about people getting thrown in front of BART trains, but they get thrown in front of NYC subways.) Ruhle demanded to know why, and Hochul went back to repeating things she had already done that did not seem to have improved anything. She also tried to convince Ruhle that murders are down and crime is a nationwide problem. The host said what happens in other cities and states is not the issue. It is that people in New York don’t feel safe and question Hochul’s competence. Then Ruhle threw her a bone and said this could be due to sexism. Okay.
The portion on crime might be the most contentious interview of a Democrat on MSNBC in recent memory. Perhaps if Ruhle wants to feel safe, she should vote for Lee Zeldin tomorrow, because Hochul’s purported momma-bear instincts coupled with compassion aren’t working.
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