Those 101,000 Michiganders could have cast votes for Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson. They didn’t. Hence these are NOT votes *against* President Biden! They are merely saying "I won’t vote for Biden right now". (Very, very few will vote for Trump.)
Compare that with 40–50% of Haley voters who are saying they’ll rather vote for Biden than Trump in November!
Also worth noting: Michigan’s "Uncommitted" vote now was only marginally higher than the Uncommitted when Obama was running in 2012.
Two points: 1) yes we have work to do to get our coalition back together in 2024 2) I discussed the math of the uncommitted vote in the post below. We are talking about somewhere around 1% of the total vote general election vote in Michigan. While every vote counts we need to, out of respect for the President and one another, be honest about the nature of the challenge the President faces. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/biden-breaks-80-in-michigan-trump
David, while there is much in here I agree with, a few comments: 1) The President is already doing much of what you say here, and it's a little odd you seem unaware of that 2) here at Hopium, when you talk about polls you and conclusions about polls you need to provide the actual polling data. "Polls say this" without backup is not good enough here at Hopium 3) as I showed the other day the President has broad backing in the Dem Party for his foreign policy, +50 - https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/democrats-really-like-their-president. So making a dramatic change to what he is doing right now in the Middle East to "placate" a minority of his coalition risks alienating the broad majority who back him. The President has already done a great deal to placate his critics incl negotiating a cease fire, trying to negotiate another one, breaking with Bibi now repeatedly on serious matters. He needs to stay focused on doing what he believes is right and not make decisions on matters of such geopolitical import to placate a minority of our coalition. 4) I also take issue with that idea there is broad economic dissatisfaction in the US. There is broad support for the President's handling of the economy among Democrats (see link above) and in this piece I show that Americans are very pleased with their own life, work and incomes right now - https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/the-economy-is-remarkably-strong
5) My view about his current standing is that when the campaign fully turns on in the coming weeks a big chunk of our wandering coalition will come home, we will be up by 3-4 points and then have to go work hard to push that number up and win the election by high single digits. I am not freaking out about where we are. I am content, and am ready to keep fighting hard each day to make our case as more and more people check into the election.
Appreciate the thoughtful comments but think you need to give the President a bit more credit for doing perhaps 80% of what you propose here, and in the future please share the polling data you cite so we can all learn from what you bring in here. Thank you - S
Also, since Day One, President Biden has had White House Spokespeople who make a sincere effort to actually answer the questions posed by journalists! (The insistence that answers always have to come from Joe Biden himself is absurd.)
Evan, this is wrong on so many levels that I am asking that you take it down. You have no data to back any of this up just wild and ill-informed assertions starting with the media itself has been biased towards the left. I am a former journalist, having begun my career working for ABC News, and I can tell that virtually everything you say is wrong and ill-informed. It's insulting to journalists and to the President and I ask that you take it down.
Evan, I think you are very wrong about the media bias.
While real journalists, on average, tend to be left-of-center, their editors and the owners tend to be significantly right-of center.
This may come as a surprise, but journalists generally do not get to choose their headline, nor how their article is "shortened", nor whether it is the front-page story / headlines the evening news or is buried on page 6 / as a peripheral online-only story. That is the decision of the editor(s) and desk, sometimes under the expressed or implied "guidance" of the owner(s).
These days, the primary business of a lot of the "news media" is something very different than actual news coverage!
Simon, can you comment on the Popular Vote movement to reform the Electoral College.... supposedly we’re 5 or 6 states away from getting it done and that should help with the disparity innate in the Electoral College itself, right?
I'm in NC and I made calls for Salas this morning. Two weeks ago I was making calls for Suozzi. My prediction is that by November we Hopium addicts will be knowledgeable about more campaigns than we ever thought possible and happy that we are! Let's do this!
I'm a postcard writer and prior to joining Hopium would sign up to write 5 postcards for whatever the current Postcards to Voters campaign. They always contain a blurb about the candidate, so I would grab more postcards for the campaigns I found inspiring, if they were still available. I learned about a lot of special elections that way and then was invested in the results to see if "my" candidate had prevailed..
Now with Hopium, that feeling is intensified because I "know" other people working towards the same goal.
"Small" is a kind description for a poll of this complexity. The poll interviews 128 Hispanic and 108 Blacks to make the assertion that Biden is somehow losing those voter groups.
Ridiculous in the extreme.
Imagine you were the chief marketing exec for a consumer product purchased by 175 million Americans. You had a $500 million marketing budget to allowocate across the US. Is there any version of reality in which you would poll just 128 Hispanic consumers and 108 Black consumers to decide how to target your advertising?
Nate Cohn should be fired and the Sienna polling org should be dropped.
I dropped my subscription to digital only. I’m disappointed with their polling and extremely disappointed with Ezra Klein’s podcast, to which I unsubscribed.
Screw those polls. The NYT, along with the Washington Post are clickbait news. They love Agent Orange because he sells papers. These papers are socially liberal when it's convenient for them. They support Republican tax policies. Assholes opinions replaced Integrity and facts. They didn't invest in their people as much as they chase the digital clickbait dollars. The owner of the Times defended his bitch slapping of Biden while embracing Trump. And Murdoch man runs the Washington Post. That will be Fox meets the WSJ.
Today’s-Sunday, March 3-NYT’s upper right hand headline “Warning Lights Flash for Biden Times Poll Finds” They flash this with pride in the most coveted spot of any edition. The NYT has no shame! While I am a dedicated follower of Simon’s work and thus work hard to focus on the job ahead, I am not disappointed in the NYT and other corporate media, I am and have been friggin furious at their blatant use of their media license to support, actually promote, a treasonous candidate for president. I will continue to follow Simon and a few others because it keeps me focused on getting out the vote.
Sadly beyond this upcoming election we have a lot to do to repair this corrupt, greedy, government egged on by a corrupt corporate media. Thanks to substack writers I am well versed in the number of crooked ‘leaders’ who have driven us for years to elevate the rich and stomp on the poor. Third world country despite the lives lost in battles aimed at making us a better country.
Totally agree. This Boomer4BidenHarris election must be won 4 Framers’🇺🇸course correction to cleanup corruption that permeates the highest level. Simon’s Hopium Chronicles based on data & not emotional reaction is a great discovery for soothing anxieties. Stronger Together will save our Republic and democracies worldwide🗽🗳️💙
Watching the demise of the New York Times, and more recently the Washington Post, has been very painful. The NYT still refuses to take responsibility for helping elect Trump in 2016 through their misplaced and monomanic focus on "But her emails!".
My wife and I have dropped our subscriptions to both. Our newspaper of choice is now *The Guardian*, which in our opinion makes a sincere effort at objectivity, truth and investigative reporting. The quality of their Comments section is also excellent.
.
Edit: I can also recommend "Talking Points Memo", edited by Josh Marshall, and "Bolts Magazine", founded by Daniel Nichanian. On busy days where I am limited to just one read, my preference is Heather Cox Richardson’s "Letters from an American".
My personal preference is to read rather than watch the news. Fortunately I have discovered some really good people on Substack, whom I try to support.
(Being strongly averse to feeding data mining operations, I don’t do Facebook or other social media – unless you’re counting Hopium, and a chess site and Mac site, both now defunct.)
New subscriber here. What is the Hopium Paid Subscriber Monthly Gathering? Personally, I think these pollsters know exactly what they are doing - they want to depress Biden turnout. They sure get defensive with when they get challenged by actual data. Thanks to Simon and also Tom Bonier. I pretty much only read their analysis (ok, ok after sneaking a look at other polling).
Thanks for the link to donate to the Biden-Harris campaign! I never donate via the direct emails because it seems that one donation triggers an avalanche of emails. I may be wrong about where the spam comes from, but I prefer to go directly to the candidate's website whenever I donate to campaigns in key states.
Monthly donor for Biden/Harris campaign. Early donor for NC. I don't pay attention to the polls because voters vote not polls. Learned that in 2022 when Simon said there was no 'red wave." Just trying to stayed focused on getting Biden/Harris back into the WH along with Congress. Enduring the next 8 months will be a test to my fortitude. Pushing the orange toad off the cliff with his minions will be my greatest voting gift to our country. LFG
I live in a very blue state, so not concerned about candidates here but always looking for suggestions from Simon to help in other parts of the country. It's why I'm here.
As an added note, I am finally going to be able to vote early in person in the primary and general here in CT. We had a ballot question in the 2022 election to get onboard with other states and there was a resounding YES from voters here in CT. Complex issue because of our state constitution. In what is known here as "the land of steady habits" this is one that we have gotten past and hope that we can make more progress in the future to also be able to vote early by mail and no excuse absentee voting. Work in progress here in the Constitution state.
I know everyone's focused on the primaries...I hope we'll soon see some rallies other than Trump rallies--would LOVE to see all sorts of marches to energize people and get everyone registered to vote. I don't know who organizes such things, but, gosh, it would be great to start building huge momentum and get previously inactive voters ready to go this fall!
Do you have an Indivisible (www.indivisible.org) or Swing Left (www.swingleft.org) chapter near you? I know both groups are doing in person voter registration drives in states where citizens are permitted to do voter registration.
Also check out Field Team 6 (www.fieldteam6.org) - they have campaigns through various channels to register new voters in swing states or districts. I have been writing postcards to women in NC-01 and I know they also do phone-banks and text-banks as well.
With respect to encouraging inactive or low-propensity voters, I recommend checking out Vote Forward (www.votefwd.org). They will be launching their first letter writing campaigns this coming Wednesday. And as an NC resident, I'm excited to know that NC will be one of the initial 8 states with campaigns. Eventually, they will expand to all 12 states in Swing Left's 12 state strategy.
Vote Forward has a great "how to" guide to get you started: https://votefwd.org/instructions. If you are interested, I recommend creating an account and signing up now, since a real person reviews each account and they may get backed up with new volunteers registering. If you have written with Vote Forward in the past, your account should still be active.
I forgot to mention that Vote Forward is kicking off their letter writing campaigns with a "week of action". You can find letter writing events on Mobilize (www.mobilize.us). Some of these are regularly scheduled events and others are special for the kickoff. Click on the link below for some events from which to choose:
"There are problems with the NYT poll - It has Trump winning both Hispanics and women - an impossibility. It’s likely voter electorate is +3 Republican - something we haven’t seen in a general election in actual voting in 20 years, and only once in the last 8 Presidential elections going all the way back to 1992."
Did these pollsters get punked? I haven't picked up the phone for a poll in years, so I am very fuzzy on the methodology and how they determine party affiliation. Do they know in advance or are they dependent on what the person being polled tells them? I have the same question about how they determine "likely voter" status.
As a woman, I can tell you I will be voting staright Democrat for the rest of my life! (Not that I was inclined to vote for anyone in the GOP before they all went off the rails: but at least I wasn't worried they would destroy democracy back then).
I do have a few female friends who admitted to voting for Trump in 2016. None of them are admitting to voting for him in 2020 and I know several of them re-registered as independents in 2021 wanting nothing to do with the GOP after they failed to impeachTrump for Jan 6.
And that was BEFORE the GOP's assault on reproductive rights and forcing 10 year olds to bear their rapist's child and women being refused care if they suffered a miscarriage unless they were practically on death's door.
And yet we are expected to believe that Trump as an adjudicated rapist in 2024 is MORE popular with women than he was in 2020?? I DON'T THINK SO!!
Exactly - it simply does not compute. The only even remotely plausible explanation I can think of is these are low information voters who answered the call that aren't aware of what the GOP has become, recent events. I have learned that most people aren't high news politics news consumers as I suspect many of us in this community ( and similar ones) are.
David, just a thought:
Those 101,000 Michiganders could have cast votes for Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson. They didn’t. Hence these are NOT votes *against* President Biden! They are merely saying "I won’t vote for Biden right now". (Very, very few will vote for Trump.)
Compare that with 40–50% of Haley voters who are saying they’ll rather vote for Biden than Trump in November!
Also worth noting: Michigan’s "Uncommitted" vote now was only marginally higher than the Uncommitted when Obama was running in 2012.
My thoughts too about who they voted for so without that data, we need to not assume they were all based on Gaza.
Two points: 1) yes we have work to do to get our coalition back together in 2024 2) I discussed the math of the uncommitted vote in the post below. We are talking about somewhere around 1% of the total vote general election vote in Michigan. While every vote counts we need to, out of respect for the President and one another, be honest about the nature of the challenge the President faces. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/biden-breaks-80-in-michigan-trump
David, while there is much in here I agree with, a few comments: 1) The President is already doing much of what you say here, and it's a little odd you seem unaware of that 2) here at Hopium, when you talk about polls you and conclusions about polls you need to provide the actual polling data. "Polls say this" without backup is not good enough here at Hopium 3) as I showed the other day the President has broad backing in the Dem Party for his foreign policy, +50 - https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/democrats-really-like-their-president. So making a dramatic change to what he is doing right now in the Middle East to "placate" a minority of his coalition risks alienating the broad majority who back him. The President has already done a great deal to placate his critics incl negotiating a cease fire, trying to negotiate another one, breaking with Bibi now repeatedly on serious matters. He needs to stay focused on doing what he believes is right and not make decisions on matters of such geopolitical import to placate a minority of our coalition. 4) I also take issue with that idea there is broad economic dissatisfaction in the US. There is broad support for the President's handling of the economy among Democrats (see link above) and in this piece I show that Americans are very pleased with their own life, work and incomes right now - https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/the-economy-is-remarkably-strong
5) My view about his current standing is that when the campaign fully turns on in the coming weeks a big chunk of our wandering coalition will come home, we will be up by 3-4 points and then have to go work hard to push that number up and win the election by high single digits. I am not freaking out about where we are. I am content, and am ready to keep fighting hard each day to make our case as more and more people check into the election.
Appreciate the thoughtful comments but think you need to give the President a bit more credit for doing perhaps 80% of what you propose here, and in the future please share the polling data you cite so we can all learn from what you bring in here. Thank you - S
Evan, I get that WH press corps are getting “ frustrated”….but didn’t the previous admin go 300- something days without a press conference??
Also, since Day One, President Biden has had White House Spokespeople who make a sincere effort to actually answer the questions posed by journalists! (The insistence that answers always have to come from Joe Biden himself is absurd.)
Evan, this is wrong on so many levels that I am asking that you take it down. You have no data to back any of this up just wild and ill-informed assertions starting with the media itself has been biased towards the left. I am a former journalist, having begun my career working for ABC News, and I can tell that virtually everything you say is wrong and ill-informed. It's insulting to journalists and to the President and I ask that you take it down.
Evan, I think you are very wrong about the media bias.
While real journalists, on average, tend to be left-of-center, their editors and the owners tend to be significantly right-of center.
This may come as a surprise, but journalists generally do not get to choose their headline, nor how their article is "shortened", nor whether it is the front-page story / headlines the evening news or is buried on page 6 / as a peripheral online-only story. That is the decision of the editor(s) and desk, sometimes under the expressed or implied "guidance" of the owner(s).
These days, the primary business of a lot of the "news media" is something very different than actual news coverage!
What evidence do you have for this assertion?
Thanks Simon!
Thank you Simon. I just now sent this to my wife and my friend Steve, with whom I had lunch yesterday and spent an hour giving him a dos
Dose of hopium.
Simon, can you comment on the Popular Vote movement to reform the Electoral College.... supposedly we’re 5 or 6 states away from getting it done and that should help with the disparity innate in the Electoral College itself, right?
What’s with this “Republican weighted” polling?
I too am curious about this.
(On the other hand, while perhaps an inappropriate focus here on Hopium, I am worried about the Constitutional Convention movement.)
I'm in NC and I made calls for Salas this morning. Two weeks ago I was making calls for Suozzi. My prediction is that by November we Hopium addicts will be knowledgeable about more campaigns than we ever thought possible and happy that we are! Let's do this!
Definitely a Hopium addict - always happy to see Simon’s posts and to be in community with all of you!
I'm a postcard writer and prior to joining Hopium would sign up to write 5 postcards for whatever the current Postcards to Voters campaign. They always contain a blurb about the candidate, so I would grab more postcards for the campaigns I found inspiring, if they were still available. I learned about a lot of special elections that way and then was invested in the results to see if "my" candidate had prevailed..
Now with Hopium, that feeling is intensified because I "know" other people working towards the same goal.
Yup! Feels great to be a part of a group doing such important work for our democracy and Winning!!🤣
"Small" is a kind description for a poll of this complexity. The poll interviews 128 Hispanic and 108 Blacks to make the assertion that Biden is somehow losing those voter groups.
Ridiculous in the extreme.
Imagine you were the chief marketing exec for a consumer product purchased by 175 million Americans. You had a $500 million marketing budget to allowocate across the US. Is there any version of reality in which you would poll just 128 Hispanic consumers and 108 Black consumers to decide how to target your advertising?
Nate Cohn should be fired and the Sienna polling org should be dropped.
I dropped my subscription to digital only. I’m disappointed with their polling and extremely disappointed with Ezra Klein’s podcast, to which I unsubscribed.
Screw those polls. The NYT, along with the Washington Post are clickbait news. They love Agent Orange because he sells papers. These papers are socially liberal when it's convenient for them. They support Republican tax policies. Assholes opinions replaced Integrity and facts. They didn't invest in their people as much as they chase the digital clickbait dollars. The owner of the Times defended his bitch slapping of Biden while embracing Trump. And Murdoch man runs the Washington Post. That will be Fox meets the WSJ.
Wining in 2024 will be the best revenge.
And "winning" would be even better! ;)
Damn right it will !
Today’s-Sunday, March 3-NYT’s upper right hand headline “Warning Lights Flash for Biden Times Poll Finds” They flash this with pride in the most coveted spot of any edition. The NYT has no shame! While I am a dedicated follower of Simon’s work and thus work hard to focus on the job ahead, I am not disappointed in the NYT and other corporate media, I am and have been friggin furious at their blatant use of their media license to support, actually promote, a treasonous candidate for president. I will continue to follow Simon and a few others because it keeps me focused on getting out the vote.
Sadly beyond this upcoming election we have a lot to do to repair this corrupt, greedy, government egged on by a corrupt corporate media. Thanks to substack writers I am well versed in the number of crooked ‘leaders’ who have driven us for years to elevate the rich and stomp on the poor. Third world country despite the lives lost in battles aimed at making us a better country.
Right on, Marie!!!
Totally agree. This Boomer4BidenHarris election must be won 4 Framers’🇺🇸course correction to cleanup corruption that permeates the highest level. Simon’s Hopium Chronicles based on data & not emotional reaction is a great discovery for soothing anxieties. Stronger Together will save our Republic and democracies worldwide🗽🗳️💙
Watching the demise of the New York Times, and more recently the Washington Post, has been very painful. The NYT still refuses to take responsibility for helping elect Trump in 2016 through their misplaced and monomanic focus on "But her emails!".
My wife and I have dropped our subscriptions to both. Our newspaper of choice is now *The Guardian*, which in our opinion makes a sincere effort at objectivity, truth and investigative reporting. The quality of their Comments section is also excellent.
.
Edit: I can also recommend "Talking Points Memo", edited by Josh Marshall, and "Bolts Magazine", founded by Daniel Nichanian. On busy days where I am limited to just one read, my preference is Heather Cox Richardson’s "Letters from an American".
.
I agree on all your choices. We have to depend on the Fifth Estate, our social media feeds to find the "truth" vs propaganda.
My personal preference is to read rather than watch the news. Fortunately I have discovered some really good people on Substack, whom I try to support.
(Being strongly averse to feeding data mining operations, I don’t do Facebook or other social media – unless you’re counting Hopium, and a chess site and Mac site, both now defunct.)
Simon, No worries, but the table omits the 2022 voting totals, which as I recall, validated your optimism.
It’s just President elections.
New subscriber here. What is the Hopium Paid Subscriber Monthly Gathering? Personally, I think these pollsters know exactly what they are doing - they want to depress Biden turnout. They sure get defensive with when they get challenged by actual data. Thanks to Simon and also Tom Bonier. I pretty much only read their analysis (ok, ok after sneaking a look at other polling).
Welcome Cindy! Here's more on our monthly paid subscriber gatherings - https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/reminder-wed-march-6th-7pm-est-the
S
Thank you! You really help keep me grounded and positive in spite of all the negative polls.
Me too! Thanks Simon
Thanks for the link to donate to the Biden-Harris campaign! I never donate via the direct emails because it seems that one donation triggers an avalanche of emails. I may be wrong about where the spam comes from, but I prefer to go directly to the candidate's website whenever I donate to campaigns in key states.
Hey all. I love this: https://tinyurl.com/54tanm59
Monthly donor for Biden/Harris campaign. Early donor for NC. I don't pay attention to the polls because voters vote not polls. Learned that in 2022 when Simon said there was no 'red wave." Just trying to stayed focused on getting Biden/Harris back into the WH along with Congress. Enduring the next 8 months will be a test to my fortitude. Pushing the orange toad off the cliff with his minions will be my greatest voting gift to our country. LFG
I live in a very blue state, so not concerned about candidates here but always looking for suggestions from Simon to help in other parts of the country. It's why I'm here.
As an added note, I am finally going to be able to vote early in person in the primary and general here in CT. We had a ballot question in the 2022 election to get onboard with other states and there was a resounding YES from voters here in CT. Complex issue because of our state constitution. In what is known here as "the land of steady habits" this is one that we have gotten past and hope that we can make more progress in the future to also be able to vote early by mail and no excuse absentee voting. Work in progress here in the Constitution state.
Where in CT are you? I grew up in Wilton....
Grew up in Hamden. Love my state and would never live any place else.
I know everyone's focused on the primaries...I hope we'll soon see some rallies other than Trump rallies--would LOVE to see all sorts of marches to energize people and get everyone registered to vote. I don't know who organizes such things, but, gosh, it would be great to start building huge momentum and get previously inactive voters ready to go this fall!
Do you have an Indivisible (www.indivisible.org) or Swing Left (www.swingleft.org) chapter near you? I know both groups are doing in person voter registration drives in states where citizens are permitted to do voter registration.
Also check out Field Team 6 (www.fieldteam6.org) - they have campaigns through various channels to register new voters in swing states or districts. I have been writing postcards to women in NC-01 and I know they also do phone-banks and text-banks as well.
With respect to encouraging inactive or low-propensity voters, I recommend checking out Vote Forward (www.votefwd.org). They will be launching their first letter writing campaigns this coming Wednesday. And as an NC resident, I'm excited to know that NC will be one of the initial 8 states with campaigns. Eventually, they will expand to all 12 states in Swing Left's 12 state strategy.
Vote Forward has a great "how to" guide to get you started: https://votefwd.org/instructions. If you are interested, I recommend creating an account and signing up now, since a real person reviews each account and they may get backed up with new volunteers registering. If you have written with Vote Forward in the past, your account should still be active.
As a new person looking to volunteer this was helpful, thank you Cheryl!
You are very welcome!!
I forgot to mention that Vote Forward is kicking off their letter writing campaigns with a "week of action". You can find letter writing events on Mobilize (www.mobilize.us). Some of these are regularly scheduled events and others are special for the kickoff. Click on the link below for some events from which to choose:
https://www.mobilize.us/?end_date=2024-03-18T03%3A59%3A59.999Z&event_type=27&is_virtual=true&start_date=2024-03-11T04%3A00%3A00.000Z
Thank you Cheryl!
"There are problems with the NYT poll - It has Trump winning both Hispanics and women - an impossibility. It’s likely voter electorate is +3 Republican - something we haven’t seen in a general election in actual voting in 20 years, and only once in the last 8 Presidential elections going all the way back to 1992."
Did these pollsters get punked? I haven't picked up the phone for a poll in years, so I am very fuzzy on the methodology and how they determine party affiliation. Do they know in advance or are they dependent on what the person being polled tells them? I have the same question about how they determine "likely voter" status.
As a woman, I can tell you I will be voting staright Democrat for the rest of my life! (Not that I was inclined to vote for anyone in the GOP before they all went off the rails: but at least I wasn't worried they would destroy democracy back then).
I do have a few female friends who admitted to voting for Trump in 2016. None of them are admitting to voting for him in 2020 and I know several of them re-registered as independents in 2021 wanting nothing to do with the GOP after they failed to impeachTrump for Jan 6.
And that was BEFORE the GOP's assault on reproductive rights and forcing 10 year olds to bear their rapist's child and women being refused care if they suffered a miscarriage unless they were practically on death's door.
And yet we are expected to believe that Trump as an adjudicated rapist in 2024 is MORE popular with women than he was in 2020?? I DON'T THINK SO!!
Trump winning women makes the whole poll deeply suspect.
Exactly!
Exactly - it simply does not compute. The only even remotely plausible explanation I can think of is these are low information voters who answered the call that aren't aware of what the GOP has become, recent events. I have learned that most people aren't high news politics news consumers as I suspect many of us in this community ( and similar ones) are.