Tipsheet

CBS News' 60 Minutes Was a Brutal Takedown of the Dems

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  November 11, 2024 1:30 PM

The Democrats were wrong, but the media cannot be let off the hook here. I know—that’s an evergreen statement. They tried mocking people who said they were struggling. Hosts from MSNBC and CBS News both had tantrums over why Americans don’t see the awesomeness—for lack of a better term—of the Biden economy that was, in reality, no better than a Potemkin village. The frustration was evident months ago, with a flurry of stories about how the American people were right and the elite financial reporters and data analysts were wrong. 

On election night, we found out that not only did working-class voters line up behind Trump as expected, but the most significant shifts to the right came from the most expensive parts of the country. Their reason for going MAGA was inflation and the state of the economy. The MAGA landslide saw 80 percent of all US counties shift toward the GOP, a remarkable repudiation of Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party, and the political class. It was a sloppy, wet kiss to the snobby elites of liberal America. 

As they cope and seethe, viewing anyone not like them politically as ignorant or evil, Trump weaponized the Left’s self-righteousness, painting them as out-of-touch, condescending, and all-around not in line with reality. It worked. You can’t win national elections when all you have is Jewish people, black women, and college graduates. 

Yet, 60 Minutes had an eye-opening and damning segment about the 2024 election, how Democrats overestimated the impact of women voters and abortion, and what could happen to them if Trump is successful in reducing inflation and generating an economy where people feel their bank statements are more secure. The short answer: a winning coalition of working-class/middle-class voters from all backgrounds lockstep behind Trumpism for several election cycles: 

Pennsylvania barbershop owner and second-generation American Ronald Corales, whose father immigrated to the U.S from Peru, voted for President-elect Donald Trump. 

Democrats expected to do well with Latino voters, who now make up about 20% of the U.S. population, but Mr. Trump made gains with Latino voters both nationally and in key battleground states in the 2024 election. Corales' vote boiled down, in part, to the economy. He wasn't alone. 

[…] 

Despite a generally healthy economy, many Americans, frustrated with high prices, voted for Mr. Trump in 2024. According to the CBS MoneyWatch price tracker, since 2019, the average price of a dozen eggs has risen 176%, the price of a loaf of bread jumped 52%, and a pound of chicken breast is up 36%. Overall, prices in the U.S. jumped 22% between January 2020 and September of this year. 

Pennsylvania pollster Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College, said many voters are focused on housing and grocery prices. 

[…] 

At the Nazareth Diner near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the average tab is now $38, up from $24 in 2020. Manager Roz Werkheiser grew up in a Democratic household. 

"My mother used to always say, got to vote Democrat. You know, they're for the poor people,'" she said. 

[…] 

"Everybody I talk to, nobody's wages went up," she said. "But we had four years of this. I mean, four years. Gas was super high. Yes, it just went down now, but what, the past four, three and a half years, it was up." 

Trump voters trust economic conditions will improve under the president-elect, Anthony Salvanto, CBS News executive director of elections and surveys, said. They use the COVID-19 pandemic as an economic benchmark. 

[…]

The Harris campaign lost the turnout game in many respects. We all knew going in that one of the keys here were people who don't always vote, new voters, people who skipped the election in 2020," Salvanto said. "The Trump campaign did a better job than the Harris campaign at turning them out. Those 2020 non-voters broke for Donald Trump." 

Her turnout failed even among women voters who the campaign hoped would turn out because of issues like abortion. 

"They thought they would do better with women. They did not," Salvanto said. "They thought that the abortion issue would drive more people to the Harris side. It did not." 

The network then spoke to outgoing Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) who lost her re-election bid in the 2024 MAGA wave. She was rather pointed about the emphasis on social issues within the Democratic Party. 

"Unfortunately, I think our party needs to figure out that not everybody is just thinking about these very important social issues,” she said. That’s spot-on—not everyone has the luxury to focus obsessively and rather creepily now on abortion. 

The funny aspect about the liberal meltdowns on social media is that these people—stupid, dethatched, and feral—don’t seem to get that they’re listing reasons why so many voted for Trump. One video has some lunatic wishing economic pain on Trump supporters over the price of eggs. The egg prices are already too high. Again, this is why Trump won. Joe Biden was right about one thing: this isn’t your daddy’s Republican Party. It’s better and more lethal; it’s a non-white working-class party—the stuff of nightmares for any Democratic operative. What if Trump succeeds in reducing the cost of living grocery bills and gets the economy going? In short, it’s the nightmare scenario for Democrats, as noted by GOP analyst and CBS News contributor Leslie Sanchez:

Recommended

Watch a Teacher's Letter Attacking Pro-Trump Family Members Blow Up in His Face Matt Vespa
Remember the Man Accused of Murdering Four University of Idaho Students? Well... Madeline Leesman

"I think it's a shift but it's an important one," Salvanto said. "And not just in the battleground states, but in places like counties in New York, in New Jersey, in Pennsylvania." 

Sanchez thinks there's an opportunity for this to be a lasting change beyond this year's election. 

"The question becomes, if Trump can really meet those promises, bring inflation down, make things more affordable, and make these families feel more financially secure, he's going to have an ally for probably several election cycles going forward," she said. 

The transferability of political coalitions is dubious, so let’s hold off for a second on that latter part. Obama couldn’t transfer his people to Hillary, Biden to Kamala—these things aren’t automatic. But the continued fraying of nonwhite working class support is something to fear, if you’re a Democrat, as it puts a lot of traditionally safe states in play. 

There are a lot of “ifs” on that front. Let’s rebuild our country first.