Stipulated: the political press in the United States is steaming hot garbage. Sometimes I wonder if we spend too much time complaining about it. Sometimes I think the theories folks put forth to explain its willful toxicity cross the line into paranoia.
But for me at least, the core issue is never in doubt: The D.C. press is wired for Republicans, and over the better part of a decade now,* the political media herd has demonstrated it lacks the capacity to adjust to changing circumstances and is poised to both-sides a democracy into a dictatorship.
The bumbling DC MSM are too rigid or compromised or stupid or whatever to perceive the threat and come down on the side of democracy. Even when a fluorescent orange fascist and his slack-jawed horde scream “enemy of the people” in their goddamn faces daily.
I thought I’d accepted that and made my peace with it. Then I saw this CNN analysis by Stephen Collinson with a promising lede, and it awakened my fury at these gormless sheep all over again:
CNN — Donald Trump’s voters get all the attention. But it’s Joe Biden’s who may decide the general election.
That’s promising, right? I braced myself for the shock of reading about, I dunno, maybe a union member who appreciated the president’s stint on the picket line, or a person whose crushing student debt had been forgiven, or someone whose town was in the process of being revitalized due to a long-neglected infrastructure project.
Hahaha, nope! Here’s a screenshot of a video clip that prominently illustrates and allegedly adds to the discussion of Biden voters — the subject is a Trump-voting moron who’s so mind-bendingly gullible that he’s convinced himself one of the most corrupt villains to ever walk the earth is incorruptible.
Other clips include 82-year-old Bernie Sanders speaking for America’s youth about their discontent with Biden’s policy on Israel and several black voters who worry that people won’t show up for Biden because there’s been too little progress on issues they care about. And you know what? Fair enough on the latter two clips.
Some Democrats do worry that the president is getting played by Netanyahu and/or hasn’t sufficiently used U.S. leverage to protect civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. Some Democrats do question the administration’s priorities. These are legit angles to cover in the runup to an election where coalition turnout will be key.
But can we not get some fucking balance here? I mean, if you’re going to include the views of a white man who is so self-lobotomized that he sincerely believes international commodity Donald Trump “pretty much can’t be bought,” how about a mention of a Democrat who can’t wait to vote for Biden again?
I shit you not, y’all — here’s how the CNN piece on Biden voters ends:
“They didn’t like his act or his Twitter, but he got things done,” said [Dominick] Lombardi, [vice chairman of the Orange Republican Party in New Haven County, Connecticut], who was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap at a Trump rally in New Hampshire last weekend.
If democracy is to be saved, we Biden voters will have to do the saving without any assistance from the Fourth Estate. In fact, we’ll have to save democracy with their dead fucking weight strapped to our backs.
Open thread.
*God help us, next year will mark the 10th anniversary of Donald Trump’s descent down the golden escalator to launch his campaign. I laughed at the time. What kind of goddamn moron thinks a bloated, scammy jerk and his stale, scowling arm-candy riding an escalator down to a lobby constitutes a grand entrance? What I did not understand back then is that the rest of us were descending too, straight into Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell, where we will apparently remain until that fucker finally dies.