Why I predicted a landslide

https://x.com/DovLipman/status/1854604785988587900

Thank you, Dov Lipman, for your tweet shoutout. It’s true, I did predict – in late April – that November 5th would show a landslide for Donald Trump. But I have to correct you: I’m no prophet. I ain’t no genius, neither. I’m just a 50-year veteran of journalism and a political junkie going way back (I handed out flyers for John Lindsay on Election Day, 1965, when I was 12 years old).

In truth, the landslide was foretold 15 months before November 5th with a clue that everybody missed, a hint that foreshadowed the anger that burst forth on Election Day.

It was a song.

On August 11th, 2023, a 31-year-old completely unknown singer with short-cut blond hair and a prominent blazing red beard named Oliver Anthony  released a country song called Rich Men North of Richmond. The tune featured only his voice and guitar strumming while standing in the forest.

The song raged against high taxes, greedy rich men, welfare abuse, and selfish politicians.

I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day

Overtime hours for bullshit pay

So I can sit out here and waste my life away

Drag back home and drown my troubles away

It’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to

For people like me and people like you

Wish I could just wake up and it not be true

But it is, oh, it is

Livin’ in the new world

With an old soul

These rich men north of Richmond

Lord knows they all just wanna have total control

Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do

And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do

’Cause your dollar ain’t shit, and it’s taxed to no end

’Cause of rich men north of Richmond

The song didn’t just go viral; it made history. Only 10 days later, when it debuted at #1 on the Billboard 100, it was the first time an artist without any prior chart history ever had a Billboard single debut at #1. In 66 years.

His acoustic performance wasn’t so much singing as an expression of Anthony’s feelings. He knew he had touched a chord.

“The hopelessness and frustration of our times resonate in the response to this song,” Anthony told Billboard, “The song itself is not anything special, but the people who have supported it are incredible and deserve to be heard.”

Anthony’s painful voice hit people in their souls, perfectly funneling the pain, resentment, and profound fury felt by citizens across America against the establishment elite and an out-of-touch government.

It was soul music, not country music, which exploded because it spoke to and for millions of Americans, as evidenced by the comments on YouTube:

• “Amazing. He sang in less than 4 minutes what I truly believe the vast majority of Americans feel every day about our Government. Every member of Congress should be forced to listen to this.”
• “I’m 44 years old and in my 44 years I don’t think I’ve ever heard a song with more truth and heart in it.”
• “Black man from Ohio listening to this song in tears!”
• “This song is meant to bring us together and show us how much we have in common whether it be our struggles or our values. We the People are pissed off, broke, tired and hungry…hungry for food and hungry for change. This world is choking us out and turning us into people that we’re not.”
• There’s more truth in this song than a thousand hours of legacy media.”
• “Grew up Homeless in Portland, Oregon. Spent 12 years doing my best not to become again. Then I took everything I cared about into a backpack and dufflebag and moved to Ohio. Working in a factory, busting my ass everyday and I’m struggling to eat. This song hit me so hard I had to take a moment.”

And then on Election Day:

• “It’s November 5th. I listened to this on the way to the polls. They’ll hear our voice today!”

Indeed, they did, but the pollsters and pundits didn’t hear it because they asked the wrong question. It wasn’t: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” The question should have been: “On a scale of 1-10, how pissed off are you?” The answer was very.

Had pollsters asked that question, they would have understood where the landslide was coming from. Middle Americans in the flyover states were angry over a host of things – the economy, of course, and illegals crossing the border, wokeism, guys in girl’s locker rooms – and they saw in Donald Trump the outsider who would help them. Who would recognize them. And it behooves us to take them seriously.

“A vote is not a valentine,” read an election meme that was going around. “You aren’t confessing your love for the candidate. It’s a chess move for the world you want to live in.”

Most Americans didn’t care who Trump was or what he did. They saw what their country had become and where it was going, and they just wanted to make America America again, the America they once knew.

That’s why it was a landslide.

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