I try not to get wound up about polls. This far out from a presidential election, there’s plenty of time for events to affect popular sentiment, even in a tight race between two overly known candidates. And a shift by 1 or 2 percentage points could be decisive. Asking people what they might do in six months is somewhat useful but not necessarily determinative in a close contest. But what is worth following are polls that show us how voters are thinking about the world. And one recent survey was a doozy and, for Joe Biden fans and Democrats, perhaps discouraging.

A Politico-Morning Consult poll asked respondents which presumptive presidential nominee “has done more to promote infrastructure improvements and job creation.” Forty percent said Biden, 37 percent Donald Trump—a virtual tie. (Twelve percent said the two men had done the same.) This showed much of America is ignorant or willfully wrong. Biden successfully pushed for a bipartisan bill that yielded $1 trillion in infrastructure investments to bolster bridges, roads, transit systems, and more. Trump, when he was in the White House, declared “Infrastructure Week” several times and ended up passing nothing. It even became a joke about his administration. Yeah, another Infrastructure Week, Trump in a truck blowing the horn. So the score: 1,000,000,000,000 to zero. Yet half the public does not know or understand that—or won’t admit it.

Likewise, Biden has outscored Trump on job creation. In the first three years of their respective presidencies, 15 million jobs were created during Biden’s administration, and 6 million were created during Trump’s (pre-Covid) stint. In this comparison, Biden does benefit from the post-pandemic rebound. Still, facts are facts (unless they’re alternative facts).

What does this one polling question indicate? It might be that the pain of inflation (which is still hitting many Americans) colors overall attitudes about economic matters. This untethered-from-reality response might also reflect that Trump’s incessant braying (and lying) about how great the economy was on his watch works. He’s a pitchman who never stops slinging his slogans—and far too many voters are enthralled with him and absorb his spin as The Truth.

In another question in this poll, a decisive majority (61 percent) said they believe the economy today is much or somewhat worse than it was four years ago—that’s when the economy was in a freefall because of the pandemic that Trump was mismanaging. There are plenty of possible explanations. Again, the persistent trauma caused by the post-pandemic inflation. Or maybe the tendency of people to regard the past more positively than the present. Objects in the rearview mirror may look better than they were. (George W. Bush, who launched a misguided war that caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and that destabilized the Middle East, left office with a dismal 34 percent approval rating. In 2018, 61 percent of Americans had a favorable view of him.) Whatever the reason, many Americans are misjudging present and recent realities.

Are some doing so because they fancy Trump and, thus, accept the false information he peddles? Or do they support Trump because they hold mistaken beliefs about basic matters? It might be a bit of a chicken-and-egg dynamic. In any event, too many don’t have their facts straight. That’s a problem.

This is yet another indication that our political-media system is broken. Not that we needed another sign of that. The embrace by millions of Trump’s Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him due to the machinations of the Deep State, the media, Democrats, voting machine companies, and foreign adversaries (China! Venezuela!) was proof the system was kaput. A January poll showed that 30 percent of Americans still say Biden’s victory was illegitimate. Folks who believe Biden conspired to steal the election are unlikely to credit him with doing better on infrastructure policy or job creation than Trump. But there are many beyond this group whose views also are not tethered to reality. That’s obviously a problem for democracy. If voters do not possess good information, they are less likely to render good decisions.

Pondering this, I thought about the recent interview Joe Kahn, the executive editor of the New York Times, gave to Ben Smith, the editor of the online outlet Semafor. Smith began by asking Kahn why the Times does not see its job as stopping an authoritarian—that would be Trump—from taking power. Putting the question that way allowed Kahn the easy out of proclaiming the importance of an independent media, and he replied, “To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote—that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda.”

The challenge for the media now is not whether to become a mouthpiece for Biden but how to structure its coverage to meet the urgency of the moment. Though Kahn in this interview insisted that his paper has fully covered Biden’s infrastructure bill and other legislative accomplishments, it has pounded the issue of his age, focused overly on the horse-race elements of the presidential contest, and not consistently highlighted Trump’s authoritarian impulses and excesses (while at times publishing important pieces on this).

I don’t want to pick on the Times, and in these days of fractured media, one newspaper, even the most important one in the nation, certainly is not responsible for shaping all public attitudes about Biden, Trump, and the world. Yet I noticed in Kahn’s remarks an unwillingness to acknowledge that this is a particularly difficult or perilous time and that standard practices might need a rethinking. It’s fine to declare the value of independent media that entails, as he put it, “hard-hitting, well-rounded coverage of both candidates, and informing voters.” But what is the media to do when a threat to democracy is being fueled by so much misinformation and baseless beliefs? Is covering both sides in the same standard fashion sufficient?

Of course, this is a question for others in the media. And Biden and the Democrats could be doing better on the messaging front. The Democrats can always be doing better on the messaging front. (I’ve been writing this for, uh, decades.) They ought to learn from Trump on this—without adopting his disingenuous ways. Moreover, the complete transformation of the GOP into a Trump cult that reinforces his many false statements and narratives further perverts and undermines the national discourse.

If a third of American voters or so are stuck in Trump’s false reality—believing that he won in 2020, that his economy was the best ever, and that he’s a brilliant and honest leader—there’s not much that mainstream media coverage can do to change that. But the existence of this lost-in-Trump America makes it more crucial for major journalistic outlets to steadily provide for the other two-thirds a clear picture of the Biden-Trump comparison and what’s at stake. Trump and his autocratic crusade benefits from misinformed voters. The fight for the nation’s democratic future depends on decreasing the size of that portion of the electorate.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland@motherjones.com.

As readers of the last Our Land issue know from my essay on Hirsohima, I recently spent time in Japan. I was there as a tourist, my first time in Asia. The Land of the Rising Sun has always been on my travel bucket list, mainly because it seemed like an infinitely fascinating country, a blend of modernity and traditions that have ensued for hundreds of years. I fancy the Zen aesthetic. I’m Buddhism-curious due to its focus on meditation. (Two-thirds of Japanese practice Buddhism, and many of them do the same with Shinto.) And I love the food—though I’m squeamish about eel and have resolved not to eat octopus after watching My Octopus Teacher. On this trip I had the best tuna sashimi I’ve ever eaten at a stall in Tokyo’s fish market. I also tried snail—cooked—for the first time.

Japan as a vacation destination met my expectations. It was absolutely engaging—whether I was pushing my way through the massive crowd at Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo (advertised as the busiest intersection in the world—and made busier by all the people taking selfies while crossing) or walking quietly through one of Kyoto’s many serene and beautiful temples. Trying to figure out the nuances of Japanese society is a pursuit that I am sure would take many years, but it was so entertaining to give it a shot for two weeks. I don’t pretend to have gained any valuable insight during my brief stint there. But here are a few random observations.

My favorite moments were visiting a bevy of Buddhist temples in Kyoto. They exude serenity and convey a sense of past into the present. A standout was Saihoji, known as the Moss Temple for its beautiful moss garden. Before entering that garden, you must quiet your mind by copying sutra. (David Bowie and Brian Eno were supposedly inspired by this temple to write the song “Moss Garden,” which appears on Bowie’s Heroes album.)

A whirlwind trip through a country hardly yields a full understanding of a place. But this fortnight in Japan made me yearn for more.

The judges tell me they delighted in not having to weigh all the idiotic remarks that poured forth during the time I was away. But now it’s back to the grind. One of my favorite dumb motifs in MAGA land is comparing Donald Trump to Jesus. What could be more absurd? Yet it never stops. When Fox host Ainsley Earhardt was interviewing a South Carolina Republican voter and asked about Trump’s ongoing hush-money-porn-star-election-interference trial, the fellow said, “It is just absolutely a crucifixion. It’s awful.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Earhardt muttered. A crucifixion, indeed.

Ranting about this trial, former House speaker and past adulterer Newt Gingrich exclaimed, “In an ideal world, the Supreme Court would proactively intervene, strip this judge of this case. Every major neutral lawyer has said there is no case here.”

Of course, not every major lawyer has said that. Moreover, whatever happened to the right-wing opposition to judicial activism? Hard to imagine a more activist move on the part of SCOTUS than to try to intervene on its own to stop a state trial.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) made a fool of himself—again. On Meet the Press, host Kristen Welker asked if he would accept the outcome of the 2024 election, and Scott replied, “At the end of the day, the 47th president of the United States will be President Donald Trump.” Welker repeated the query: “Will you accept the election results of 2024, no matter who wins?” Scott answered, “That is my statement.” Once more came Welker: “Just yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024?” Scott again: “I look forward to President Trump being the 47th president.” Welker gallantly took another swing, and Scott still refused to answer the question.

This is not—or should not be—a tough question to handle. Scott could simply have said, “I expect we will have a fair and well-run election and everyone will accept the result.” But he has become such the Trump sycophant, craving the veep slot, he couldn’t even manage a mealy-mouthed reply. More sinisterly, this sort of pussyfooting suggests that Scott is ready to ride along with Trump should Dear Leader lose and bring back the Big Lie.

Speaking of which, the judges awarded top honors this week to Fox host Laura Ingraham for this statement that referred to Democrats and liberals: “The only thing we need to worry about is whether these self-proclaimed defenders of democracy will themselves really accept the will of the voters for whom they have shown so little respect.”

The judges pointed out that with this comment Ingraham could have also won the Most Chutzpah-ish Remark of the Week or the Most Unself-Aware Comment of the Week. Has she forgotten that she and Fox enabled and promoted MAGA world’s refusal to accept the vote in 2020? If so, there’s a certain lawsuit she should look up.

There were many moving messages in response to my piece recounting my Hiroshima visit. Tom Cleaver wrote:

You should have visited Nagasaki. Doing so will restore your faith in humanity. The bombing of Nagasaki has irony written all over it in neon. The city was the most anti-imperial, pro-Western city in Japan, from its history back before the Tokugawa Shogunate, as the port where the West was allowed to trade with Japan. It was the capital of Japanese Christianity and maintained that through the 231 years of the Shogunate's attempt to eradicate the religion. The city was also the center of resistance to the Shogunate in the civil war that established it.

Ground Zero for the bomb—which was dropped in violation of all the rules of engagement they had been given—was not the Mitsubishi arms plant they thought the bombed. It was the Urakami Catholic Church, the largest Christian church in Asia, built with the donations of parishioners after Christianity was legalized in the Meiji Restoration. The bomb was exploded directly over the bell tower, the only thing remaining of the church.

Here's the part that gives one hope for humanity: After the war, the citizens of Nagasaki decided the city would do all it could to see that such an event never happened again. So they dedicated the city to International Peace and Brotherhood. And the people of Nagasaki practice that. I experienced it firsthand as a Navy sailor when we visited the city. If you are a stranger in the city, someone will come up and ask if they can help you with anything. They might invite you to tea, or even offer to buy you a meal. They've been known to commit the most un-Japanese act of all: invite a stranger to their home. All to demonstrate brotherhood. This anti-Christian realized they had done the most amazing Christian thing of any people: They forgave the bombing.

Nagasaki does tend to get short shrift when we think about the atomic bombings at the end of World War II. Alas, my schedule did not allow me to head that far west in Japan. But Nagasaki and Hiroshima share this admirable commitment to spread the message that the world ought not forget and that all should be done so no humans will experience what occurred in these two cities.

Richard Goodman pointed out that history has two sides:

I share your horror of nuclear war, and I won't rehearse arguments you're familiar with. I'll just say this: In my five years in Japan (as a street musician and, later, as an ESL teacher, primarily to school children), I witnessed an educational system that inculcated children with endless reminders of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (The firebombing of Tokyo, which killed more people, got much less attention.) But the children were largely clueless about the savagery and death inflicted by Japan throughout the Great East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Those casualties were in the millions. Consequently, the Japanese public still can't fathom the hatred of Japan felt by many throughout Asia today.

Let’s also not forget that the American hatred and fear of the Japanese during World War II—as demonstrated by the internment camps and racist propaganda—influenced the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Ron Melancon shared this:

Our support of Israel's destruction of Gaza is understandable now that I can re-think what we did in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The recovery of these two cities and their dedication to the removal of nuclear weapons is remarkable. We are a guilty nation. 

There were lots of amens given to the rerun issue in which I celebrated walking. Harvey Berman emailed:

I have been walking every morning for the last 27 years. Usually, it's four miles in one hour; sometimes longer on weekends. A bike path is less than half a mile from my front door. I never bring my phone when I walk. I love being able to pay more attention to everything in my environment. I appreciate the beauty of simple things—flowers, trees, birds, animals, streams, cloud formations, constellations (for much of the year, it's dark in the early morning when I go out), etc. I also have a chance to organize my thoughts and plan the day ahead—almost like a therapy session with myself. I derive a deep sense of inner peace from these walks.

Walking is much more therapeutic than a session on the elliptical. As a bonus, the effect on my physical health is real. At age 71, I am on no medication. Blood pressure: 110/70. Cholesterol, 170. Resting pulse, 62. None of my muscles are sore, and none of my joints creak. I sleep very well. Appetite is great. I am fit and trim at 5' 9 1/2" tall and 132 lb. Walking is a powerful drug which has no side effects and costs nothing. Everyone should try it.

Jeez, Harvey, those are some stats. I’m going to have to do more walking.

“Why are you sitting in a big water bowl?”
“Just soaking, Moxie. Want to give it a try?”
“Will you throw the ball to me if I’m in it?”
“Of course not. That would make a mess.”
“You’re no fun.”

May 7, 2024: Modern-day lessons from Hiroshima; Ed Zwick’s Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions; the virtues of Tokyo Vice; and more.

May 1, 2024: From the Our Land archive: Donald Trump, stochastic terrorist; and more.

April 24, 2024: From the Our Land archive: Take a walk; and more.

April 20, 2024: Ari Berman’s new book explains the GOP's grand plan: minority rule; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Sen. Tom Cotton and Kari Lake); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

April 16, 2024: Should there be presidential debates?; Peter Morgan’s Patriots lacks that ol’ Russian drama; the Beckham documentary scores on the fields of sports and celebrity; and more.

April 13, 2024: Sleepwalking toward the 2024 election; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Woody Johnson); the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

April 9, 2024: A special Our Land report: Everything you wanted to know about Trump’s porn-star-hush-money case; and more.

April 6, 2024: The best political video of 2024 (so far); the tragedy and absurdity of the World Central Kitchen bombing in Gaza; Dumbass Comment of the Week (Dawn Staley): the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.