The New York Times, asking the questions they probably wished they hadn't.
You don't specifically note something, right up front, that is unsurprising. You don't get up in the morning, look out the window, and excitedly exclaim to your wife, "Hey, the car is still in the driveway!"
Unless you live in San Francisco.
With that in mind, this is what the Times decided to note just below the headline in a piece about a survey asking voters about the Trump presidency, the obvious context being this November's election.
(All emphases that follow are mine)
We asked voters what they remembered most about the Trump era. Few of them cited major events like the pandemic or Jan. 6.
The Times was so flabbergasted by the lack of interest in the two issues over which it had endlessly obsessed (aside from white supremacy and transinsanity) they sought out a university professor to patiently explain it to them.
'It's the salience of issues today that color the memories that people have of Trump,' said John Sides, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt.
Not bad, Professor Expert, you got it mostly right.
The reason people don't care about those things is in large part because they are over.
For most people who do not hang on the New York Times' every word, Covid was over a long, long time ago.
For New York Times readers, who were still being hectored to get booster shots as recently as last year, it's a near-and-present memory.
Wow, a doctor, a mother, and the CDC head.
That's a trifecta of shut-up-and-listen!
Those with certain underlying health conditions — approximately 70 percent of American adults — and weakened immune systems also are at greater risk than younger, healthier Americans.
You know, if 70% of American Adults have an "underlying health condition," maybe we should focus less on Covid and more on why 70% of American Adults have an underlying health condition.
These are the people still tripping over cases of N95 masks lining their hallways but that's only because there's no room left in the closets what with the stacks of Covid tests, carefully arranged by expiration date.
(Incidentally, while I am gratified that Doctor McMother CDC Head concedes that "younger, healthier Americans" are at lower risk, the lingering effects of years of hysteria-mongering is why the parents in my deep-blue county across the Potomac from Washington DC still feel oddly compelled to get their children Covid boosters.)
As for January 6, it could never quite live up to the high expectations set by the media hype machine. As I've written before, buffalo-hat guy was not minutes away from seizing the nuclear launch codes and feet-on-desk guy was not about to pass legislation banning democracy.
It was a violent riot.
"Fiery but mostly peaceful," you could even say by mainstream media standards.
So, what do people care about?
Issues that actually affect their lives, namely Trump's "behavior" which is basically a catch-all for what we could expect should he win a second term, and the economy, stupid, as James Carville might say.
Another wholly unsurprising result from this totally unnecessary survey: We are kind of a divided nation, as in we live in alternate realities.
Of course.
Obviously.
And possibly my favorite.
In fairness, both can be true.
There was also this recurrent theme.
This was one of the things about which the Times felt compelled to comfort its troubled readers, explaining it away thusly:
A handful of voters in the survey, mostly Trump supporters, looked back on the Trump years as a time of peace. This may be because of the two major international conflicts — the Israel-Hamas war and the Russia-Ukraine war — that are dominant in the public consciousness today.
I feel fortunate that we have The New York Times here to explain that the only reason people recall the Trump years as a time of peace, was because the Trump years were a time of peace.
It is "the paper of record," after all.
I'll leave you noting that it took a staff of three Times reporters to produce this incisive piece, Christine Zhang and Sean Catangui, both graphics editors, and Alex Lemonides whose only apparent contact at home with a living thing are his houseplants.
After reading this piece, I find myself more interested in what the houseplants might have to say about it.
