The polling, most especially out of Britain — or is it “England” or “Great Britain”? — has made it pretty clear that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s weekend appearance with Billionaire Race-Hoaxer Oprah Winfrey was a big mistake.
You can see the polling here, here, and here. But it is these numbers that are the most telling of just how badly this interview backfired:
A new YouGov poll, released on Friday, revealed that following the couple’s Oprah Winfrey interview, the couple has fallen very much out of favour with the British public.
It showed that 45 per cent of Britons have a positive opinion of Prince Harry, while 48 per cent regard him negatively, giving a net score -3. This represents a drop of 15 points from March 2 and marks the first time attitudes have been more negative than positive towards the prince.
Meghan’s scores have also fallen considerably. Only three in ten people said they had a positive opinion of her, while six in ten viewed her negatively. This gave her a net rating of -27, down from -14 a week ago.
At this point, I don’t think there is any question Harry and Meghan damaged themselves with the general public. A ton of goodwill, especially towards Harry, has been squandered. So the question is why?
Well, as I mentioned in my piece about how Meghan has just exposed Harry as a terrible husband and man, like most of the country, I didn’t watch the two-hour interview. I did, though, read the transcript and see the clips that have been flying around. So based on that and the polling, here are some thoughts…
1) A lot of people believe Meghan was lying. They just didn’t find her allegations credible, especially the stuff about not Googling the Royal Family. I can’t say whether or not she told the truth. I have no idea. But it is just a fact that a whole lot of people do not believe her.
2) Even if Meghan told the truth about her most incendiary claim of someone wondering out loud about how dark her baby would be, it was still an act of racial McCarthyism on her part — the act of hurling an accusation that cannot be proved or disproved because the hurler refuses specifics. Also, if this did indeed happen, not naming the offender is a deliberate tactic on Harry and Meghan’s part, a grotesque maneuver that makes it impossible for the Royal Family to clean house and restore its reputation. The entire institution remains smeared.
3) Meghan is no Diana. Meghan Markle is a pushing-40 divorcé who managed to navigate the shark-filled waters of Hollywood, but now we’re supposed to believe she’s some sort of helpless waif, some fawn thrown to the wolves. Diana was only 20 when she married Charles. Meghan is a fully formed woman who’s suddenly pretending to be helpless and fragile. The frame doesn’t fit.
4) Harry is a terrible husband. If you take Meghan at her word, why wasn’t he leading the charge to protect his wife, especially when she was suicidal? It is his job, duty, and privilege to protect her from the royal bureaucracy, and most especially to get her the help she needed when she had her suicidal breakdown. Instead, in her tales of woe, he’s nowhere to be found. He’s a useless bystander. What a pathetic excuse for a man.
5) Rich people and their problems. Gimme a break with these two multimillionaires. Boo hoo, I’m worth millions, world-famous, sitting down with Oprah, live in a $14.7 million home — I’m still young and healthy and have my whole life ahead of me… Woe is me! Woe is me! They can both fuck right off.
6) If Meghan should be compared to anyone, it is Grace Kelly, another “star” plucked from Hollywood and whisked off to a castle. Anyone familiar with Kelly’s story, though, will tell you that’s where the similarities end. Once Kelly made her choice (and did so at the much younger age of 26), she accepted her role as a sovereign with the kind of class and stoicism that was expected of her. What’s more, anyone familiar with her biography knows full well the lifetime of indignities Kelly suffered as a result, which pale compared to Meghan’s. Kelly also gave up more. When she married Prince Rainier, Kelly was at the height of her stardom, a young, full-blown Oscar-winning movie star. When Markle married Harry, she was a sporadically employed, C-list TV actress about to enter middle age. Nevertheless, because she understood she represented her people and not herself, Kelly never complained or went public or made anything about her. She prized her dignity above all. She was pure royalty even before she was royalty.
7) Harry and Meghan are not likable. The whining, the narcissism, the preening, the desperateness, the bowing and scraping before the altar of woke. He comes off as henpecked and weak. She comes off as mercenary. They both lack charisma and humor and any kind of appreciation for their massive privilege. They come off as whiny, pretentious, manipulative, and self-involved to the point of blindness.
8) Harry and Meghan appear to be appealing to the worst people in the world. You know, now that I think about it, in the end, the interview might be a success of sorts. The duo’s goal wasn’t so much to appeal to the masses but to appeal to the world’s wretched elites who consider self-confession, narcissism, race-baiting, and playing the victim the coin of their appalling realm. By behaving in such an appalling way, Harry and Meghan were signaling to the corporate media, Big Tech, and left-wing Hollywood — Hey, we are one of you. Let us in. These days, if you successfully do get in, it doesn’t matter if we the people loathe you — you are in and the game will be rigged inside the velvet bubble to ensure an endless supply of unearned riches, awards, and boot-licking.
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