When are voters like angry toddlers suffering a “temper tantrum?” When they make decisions that powerful liberal journalists don’t like. This includes electing many conservative Republicans.
There will be a lot of changes between now, and November 8, 2022. Momentum is not good for Democrats. According to one poll, the GOP has a 10 point advantage on the congressional ballot. Another shows it as 13. If that’s anything close to being accurate, it could be a 70 seat pickup in the House.
The Washington Examiner put it this way: “[Voters] now favor Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections by a historic margin, prompting predictions of the largest gain in House seats in the modern voting era.”
How should network journalists react to something like this? It is always helpful to look back at the history. 1994 saw the Republicans win eight Senate seats, and 54 House seats. Then-ABC World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings did not approve. Twenty seven years ago this week, on November 14, 1994, he offered a radio commentary comparing the GOP landslide to a toddler’s “temper tantrum.”
These are my thoughts on angry voters. If you ask parents with two-year-olds, they will be able to tell about the temper tantrums. They can talk about the running, screaming, and rolling of the eyes. You can see that anger has a direct effect on the child. It is the responsibility of parents to show their child how to manage anger and to channel it positively. Picture a country raging from its two-year old. The vote had an outburst last week ….Parenting, governing and managing the country can’t all be done by two year olds.
In this metaphor, the voters are toddlers and the “parents” are government. This is a great window into the thoughts of top network journalists. You can expect more media-driven bitter hatred towards voters if something like this happens in 2022. Take a look at MSNBC’s reaction to Republicans winning in Virginia just weeks back. Possibly the metaphorical babies of 2022 can be racist toddlers?
(Note: Jennings’s original 1994 audio is unavailable anywhere. This is Jennings’s commentary.
More examples are available from the FLASHBACK series (which we call NewsBusters Time Machine). Go here.
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