Luntz gets it and doesn’t get it
[Hat tip: Althouse]
Here’s an interesting interview with Frank Luntz. Why interesting? Why Luntz? Because he’s emblematic of so many people who sort of get the Trump phenomenon but also fail to get it.
For example, he’s correct here:
Luntz says this level of hostility towards institutions, and the perceived elites that run them, has reached breaking point. “Our institutions are failing,” he says. “What exactly is Congress doing? Are the courts overreaching? Are our schools succeeding? Is healthcare delivering the choice and affordability people need? The answer to all of these is no.
But then he adds this:
“The very moment that Trump has re-ascended to power is the very moment that our institutions are at their weakest and the public is at its angriest. That is leading to a rejection of the status quo and embrace of anything that says: ‘Change’.”
No, not anything that says “change.” The desire is for change of a particular sort – although people on the left also want “change,” the type that moves even further to the left.
Luntz also says:
The institutions rejected by Trump voters are also those that traditionally held the American president to account. “Accountability is essential in a functioning democracy but the media has lost the ability to hold the administration accountable by the way it’s covered it,” Luntz says. “Congress has not been challenging the administration in any meaningful way, and I’m waiting to see what happens with our legal system.”
What does he mean by “the administration? The Trump administration? The media constantly attacks this administration, but does it so incessantly and with such mendacity that it has lost credibility with the majority of people not for lack of “accountability,” but for deceptive and unfair “accountability.” Meanwhile, it made excuses for Biden and almost never even asked him hard questions, while covering up things like the Hunter laptop. There is a gap the size of the Grand Canyon between the media’s coverage of the two presidents, and that is why people have rejected it.
Luntz says he found the strength of this feeling surprising. “In my Trump focus groups, they want to hold judges accountable. They want to hold Congress accountable — not just to defeat them but to punish them. It’s a value I’ve never seen in American politics until now, that desire to punish your opponent.”
Where was Luntz from 2016 to 2024? Where was he for Russiagate, the impeachments, the incessant and vindictive lawfare against Trump (on absurd charges) that sought to bankrupt and/or imprison him (and his family), the threats, the “he’s Hitler” accusations, the winking at or downplaying of violence against Republicans? Does Luntz have a clue why they “want to hold judges accountable”? Does he think judges shouldn’t be held accountable for disobeying the law, for example?
More from Luntz:
The Trump phenomenon could be dismissed as a cult of personality, but Luntz believes otherwise. “You say to me, when Trump leaves, does this go away? I’ll say to you, absolutely not, because of JD Vance,” he says.
Vance’s reputation among the Maga faithful has grown since his assured performance in the vice-presidential debate with Tim Walz, Luntz says. “He presented an ideology behind the Trump cult of personality. Vance found a way to take all the individual aspects of Trump’s policies and put them in a way that will outlast Trump. It was masterful. This is also part of the de-alignment — now there is an ideology and it’s not just Trump’s persona.”
It never was just Trump’s persona. Trump is a dramatic and attention-getting figure, it’s true. But his success wouldn’t have occurred without the dissatisfaction that was already present and criticisms that had already been articulated by many people. It’s not so obscure to think that illegal immigration should stop, that the federal government has grown too large and is out for itself, that the left is soft on crime, that we’ve been involved in too many foreign wars with little to show for it, that men shouldn’t be playing in women’s sports, and that we should become more energy-independent. The “ideology” is common sense and didn’t just start with Trump (and certainly not with Vance), and that’s what gives it its power.
“It never was just Trump’s persona.”
And it’s not J.D. Vance’s persona either.
As a political observer, Luntz’s selective analysis is a reflection of a partial willful blindness. Those who support Trump’s policies have for decades repeatedly and clearly expressed their reasons for rejecting the former status quo. If Luntz actually fails to understand, it’s because on certain levels he doesn’t want to understand.
Well said Neo. Luntz seems to get what motivates the people that elected and support President Trump, but he doesn’t understand that that support is predicated on President Trump committing to, and executing, actions to address the people’s concerns about our government and its institutions.
Trump’s personality and approach – loud, direct, and often combative – are not the main reason people like me support him. Luntz is correct, I believe, that when Trump’s time in public office ends there will be someone to take up the baton and carry the mission forward. JD Vance is the obvious choice right now, but others in the Trump administration (Rubio, Gabbard) and those without (Cruz) can just as easily compete for that leadership spot.
Trump won 2016 because many were disgusted with Hillary and her “evil white man” campaign. We expected things would get worse with her in control.
Then, when she lost, the media and the dems and some neocons started whining and began calling Trump voters Nazis, racists, misogynists, sexist, ignorant, haters, and every other bad thing they could think of. Canceled employees and former friends for voting for Trump.
That increased and solidified Trumps base. Hate Trump if you please, but hating me ’cause I voted for him? As average middle class blue collar working guy, I take it personal. Anti-Trump people are not better than us. In fact many of them are beneath us.
Neo’s examples of intelligent friends who refuse to listen to reason and who cannot actually come up with any examples of how terrible Trump and his voters are, along with the left destroying property and assaulting people, (again) are obvious indicators of the left lack of common sense and decency.
Well hes kevin mccarthys lessee like i say he had one bright shining moment as the pollster for the contract with america
It never was just Trump’s persona. Trump is a dramatic and attention-getting figure, it’s true. But his success wouldn’t have occurred without the dissatisfaction that was already present and criticisms that had already been articulated by many people.
Exactly.
I have said for years that Trump was Tea Party 2.0. The Establishment–of both parties–tried to sidetrack the Tea Party. So they got Trump, who was worse for them than the Tea Party. During the lawfare of the past few years, I predicted that if they succeeded in putting down Trump, Tea Party 3.0 would be even worse for them. It turns out that Tea Party 3.0 is Trump himself, but this time much better prepared and more careful of who he relies on.
The cave metaphor
https://x.com/CynicalPublius/status/1916984893470609759
Luntz is one of those Democrats who try to sound moderate and “sees both sides”, but the red Kool Aid is staining his tongue.
IOW Luntz really doesn’t get it at all.
(But it’s one heckuva knitted-brow, CYA exercise…that will likely resonate with all the usual suspects.)
Luntz has long ago lost any credibility he once had. He’s a sub rosa card carrying member of the MSM
More than most pollsters, who never see the people they survey.
Luntz tries to sound authoritative–it’s science don’t ya know, look at all of those graphs, and trend lines moving up and down–but, he’s just a Bozo with a bad toupee.
P.S. From what I can see, Polls can be made to say pretty much what you want them to say–carefully pick the group of people to be polled, carefully set up the exact wording and the particular sequence of the questions asked, then, highlight and interpret the particular answer your set up was designed to elicit (some of the major polls have ten, twenty, even thirty pages of questions and answers, you just pick the particular answer you want, and ignore the others), and voila!
Thanks for reading Luntz, so l don’t have to.
Your list of issues and Trump – MAGA solutions to the problems was excellent. Trump haters seldom compare the Trump solution to the Dem solution, since it’s so often so obviously better.
In many ways, Trump is to electoral politics what Rush Limbaugh was to political discourse. By which I mean that both men are accused of “leading” some kind of radical, retrograde, reactionary movement, whereas in truth, they are merely the spokesmen for the millions of “normal” people who share the same philosophy but lack the public podium from which to express it, except by supporting the singular person who has that podium. Opposition to both men was/is loud, incessant, irrational and led by malign forces seeking to suppress popular sentiment and attain global hegemony.
I don’t want to devolve into personal attacks, only a bit of analysis.
A man who wears a toupee that obvious is attempting to lie to the world about having a full head of hair. And he feels better about himself when he fools the world into thinking he has a full head of hair.
I can’t possibly believe the poll numbers or survey results of such a man. He is inherently dishonest. His vanity makes me incapable of believing a word he says about Trump or politics.
Related:
“Prominent pollster blasts colleagues for skewing Trump’s 100 Days approval”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/hold-prominent-pollster-blasts-colleagues-skewing-trumps-100-day-numbers
+ Bonus:
“DAY 98”—
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/04/day-98.php
Opening quote:
By the way, did we mention that the Media has this most puzzling need to lie ALL THE TIME ABOUT EVERYTHING?….
File under: Stressing the apparently-not-so-obvious obvious…
Luntz:
The institutions rejected by Trump voters are also those that traditionally held the American president to account. “
The press held Biden to account? The press held Hilary to account? The press held Obama to account? Tell me another one.
More like the press acted as water carriers for the above.
“Trump won 2016 because many were disgusted with Hillary and her “evil white man” campaign. We expected things would get worse with her in control.”
Well, I’m surprised you didn’t mention Obama! Many of us hated the idea of getting more Obama policy, via Hillary.
And certainly, Hillary had no chance of being a better POTUS. IMO.
I’ll never forget her Benghazi failure tragedy!
And her nonchalent
“hands off” mess up that allowed a Russian group (or associate?) to get a chunk of America’s uranium!
If we’re a cult, where’s the Kool-Aid?
@Cappy
Ask Bauxite. He said he smelled Kool Aid around here. But considering this was before he began going into a vicious spiel of hunting the Orange Whale and insulting our host I suspect he smelled himself.
I’ve been spelunking around looking for old photgraphs of Frank Luntz. I’m not finding any images which show a receding hair line or a bald spot. Either he’s been wearing a toupée for forty years or that’s his actual hair. His default setting is ‘fat slob’.
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Having a look at the “Talk” at Wikipedia, one does get the impression that there’s a crew of sorosphere operatives whose business is trashing the reputations of others by offering supposed personal accounts of having been acquainted with them at one time or another. Luntz is a pollster and social research maven who works for Republican candidates. He’s not someone an ordinary person is likely to have a strong opinion about one way or another. What’s interesting in his case is that there is so much hostility toward him while at the same time what notice he gets in starboard publications tend to regard him somewhat skeptically.
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The man’s never married and has no children. There isn’t any dirt on him in that vein or minions of the gay lobby would have published it. He has long seemed like someone held together with psychotropics.