One week before the election and four days after FBI Director James Comey revealed that his agency had come across a set of emails that may or may not be relevant to the Clinton email case, the race for the White House is suddenly shockingly close. According to a new Washington Post/ABC News national tracking poll, Donald Trump now leads Hillary Clinton by one point 46 to 45 percent, which for all intents and purposes is a tie.
That’s not even the worst of it as far as Democrats are concerned. That same Washington Post/ABC News poll also showed that Trump voters are way more excited about their candidate than Clinton voters. While 53 percent of likely Trump voters said they are “very enthusiastic” about Trump, just 43 percent of Clinton voters said the same about thing her.
This enthusiasm gap has grown significantly in the past week or so.
See more news and opinion from Thom Hartmann at Truthout here.
For now, at least, that poll is the only one that has Trump ahead or tied with Clinton at a national level, and aggregate polls still show the former secretary of state with around a five-point lead. But things really are getting closer, especially in the swing states.
A new Elon University poll, for example, now shows a virtual tie between Clinton and Trump in North Carolina. A new NBC News poll shows the same situation at play in Florida.
Obviously, Hillary Clinton still has a very good chance of winning this election, and these tightening poll numbers might just be the result of hardening partisanship seven days before the conclusion of the nastiest presidential election in recent history. But if the conspiracy theories are true and James Comey was trying to disrupt Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — or at least keep the election close enough for Republicans to keep the Senate — it looks like he may have succeeded.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
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