By ROBERT GILLETTE
Who knew that small, politically reddish Wolfeboro, by the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, would prove to be a predictor of the Democratic blue wave that swept New Hampshire this week and the nation beyond?
WAPP did.
Wolfeboro Area Peaceful Protesters, that is, an ad hoc gathering of 50 to 70 people drawn from half a dozen neighboring communities who, for more than 20 months now have staged quiet demonstrations every Saturday from noon to 1 p.m. against President Trump’s actions and policies that national opinion polls reveal nearly two-thirds of American voters object to, resulting in the lowest presidential approval ratings on record.
The long list is familiar, from a six week war of choice on Iran now in its eighth month, driving up fuel prices. ICE brutality. A trade war with Canada, of all places, and the rest of the world, spiking consumer prices. Trump’s strange affinity for Vladimir Putin. His taxpayer funded vanity projects. His general vulgarity.
And a paralyzed, compliant Republican Congress.
Week after week, many passing drivers signaled their views of these protests. It seemed clear that most people approved while a small number did not – and that WAPP was inadvertently conducting a kind of rough opinion poll.
So they started keeping score. For precisely one hour each week, WAPP recorded every vehicle gesture, no more than one per vehicle. Most were from New Hampshire, a few from out of state, with typically 150 to 180 gestures noted per week.
The results were reassuring but puzzling. Starting in May, approvals outnumbered disapprovals by 13 to 1. As mid-term elections approached the ratio of approval to disapproval doubled to a steady 24 to 26 to 1. No Kings Day on October 17 brought out a crowd of 335 and a peak approval ratio of 36 to 1.
What did this mean? These figures were wildly out of line with national polling that showed that the two extremes of strong disapproval versus strong approval of Trump registered about 2 to 1, or one-tenth of WAPP’s ratio week after week.
Something real was being measured, but what? Were conservatives simply shy about expressing themselves? Doubtful.
Polling by the respected Pew Research Center suggested an answer: The categories of strong Trump disapproval and strong approval actually encompassed a spectrum of intensity – the temperature of engagement with a point of view – which no one appeared to be tracking.
Except possibly WAPP, by accident. Evidently, discontent with Trump was running searingly hot while Trump voters’ feelings may have cooled amid the war, inflation and evidence of corruption.
Then a corroborating measure emerged. Starting in October, four and sometimes up to eight pro-Trump counter-protesters began appearing on Saturdays. At first they stood apart. Then they began mingling.
And chatting. Some of them clearly felt unease with Trump.
“I didn’t vote for a war,” one MAGA-hatted counter-protester confided, but expressed fear of what a liberal Congress might do, like stacking the Supreme Court. (Not as long as Trump wields a veto, he was told.) Another asked how WAPP managed to organize so many people every week. The answer was, “We don’t. It’s spontaneous.”
WAPP’s 70 and their four equaled a ratio of 18 to 1, in the ballpark of the drive-by ratio.
“Clearly the momentum is with the left,” MAGA-hat observed.
Turns out, it was.
Robert Gillette
Ossipee, NH