There is a new Gallup poll and the results are stunning:
- 42% identify as independents, 29% as Democrats, 26% as Republicans
- Independent identification at least 40% for fifth consecutive year
There was a time when most of us got our information from the network news and the newspaper. If it wasn’t printed in the New York Times, it didn’t matter. The network news had people like Walter Cronkite, Harry Reason, Chet Huntly, Frank Reynolds, and John Chancellor. They were people we trusted. We were probably wrong about that, as in retrospect the bias was always there, but we trusted them. We were also either Democrats or Republicans. We had faith in the political parties, although that was probably misguided as well.
Today the biggest political party is the independent. It is probably worse than that. For example I know a lot of Republicans who are not exactly thrilled at the Republican Party. I am sure there are a lot of Democrats who are less than enthusiastic about the Democratic Party. That means the true percentage of people who consider themselves independent is probably even higher.
Today 53% of Democrats would support Hillary Clinton, even if she is indicted. That is less scary when you realize only 15.37% of the population is actually that stupid. This explains why the top two Republican candidates are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Donald Trump is running on a campaign of a pox on both houses. Ted Cruz, while a Republican Senator, is despised by the Republican establishment because he doesn’t play the game. It explains why Bernie Sanders, a 74 year old wild-eyed socialist trapped in the 60’s may beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.
This poll has an error rate of about 1%. It is about as accurate as a poll can get. The Democratic Party is in deep doo doo and the Republican Party is on life support. The only thing certain is that things are going to change more than anyone predicts.
One final thought. I was in the USAFSS so I am very familiar with signals intelligence and the importance of protecting it. Everyone knows that everyone is spying on everyone else. The big secret is what we know and what we don’t know. That is why release of signals intelligence analysis is so dangerous. There was a recent article alleging that Sidney Blumenthal had access to NSA analysis. It is hard to imagine how he could have got that without help from Hillary Clinton. If that report is accurate, it will be impossible for anyone to control the coming explosion. Hell hath no fury like an intelligence community betrayed by its own leaders.
TDM