Fox News has egg on its face
When the Trump favorite Fox and Friends morning show hosted Democratic Socialist and 2020 presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders they were...blindsided.
The live audience was asked how many people would support a plan similar to the Medicare for All being proposed by Sanders. Most said they would, the idea was cheered. This was such a huge embarrassment for Fox and the conservative ideology that President Trump decided to weigh in.
How was it that a Conservative audience at Fox could favor a liberal socialist safety net program like Medicare for all?
In reality, neither Fox nor President Trump should have been surprised by the result.
In poll after poll after poll Americans consistently prove themselves to be far less conservative than many in D.C. or on cable news realize. On healthcare in particular, Reuters recently found about 60 percent of Americans would voluntarily enroll in Medicare if the eligibility age was lowered.
Over half of all Americans think allowing a Medicare buy-in option is a good idea. Favorability for the Affordable Care Act is growing and less than one third of Americans want to replace the current system. In fact, a Kaiser poll run over several years shows the lowest level of support ever received for a Medicare for All plan is 55 percent. Half of Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone can have health insurance.
In one issue after another, whether it is stricter gun policy; LGBT rights; Immigration policy, such as the national emergency and border wall; Climate change—including protecting the environment at the expense of the economy; Education and education funding; taxing the rich; reducing federal spending; and allowing access to abortion, the Republican Party stance is far to the right of a majority of Americans.
It is easy to overlook this reality because of the way the United States sets up its representative government. If everyone over age 18 votes, a Senator from California has to win about 15 million votes to be elected. 15 million votes is more than the total it would take to win election in 16 Republican controlled states...combined.
In fact, due to gerrymandering in Congressional districts, and the nature of statewide elections for Senators, Republicans have often won control of either body of Congress and the White House without winning the popular vote in those arenas. In the last 30 years Republicans have won 50 percent of the vote in the Presidency only once, the Senate only once, and the House only four times. For Democrats, those numbers are six, six, and four, respectively.
But the setup of the US election system with its dominant two party binary is such that winning the popular vote is not required to win control of government. The United States was established with the intent that Senators would represent states, not the people; and the President was elected by the Electoral College, which overweights the importance of smaller states.
Added to this is the operations of special interest lobbying groups, and the big money that can flow into elections from a tiny portion of ultra-rich donors. All this adds up to a system where the information flowing to elected officials comes from a small number of people with an agenda. The end result paints a picture that shows Americans as far more conservative than they are in reality.
Republicans understand this. It does not matter if Americans support their policies; the Founders built in protections against domination from a simple majority. Republicans have learned to leverage these protections for their electoral advantage. They do not have to propose policies a majority of Americans support. A political party merely has to support policies a majority will support in a majority of small states, and use money from special interests supporting these policies to help defend their electoral turf. Any party can do this; Democrats behaved similarly when they controlled Southern states for decades. By doing this, Republicans can win the Presidency, majority in the Senate, and through gerrymandering, a majority in the House as well.
Though these nuances are not lost on those in D.C. they are often lost on the rest of Americans. Americans, including those working at Fox News, often see Republicans winning elections and assume that means Republican policies have majority support. However, because majority support isn't needed to win elections, Fox and Friends was caught by surprise as they found out just how popular Medicare for All—and for that matter any number of other liberal policies—really are on mainstreet.