The partisan divide over media consumption habits means Americans are getting vastly different messages about what’s important, according to new polling.
Morning Consult and Politico asked Americans how much they have seen, read or heard about a number of issues that have been in the news in recent weeks, and the results clearly show partisan biases.
For example, pollsters asked people about Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, texting Donad Trump’s chief of staff regarding efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Thirty-six percent of Democrats said they had heard a lot about the story, compared to just 12 percent of Republicans. More than a one-third of Republicans said they had seen “nothing at all” about it.
Justice Thomas, a conservative, was the only member of the Supreme Court to disagree with a decision denying Trump’s effort to block an investigative committee from receiving materials related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. Some people on the left have called for Justice Thomas to recuse himself from relevant cases.
According to Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog, Fox News gave minimal coverage during the early days of the story.
On the other hand, 62 percent of Republicans said they had heard “a lot” or “some” about federal investigators stepping up their probe into President Biden’s son, Hunter. Only 45 percent of Democrats said the same.
Hunter Biden is being investigated for money laundering and tax violations connected to his foreign business involvement beginning when his father was vice president.
“We heard a lot about collusion during the Trump era, but the real collusion happened between broadcast, print and social media all working together to either squash or dismiss the Hunter Biden laptop story,” Fox News commentator Joe Concha wrote in The Hill.
But a Hunter Biden story went the opposite way as well. At the end of March, Trump called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release any information he has on the Biden family, even while Putin is waging an unprovoked war on Ukraine, where he has been accused of war crimes.
Twenty-six percent of Democrats, and 15 percent of Republicans, said they had heard “a lot” about the story. A little more than one-third of each party said they had seen “some” news about it.
There was a far bigger divide on a different story involving Trump. In late March, a judge said it is “more likely than not” that Trump committed federal crimes in an effort to obstruct the transfer of power following his loss in 2020.
Two-thirds of Democrats had heard about this story, including 29 percent who said “a lot.” On the other hand, only 8 percent of Republicans had heard “a lot” and 32 percent had seen or heard “some.” Another third of Democrats said they hadn’t heard anything about the story.
The survey was conducted April 1-4 of 2,003 registered voters, with a margin of error of 2 percent. Politico made both topline results and the cross-tabulations available.
A recent study by political scientists at the University of California, Berkley and Yale University found that people who watch CNN and Fox News are exposed to different stories – and that switching networks may change one’s mind about a topic.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.