Nearly Three-Quarters Of People Say Media Is “Dividing Americans” And Spreading “Hate”

If this article seems familiar to you, I would not be surprised. Earlier this month, I talked about a poll that said that 64% of registered voters “said the press has done more to divide the country than unite it since Trump took office…” That was from a Morning Consult poll from early November, but a different poll shows numbers that are somewhat similar, but with more people who think this way.
 
The Washington Examiner released a poll from Zogby Analytics detailing that “nearly three-quarters (72% specifically) of the country believes that the media is ‘dividing Americans’ along political, racial, and gender lines, a stunning condemnation of the press, according to a new national survey.”
 
The survey question reads: “Do you agree or disagree: The mainstream media has played a major role in dividing Americans along racial, gender and political lines. This has led to a spread of hate and misunderstanding among some people.”
 
The poll reads as follows: “Based on the results of the recent mid-term election in the U.S., in which the Democrats took back control of the House and the Republicans regained a majority in the Senate, suffice to say, Americans are politically divided. The country is also divided as to who should shoulder the blame: There are some people who feel racial, gender, and political issues are made worse by the coverage of the mainstream media, while there are others who feel the divide we currently suffer from is the result of President Trump’s rhetoric.”
 
At the end of the day, it really should come as no surprise to anyone that people consider the MSM to be so divisive, even more so than Trump. I made this point in the previous article talking about a similar poll, but I feel compelled to reiterate it: who can blame people for thinking this way?
 
Let’s not forget that Don Lemon, in the same breath, called for (Republicans) to stop demonizing people and proceeded to demonize Republicans and Trump. Let’s not forget that Donny Deutch, back in June, called Trump supporters “Nazis”, a sentiment shared by everyone else in the fake news media, but not many of them dare go that far.
 
Let’s not forget that Julia Ioffe, in the aftermath of the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting, said that Trump radicalized more people than ISIS did, followed by a half-baked apology later on that was insincere as Obama was when he said “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”.
 
I made these, and many other points in that other article, so I do not need to bring them all up here once again. The point is that the mainstream media is a cesspool of hatred and division, not to mention hypocrisy in their honest belief that they do not divide anyone and honestly believe Trump and Republicans are the only ones dividing people. That’s how delusional they are.
 
But returning to the poll, we find that 70% of men and 73% of women “were very much in agreement… about the role the mainstream media plays in dividing the public and spreading hate.”
 
Interestingly enough, among younger demographics (18-24 and 18-29) “were much more likely to blame the media for spreading hate and misunderstanding than older voters age 65+ and age 70+.”
 
According to the poll, among ages 18-24/18-29, roughly 81 or 82% strongly and somewhat agree that the media is to blame, with 18 or 19% strongly or somewhat disagree that the media is to blame. Among people aged 65+, 62% strongly and somewhat agreed while 38% strongly and somewhat disagreed. Finally, among people aged 70+, 67% strongly and somewhat agreed while 33% strongly and somewhat disagreed.
 
So while young people, very interestingly and surprisingly, more overwhelmingly believe the media is to blame, their older counterparts do still majorly agree that the media is to blame for our country’s division.
 
In terms of party affiliation, it’s no surprise that most Republicans (94%) strongly and somewhat agreed that the media is to blame. But perhaps relatively surprisingly, though not so much considering the results of the other poll from earlier this month, 51% of Democrats also agreed. If you recall, in the previous poll, the number stood at 46% of Democrats saying the media is doing more to divide the country than Trump. With Independents, 74% agreed that the media is divisive.
 
Lastly, in terms of racial affiliation, 76% of Whites agree that the media is divisive, 64% Hispanics say the same, and 54% of Blacks agree.
 
Now, I’m not going to say that this is all a jump in the poll numbers. While the numbers are larger (Trump had 56% of people saying he was divisive in the other poll, while 66% say so in this one), given that they are completely different polls, I can’t realistically say that more people suddenly believe the media is to blame, while simultaneously, more people also believe Trump is to blame.
 
Granted, as time goes by, I would expect the media to get worse and worse in their supposed journalistic standards, and I expect such a number to rise, but one thing must be taken into strong consideration: the previous poll surveyed roughly 2500 people, while this one surveyed just over a thousand.
 
Such a major difference in survey size tends to impact the results of the survey, so perhaps we should not be so surprised that the numbers are so much bigger. Less people giving their opinion means that each opinion carries a bit more weight.
 
But still, the fact remains that these two polls show similar results, albeit with different numbers. Both heavily suggest that far more people in America believe the media to be the source of division in this country.
 
I already made the arguments as to why they find the media divisive, and even why they might find Trump divisive in that previous article, so I don’t need to repeat myself here.
 
All I will say is, again, I do not find any of this surprising. The media may have, at one time, reflected the opinions of people. But that time is no more. The media is chockfull of agenda-driven narratives meant to SHAPE people’s opinion, not reflect them. Let me tell you this: if the media reported anything with accuracy and honesty, we would not have half the problems we do in this country.
 
A big part of the reason we still have racial problems in this country is because of racists like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson who go on t.v. and spread messages of hate and division. They insist that we are in as bad a shape in terms of racial equality today as we were before the 1960s, which is completely asinine and ludicrous.
 
They paint white people to be the same racist bigots that THE DEMOCRATS were (and still are, given how they still act) before the 1960s. Let’s not forget that the Democrat Party was divided in terms of supporting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 while Republicans were largely united in favor of it.
 
Because of this, they (meaning the larger mainstream media and not just the aforementioned racists) paint minorities as victims of largely fictitious hate crimes and injustices against them to the point where people think you not voting for a black socialist candidate makes you a racist because he just-so-happens to be black. To the point where minorities legitimately believe the reason they were not given a job is because of their race and the “whiteness” of the would-be employer, even if that employer is not white.
 
To the point that they legitimately believe any minority that agrees with Trump is a sellout of their race and a white supremacist.
 
That’s how ridiculous and flat out moronic things have gotten in large part due to the way the media shapes their narratives.
 
Trump may be divisive of his own right (as President, that tends to cause some level of division naturally), but he’s nowhere near as divisive as people say he is and nowhere near as divisive as the media is.
 
Now if only we could translate the results of these polls into actual Democrat defeats in elections, that would be great.
 
Ephesians 5:11
“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.”
 
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Author: Freddie Marinelli.