Welcome to Counterintuitive Corner – and to words of wisdom from Owen Jones, the youthful apostle of leftwing change. “The Corbyn phenomenon,” he writes, “has to be put in the broader context of surging disillusionment with political elites across the western world which finds its expression in support for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, Podemos and the Front National, the SNP and Ukip.” So when Trump takes a significant hit to his poll ratings, it’s useful to wonder why. Perhaps the continual drumbeat of media hostility that Jeremy Corbyn mentions from every platform?
Here’s John Sides, associate professor of political science at George Washington University, writing in the Washington Post. “Tone of coverage appears to matter much less than the volume,” he says. “Statistical models that try to account for potential inter-relationships between media coverage and polls show that the volume of Trump’s coverage is helping to drive his poll numbers, and vice versa. But the tone of coverage has no apparent relationship to poll numbers, once you account for volume.”
In short, Trump was right when, long ago in 1987, he concluded: “Good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy sells.”
We have seen what happens to Trump’s ratings when, even for a few weeks, he doesn’t make headlines. And the acid test for Corbyn – even through the cavalcade of this week’s Conservative party conference – is pondering what might happen if the relentless salvoes of anti-Jezza headlines fade away. Can he survive and prosper if the Daily Dacre and Greater Bashing Bun fall silent?
