An example of a great misinformation campaign...

30. Do you approve or disapprove of the Republican tax plan?

                                                             
                     Tot    Rep    Dem    Ind    Men    Wom    
 
Approve              25%    60%     4%    20%    30%    20%    
Disapprove           52     15     81     54     49     55    
DK/NA                23     26     15     26     21     25    

31. Do you think the Republican tax plan will increase your taxes, reduce your taxes, or will it not have much impact either way?

                                                              
                     Tot    Rep    Dem    Ind    Men    Wom   
 
Increase taxes       35%    16%    54%    33%    31%    40%    
Reduce taxes         16     33      8     13     20     13     
Not much impact      36     43     27     41     39     33    
DK/NA                12      9     11     13     10     14     

This polling question is taken from the Quinnipiac poll that (along with others) made some headlines. 

Now I read an article the other day by a University of Minnesota psychologist, who had a whole slew of reasons why people might not like a tax cut (or specifically the GOP tax cut). He went into these psychological concepts about envy, suggesting that people are against the plan because someone else might benefit more than they do. He went into the concept that people inherently care more about fairness, than they do about personal gain. The argument being they would gladly give up any potential benefit to themselves, if they believed that others would not be so lucky. He had several little psychological explanations that by themselves, might otherwise make sense.

But  overall, the viewpoint was overly complicated, and generally didn't do the two things that I believe would have given it more credibility. The first would have been to explain why these psychological phenomenons have never undercut support for previous tax cuts. Certainly the human psychology hasn't changed dramatically over the past couple of decades. The second would have been to take a little bit of time to acknowledge the overwhelming influence of partisan politics, as well as the seething contempt felt for Donald Trump by most everyone left of center.




I would offer that the main reason why most polling showed that people didn't like the tax cuts was self explanatory based on these two specific questions from Quinnipiac. Democrats, along with their echo chamber of MSM, told the American public that the Trump/GOP tax cuts were actually income redistribution to the rich. Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi specifically told their faithful that the middle class would see a tax increase, and that the only people benefiting would be corporations and the rich. The MSM reported the Schumer Pelosi rhetoric as the truth, and abracadabra, you have convinced 80% of the Democrats and 74% of Independents that they will not see a tax cut. Moreover you convinced more than half of Democrats and more than a third of Independents that they would be paying more taxes, apparently in order to fund tax breaks for corporations and the rich.

Quite obviously, it would be a difficult proposition to convince people who are not seeing any personal benefit, or even paying more... that a tax cut for other people would be good.

But the truth is that every single independent tax agency that has studied the tax bill suggested that as many as 80% of taxpayers would get a tax break. The objective determination is that among the middle class, the average tax cut should be somewhere between $1000-2000. Now, since the bill has passed, you see more and more acknowledgement of this.

I would argue that a fair, thorough, and honest media, covering this tax bill fight as an objective observer, willing to provide the facts (rather than political propaganda disguised as facts) would done wonders for the support of the tax bill from the general public. In fact, and objective news reporting of this bill probably would have put support fairly close to that of other tax bills.

While there is some inherent truth that many on the left will simply oppose anything Trump or Republican as a knee jerk response, I hold the belief that the broader electorate is still willing to be swayed at least a little bit by the facts of the debate. The real reason why this tax bill has so much less support than previous bills, has nothing to do with the merits of the law, or new found psychological reasons. The real reason deals primarily with the fact that most of our country was duped by a heavily coordinated disinformation campaign between the Democratic Party and their echo chamber in the MSM.