A failing economy. A broken border and immigration crisis. A war that could go nuclear at any moment in Ukraine. Perceptions of age-related cognitive decline. Whispers of being replaced mid-campaign. An impeachment inquiry underway that could upend everything in politics today. The possible election-year rematch with the previous president.
This is not the storyline of the next David Balducci novel. It is, instead, the many crises afflicting the octogenarian President Joe Biden and his re-election campaign.
If these factors had plagued Donald Trump’s presidency, they would be constantly breaking news stories. They would be framed in a consistently negative light, too.
But since Biden is a Democrat and the media long ago abandoned any pretense of objectivity in the Age of Donald Trump, the same media outlets that relentlessly chased down any and all possible negative stories about the Trump administration is ignoring the real crises occurring under Biden’s watch.
The Mainstream Media Thinks Trump Is a Fascist
Anything to carry water for the forty-sixth president who, by any objective measure, has failed to achieve a scintilla of the promises that Joe Biden had made to the American people while campaigning for office in 2020.
In the eyes of our major news media outlets, Trump and all who support him are simply fascist wannabes.
Rather than address the Republican Party’s real concerns about Biden or seek to understand their unusually sycophantic support for Donald Trump (Republicans rarely fall in love with their presidential candidates as they have with Trump), the mainstream press is simply name-calling Republicans and doing their utmost to obsequiously protect the very weak Biden.
Even some members of the mainstream media are starting to complain. One New York Times writer in particular was at a conference in Austin, Texas, where they lamented the loss of the dynamic press appearances that defined Donald Trump’s time in the White House.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times stated that Trump, despite the fact that while Trump went an inordinate amount of time without doing a formal White House briefing, he was often available for impromptu pressers, famously on the White House lawn, as he sojourned to Marine One.
Biden, meanwhile, has resumed formal White House press briefings, but he has personally eschewed much interaction with the press. Biden has chosen instead to do softball interviews with friendly reporters — even the Weather Channel — rather than risk having to answer even the slightest difficult questions.
According to Kanno-Youngs, if given the opportunity, most mainstream media reporters would be compelled to ask President Biden about at least some of the controversies afflicting his administration.
How the Media Protects Biden (From Himself)
Notably, even the most obsequious reporters would be compelled to inquire about Biden’s thoughts surrounding the House Republican impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Of course, Biden is known for being the king of putting his foot in his mouth.
The very last thing that Biden or his team need right now is for the forty-sixth president to bumble into incriminating himself or making him vulnerable to greater Republican attacks. Better instead to simply ignore any hard questions, hide in the White House basement, and hope that the media finds Trump to be a greater threat than Biden so that they will ignore Biden’s evasiveness with them long enough to allow for him to cruise into re-election.
For the handful of reporters who at least want to ask Biden a slightly difficult question, their annoyance and public complaints will prove insufficient in swaying the forty-sixth president to talk to them. Biden is vulnerable. He knows it and his advisers know it. But they also understand that the bulk of the media will protect President Biden because they want the Democrats to retain power and vanquish their bogeyman, Donald Trump.
Drop any expectation that the media will ever truly hold Biden accountable. They can’t afford to. So many of them truly believe Trump and his followers are fascists, that it is impossible for the media to ever be objective on the 2024 Election. The death of journalism happened some time ago. The post-truth, zombie journalism we’re seeing today is the real threat to our hallowed democracy.
If our leaders are not held accountable by an objective, widely read and watched news media, then they will behave with impunity. That behavior would only further damage America’s representative democracy — possibly irrevocably, regardless of whether Trump is the Republican nominee or not. To regain the trust of Americans, the media should take the baby step of holding Biden accountable for his lies, exaggerations, and failures.
Thus far, zombie journalism seems to be their preferred method of operation.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon. He writes opinion columns for this publication.
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