It’s very, very early for any kind of predicting about the 2024 presidential election, however a couple of today’s items might provide some insight into what’s ahead.
Newsmax was the big ratings-winner with its exclusive cable coverage of former President Donald Trump's rally in Texas last weekend.
“Some 2.9 million cable viewers tuned in to watch the event live from Conroe — and 1.1 million of them were adults ages 35-64, the demographic craved by advertisers.
“Though Newsmax is carried in 20 million fewer homes than Fox, total audience impressions for both networks during Trump's speech was almost at parity, both drawing around 1.4 million viewers per minute, according to Nielsen.
“Newsmax's huge streaming audience also accessed live rally coverage, adding more than 2.5 million total viewers, giving the network a reach of over 5.4 million, according to network data.
“Business Insider trumpeted Newsmax's over-the-weekend ratings success with the headline: ‘Newsmax's audience skyrockets during Trump rallies that other networks, including Fox News, ignore.’
Information regarding Joe Biden for comparison purposes is extremely difficult to find, either due to media choosing not to publish the data, or it doesn’t exist.
The closest information available comes from Jennifer Epstein who wrote @nypost.com on July 21, 2021: “President Biden on Wednesday spoke to a half-empty auditorium while doing a live CNN town hall event in Ohio.
“The more than dozen empty rows weren’t apparent to television viewers thanks to flattering shots that appeared to show a full, non-distanced crowd packing the front rows — in a striking visual display of normalcy after more than a year of COVID-19 restrictions.
“But members of the traveling White House press pool shared photos from the back of the room, revealing that, in fact, the venue was far from packed at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.
“Bloomberg News reporter Jennifer Epstein, who traveled with Biden as a representative of wire services, tweeted an image of “[w]hat the Biden CNN town hall looks like from the back of the auditorium.”
“Voice of America reporter Steve Herman, the radio pool reporter for the trip, tweeted a similar image showing that the “[b]ack of the auditorium is empty.”
Of course, one could say these numbers make no difference because, huge personal appearance audiences or not, Trump still lost the election. However, that perspective might be offset by those who agree with Charlie Kirk @factcheck.afp.com, who posts: “TV Ratings for Presidential Addresses: Trump 17--48,000,000; Trump 18--46,000,000; Trump 19--46,800,000; Trump 20--37,200,00 ; Biden 21--11,600,000,” conservative pundit Charlie Kirk tweeted on April 29, 2021, the day after Biden, America’s 46th president, spoke.
“No crowds at his rallies. No crowd at his inauguration. Empty chamber for his speech. Virtually no viewers at home. 81,000,000 votes?” he wrote, hinting at debunked claims that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump.”
At the same time, while there still may be suspicions about a 2020 presidential election rigging, another type of voting may be surreptitiously taking place at present.
Facebook’s total number of users has declined — a first for the social media platform that has experienced seemingly never-ending growth since it debuted 17 years ago.
“Facebook lost about half a million global daily users in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the previous quarter, according to the quarterly earnings report of Meta, its parent company.”
Additional information comes from William Doyle @nypost.com/2021 as follows:
“Shares of Facebook parent Meta were down more than 23% Thursday after the company forecasted weaker-than-expected revenue growth in the next quarter. It also said it’s taking a big hit from Apple’s privacy changes, and showed the first quarterly decline in daily active users on record.
“The stock is on pace for its biggest one-day drop ever, ahead of the 19% plummet it saw in July 2018. Thursday’s drop is set to shave about $210 billion from its market cap, bringing it to about $689 billion.”
Whether these results have anything directly to do with politics and how subscribers feel about Donald Trump or not: “During the 2020 election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spent hundreds of millions of dollars to turn out likely Democratic voters. But this wasn’t traditional political spending. He funded a targeted, private takeover of government election operations by nominally nonpartisan — but demonstrably ideological — nonprofit organizations.
“Analysis conducted by our team demonstrates this money significantly increased Joe Biden’s vote margin in key swing states. In places like Georgia, where Biden won by 12,000 votes, and Arizona, where he won by 10,000, the spending likely put him over the top.
Mr. Doyle continues: “The 2020 election wasn’t stolen — it was likely bought by one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men pouring his money through legal loopholes.
“The Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) passed a staggering $419.5 million of Zuckerberg’s money into local government elections offices, and it came with strings attached. Every CTCL and CEIR grant spelled out in great detail the conditions under which the grant money was to be used.
“This is not a matter of Democrats outspending Republicans. Private funding of election administration was virtually unknown in the American political system before the 2020 election”
So, Zuckerberg might very well be quite proud of himself, that he as an individual was capable of influencing a presidential election through business success. But now it seems, there’s a very good chance voters have become aware of what he’s done and are taking away that capability in the future. Perhaps that’s why the phrase, “Cobbler, stick to your last,” has remained since ancient Greece. Overstepping one's bounds can become extremely expensive.
That’s it for today folks.
Adios
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