Media Succeeds With 1992 Strategy

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” — Joseph Goebbels

When George W. Bush Sr. was running for re-election in 1992, the media harped ad nauseum about the horrible state of the economy. Except that most of it was irresponsible (and intentional) exaggeration.

In 1992, Bush was thrown out of office even though GDP was growing and the unemployment rate falling, leading one political scientist–Marc J. Hetherington of Bowdoin College–to theorize that negative media coverage of the economy had driven Bush from office. Hetherington found that voters who regularly read newspapers and watched TV news were more likely to have a negative view of the economy than those who didn’t. Maybe so, but the problem wasn’t all bad press: Unemployment was high and didn’t fall much in 1992, and new jobs were scarce.

And now, the media dusts off its old 1992 playbook, and it’s working yet again.

And just like it was in 1992, it’s all wrong, meant to mislead, meant to put voters in a negative mood so that they vote with their hearts and impulses (i.e., Democrat) and not with the facts.

Contrary to what the liars with microphones tell us, there is no recession. John Lott recently wrote:

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. But we haven’t even seen one quarter of negative growth. In fact, the last two quarters have shown nothing short of phenomenal growth. During the third quarter of last year, GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.9 percent, twice the normal growth rate. The second quarter last year saw a growth of 3.8 percent. The new numbers for the very end of last year will be released on Jan. 30, but they are unlikely to show negative growth.

And yet:

CNN: Poll: Three-quarters think U.S. in recession By Paul Steinhauser