The Media Rigs The 2024 Election

History Continues To Repeat Itself

President Joe Biden’s performance in the first presidential debate was abysmal. Regardless of the reason for what occurred it was a betrayal of the trust millions of Americans have put in him over the last four years, not just as a partisan party leader, but as the head of the American government. The debate over how he and the Democrats should proceed from here is a legitimate discussion worth having.

This is completely separate from the media feeding frenzy that has raged nonstop since before the end of the debate.

What is happening in the mainstream American media in outlets like the New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and beyond is disgraceful and beyond contempt. The free flow of disdain for Biden, Democratic voters, and the sanctity of public discourse is obvious to even the most casual observer.

I have not seen worse behavior since the same press aided and abetted George W. Bush in selling a pack of lies about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction from 2001-2004. It isn’t even worth saying the press should be ashamed because they have shown us time and time again, they have no shame.

As a longtime critic of political reporting, a frequent fig leaf often offered in defense as outlets circle the wagons against liberal criticism, is that it is unfair to assess them as a herd. We are individuals, they protest, and the worst of us should not be lumped in with exemplary moments of reporting.

But to appropriate Bette Davis in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane: Media, you are in that pack.

How else to explain the manner in which the people who reflexively insist there are “two sides” to every issue have completely dispensed with reporting in full dimensions the issues around Biden’s performance? The press has chosen a lane, best exemplified by the New York Times loading up their front page and home page with anti-Biden narratives. The debate within the Democratic Party and liberalism is being reported as a one-sided affair, despite prominent leaders in the party making the argument for Biden’s continued candidacy. In the media pack, that storyline effectively has ceased to exist. They want Biden out, and they want him out now.

We’ve seen this kind of thing again and again from this pack of jackals. We saw it in the withdrawal from Afghanistan, when the press all but ignored successful operations to evacuate personnel and instead hyped up problems and misfires. We had purportedly nonpartisan reporters at outlets like CNN sounding like sock puppets for the Lindsey Grahams and Ted Cruzes of the world in expressing exasperation at Biden’s operation.

We also of course saw it in the 2016 election, when a collective shrug was made at Trump after he mocked the disabled and called Mexicans rapists, in favor of what was the single most important national security issue in American history: Hillary Clinton’s emails.

This deranged behavior also popped up when the press complained incessantly that President Barack Obama needed to go out and play golf with then-Speaker John Boehner, and again when the media decided the Clintons were too bumpkin to be a part of official Washington in the early 1990s, and their behavior helped pave the way for one of the most disastrous presidencies in American history because they spent the entire 2000 election cycle calling Al Gore a liar. Ever notice how even though Bush knowingly lied about WMDs, the press has never elevated that to the same level of scandal as Gore (accurately) describing his key role in contributing to the early internet? Yeah.

Why is the press doing this? While I think that there is some truth to the fact that the ownership of most of these media outlets has a conservative world view and that they are happy to pillory the Democratic Party at every opportunity they get, I think the reasoning is simpler.

The media misses Donald Trump. And they would like him to win.

The members of the mainstream media are human beings (despite frequent appearances to the contrary) and human beings respond to incentives. There is an enormous personal financial incentive to another four years of Trump in the White House, and a disincentive for the press pack if Biden (or any other Democrat) is in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Biden administration has been competently boring, passing a roster of better than anticipated legislative achievements that have led to low unemployment, low fuel prices, massive infrastructure investment and now-declining inflation. This is great for America but it sucks for the bank accounts of most journalists.

During the Trump presidency they didn’t have to bother covering things like replacing lead pipes in Black communities or attempts to forgive billions in student debt. No, under Trump they had a never ending stream of feuds instigated by Trump, ranging from childish insults thrown at Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, NATO, and random people on social media. They had Trump insiders leaking office gossip about Omarosa, Diet Pepsi and other nonsense to stenographers like the New York Times’ resident Regina George, Maggie Haberman.

This led to massive online traffic, a bump in television ratings and book deals, so many book deals. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl has somehow squeezed out three Trump books, and the title of his first bestselling tome gives the game away: “Front Row at the Trump Show.”

Faced with the choice of another four years of Biden/Harris or the gravy train of Trump, the press has openly picked Trump. Even before the debate, the media studiously minimized Trump’s criminal convictions, fascist rantings, verbal diarrhea and his use of language literally out of Adolf Hitler’s playbook. Instead, they decided that the most important story in this race was Biden’s age.

When responding to criticism of this coverage choice, they resort to that tired old defense, insisting that they merely cover the news and that liberals are upset because it paints their candidate in a poor light.

But what they chose to do was put their entire body (not just a thumb) on the scales. The same way in which they minimized Russian interference in the election to focus on Clinton’s staffers sharing food recipes and the national security implications of risotto, they elevated Biden’s age above all else.

The press has long ago thrown away the veneer of plausible deniability in this practice and where I would fault fellow liberals is giving the press the benefit of the doubt. Surely, the thought process goes, they are as afraid of how a second Trump term would crack down on their ability to do their jobs and exercise their freedom as the rest of us.

This is unfortunately naive. These people do not care. They are far more interested in their personal financial gain and professional standing than the future of the country. Just like they didn’t care about what Bush would do to the citizens of Iraq and the American military as they rushed to publish and broadcast “scoops” about nonexistent weapons. They don’t care. A cursory study of the history of Germany shows far too many were quite happy to either turn a blind eye to Hitler’s ascent because after all, currency from Nazis is still currency.

We are in a bad place in this country and we have been for some time. The political system has been in near-constant upheaval, the party tasked with providing adult leadership (the Democrats) has shown a compulsive disinterest in adapting to the politics and communications strategies of the modern era, and the press stinks.

What is needed is constant pressure on these people, in nonviolent and legal ways, to blunt the ill effects of their zealotry on the country. The press went off into the deep end decades ago, now they are trying to drag the rest of us even further into deep, dark trenches that we may never be able to claw our way out of.

“The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it – and rather successfully. Cassius was right. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.’

Good night and good luck.” - Edward R. Murrow, 1954

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— Oliver

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Exclusive Kal-El Photo

Kal is blissfully unaware of this mess and I envy him. The squirrels are a problem though.