We keep hearing whispers that the Trump administration wants to get the spotlight off pharmaceuticals and vaccines ahead of the midterms. Instead, the focus should be on cleaning up the food as the path to great American health. The messaging around food polls better, they say, whereas the pressure on vaccine makers and culling of the childhood schedule is a political loser. So they say. 

We’ll get to whether this is true (evidence is weak or non-existent) but first a comment on campaigning by polling. The Trump movement has defied the polls constantly for ten years, choosing populist instincts instead as campaign thematics. That has worked. How many times must conventional polling fail before the political class gets the message that they should not determine messaging?

In any case, let’s look at the evidence we have. 

Gallup has measured confidence in industry for a quarter of a century. During this time, the status of the pharmaceutical industry has only fallen. Now it rates second-to-last of 25 industries right above government itself. In 2020, 34 percent of those polled had negative or somewhat negative views. That is now 58 percent, with only 28 percent expressing some confidence. That’s rock-bottom.

A Gallup poll from 2022 reveals scant support for Covid vaccine mandates in schools, with only 13 percent of Republicans favoring them in elementary schools and only 18 percent for them in college. In general, more than 80 percent of Republicans oppose such mandates, which is exactly the reverse of Democrats, though this poll was four years ago and that has likely changed too. Independents are split. 

Back in 1992, the public overwhelmingly supported vaccination requirements in general: 80% for and only 17% against. Those numbers are on the verge of crossing, according to Gallup. Even with a vaguely worded question clearly biased toward positive answers, 45% now say government should stay completely out, while only 51% support vaccination requirements.

We should be particularly struck by the trends in answers to the following absurdly biased question: “How important is it that parents get their children vaccinated?” The easy answer is it is important. Pollsters know that you would only construct such a question if you are going for an overwhelmingly positive answer. 

To say it is........

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