A day after all the hype has passed, we're right back to where we started.
Democrats want to reverse the results of the election. Or at the very least prevent President Trump from governing with a constant flood of scandals. The details don't really matter. They never do.
Whenever one of these flashpoints emerge, the media and conservatives rush in to do battle. But most Americans don't really care. They will occasionally tune in to the circus. And that's it.
The dirty little secret of scandals is that Americans enjoy the sideshow but don't really care about them. We're well past the era when Americans believed that their government was ethical.
Americans don't believe in politicians or the media. They vote to send a message or to push for certain things that they want. The scandals have little impact. Just ask Bill Clinton.
Obama's approach to scandals was to ignore them. Congress could hold its hearings. Dems would sabotage them. The media would dismiss them as a waste of time and money.
And that was that.
The media is hard to ignore. But the general approach is right. Ignore them.
Engaging with a scandal just gives it oxygen. Offense is always better than defense.
And the general public doesn't really care. If President Trump delivers on the economy, the scandals don't matter. If he doesn't, they also won't matter. Polls may show that X percent of Americans echo the media's point of view. That's mostly the case. As long as the media commands mass communications, people will echo back what they hear and read. But that doesn't mean they care.
The key question in any poll is not what you think, but how much it matters to you. How passionate are you about it.
The more we follow the news, the more we live in the media's echo chamber. But the echo chamber is a distortion of reality.
If Dems don't win, they can't impeach Trump. If they do win, they will try to impeach him. The details or facts don't matter. It's a pure power struggle. The outcome will be determined on a purely electoral level. The scandals are smoke. The elections will be the fire.
Americans who haven't decisively chosen one side or another won't vote based on the hearings and innuendo. They will vote based on results.
