and honestly, the obsession over “we should have said more about biden being old” starts to grate when the currently serving president is very obviously impaired by age and cognitive decline, to crickets from the press
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Actually it seems pretty damning either way:
•cognitively impaired but propped up by the most self-interested cabinet/WH/GOP
or
•not at all impaired but simply malevolent and amoral
Journalists could do a much better job by explaining what everyone can do if the government breaks laws and constitution every day.
* How to stop masked guys without badge from grabbing your neighbours
* How do I remove a congressman breaking a law?
* Ten easy signs to tell your mayor is a fascist
I'm old now and seeing the accomplishments of the Biden Admin I see him as the best POTUS of my lifetime. He got a hell of a lot done that moved this country forward. The economic recovery from Covid alone should put him in the Best of the Best list. Yes, he's old and with age came wisdom.
Alex Thompson is Brave and a Hero for speaking truth to someone no longer in power. Meanwhile, the press asked Trump about the SCOTUS ruling over Garcia on camera, he looked confused, and Stephen Miller leaned over and basically told him “no, they actually said it was okay”, and he went w/ it!
Biden is not the first president to decline in office. That's the point of a president surrounding himself w/ good people. The country continued to run efficiently and safely. Truthfully, I blame the media more for giving us Trump than I do Biden.
The 'he was old' part is not important but the 'what is UP with the Dems, why do they take such risks, which then lead to catastrophe?' is something I wish we had an answer for.
A better question is “Why do white voters continue to choose catastrophe?” Which is what causes Democrats to try to thread some sort of needle in the hopes of convincing folks not to make that choice.
Maybe but did it REQUIRE pretending Biden was A-OK, ignoring a pending need to campaign? All the denying of facts? It doesn't work! So can we never consider options? Power for Dems seems more like little fiefdoms. Wealthy class Lords cluster around the liege. Most reliable Dem voters are peasants.
There’s nothing wrong with Biden cognitively. He just moves more slowly than he used to. He’s old, not incapable. Unlike Trump, who’s both. And I’m sure part of the thinking was that Biden was the one person to beat Trump, so why risk it with someone else.
Trump sure looked beatable in 2016 and 2024 but was not beaten by these strategies. Why is it so important to insist he was unbeatable? Is it to defend a certain set of people in power? Or to avoid ever considering mistakes? Some other reason? Or was Trump unbeatable and our situation is hopeless?
Trump lost in 2016 and 2024. He's in office because the GOP was able to kick enough voters off the rolls/out of line that he was able to win more states.
That stuff was harder to pull off in 2020 because of the heavy use of vote by mail.
I never said any of that stuff. Not sure who you’re directing all of that to, but it doesn’t apply to me. 🤷🏾♀️ Again, my point is, the main problem is that the majority of white folks continue to vote for garbage. Which leaves Democrats trying to figure out how to work around that.
He could not campaign effectively and was not popular enough to win without campaigning hard. Our situation looked grim long before 11th hour possible save. For a long people insisted we mustn't have a THOUGHT this spelled danger. Now we're screwed. The end result seems relevant. Why did this happen
The insulation is much thicker around Trump’s age than it was around Biden’s. But people want a reason to make Biden fully responsible for Trump’s victory. The argument isn’t without some merit, but Biden’s insulation isn’t the whole story, given the largely blind eye on Trump’s obvious liabilities.
The age thing never mattered to me. What mattered to me was Biden’s administration doing its best to bring the country out of the pandemic but squandering it all to enable an ethnic cleansing.
Whaddaya mean? Philip Bump wrote 1 (one) piece about Trump's age problem after Biden left the race. Just like McConnell's single utterance on Jan 6, that should be enough.
My suspicion is it is the difference between things people feel they have some control over and what seems beyond their grasp. That Monday morning quarterbacking about Biden is pointless, cowardly, and another excuse for dodging the orange elephant in the room.
Yeah, I kept saying that after the debate - Trump also sucked, and was old and impaired, gave terrible answers, yet the focus was entirely on Biden. A Canadian commentator was the only one to observe that Biden won on content. 🤔
And he had some verbal stumbles, but that's typical of Biden, always has been - everyone knows that and elected him President anyway. His voice did sound weak but he at least made more sense than Trump.
While you're correct, I mean the job is President of the United States. It's an internationally public-facing position. You sort of need the employee to be good on style along with substance. It's a large part of what made Obama work globally, even when he was conducting a global offensive.
Oh he's absolutely a trainwreck, worst on optics when you actually get to see him. But Trump knows how to play the media for a specific crowd. Note you rarely see his actual quote in headlines, just a summary or the "best" soundbite/clip.
Going back to your statement here - I think it's worthwhile to ask why the media seems fine with presenting Trump's carefully-concocted fake image as reality, while at the same time challenging Biden, Harris, and other Dems on their legitimate accomplishments as public servants.
And look at his press events when he meets with foreign dignitaries in the Oval Office. He preens and rambles about irrelevant topics, blurts out braggadocio, cuts people off, ignores them when they try to get a word in edgewise, etc. Not Presidential material by any stretch of the imagination.
There were journalists going through the White House visitor log and deciding that a parkinson's specialist visiting the White House was some sort of smoking gun without checking who they were meeting. All anyone in the US media wanted to talk about in 2024 was Biden being old.
because they want King Trump to provide them with a firehose of news forever so they don’t wind up with another boring Democratic President that doesn’t leak to them all the time?
I agree with Al Frankenstein who wrote that the press doesn’t have a liberal or conservative bias, it has a lazy bias. Conservatives spend more time, $, and effort feeding pre-written narratives to the media, so they tend to get the coverage they want. Most of it probably doesn’t even need editing.
Frank Zappa nailed it in the 80’s- the country didn’t turn Right, the media did. If you talk to people, even in red counties, about progressive policies (avoiding trigger words they’ve been conditioned against) they’re a lot more popular than corporate media would have us believe
Exactly, the average American (putting the political brainwashing aside) generally wants more progressive policies.
Especially right now, there’s no coverage of protests happening across the country. I was in some backwoods hick town in Ohio a few weeks back and, even they were protesting trump.
Republicans have followers with guns, armed and ready to get violent- the media is appeasing the violent nutbars. It's a lot easier to realize that this started in the 1990s when the Republicans entered an open partnership with the militia movement, as soon as that happened their coverage improved
Nah. I don’t buy the excuse about fear of violence, for either the media or republican politicians. They have the microphones and the platforms to shine bright lights a problem and shape public opinion. They don’t, and are willingly complicit.
The GOP doesn't get better coverage because they are louder and meaner. They get better coverage because the people who own the outlets make it required if a journalist still wants to keep their job.
The left has its blind spots but it is fundamentally different from the right. The left is not going to tolerate a left wing version propaganda outfit like FOX. They need to create better ways to communicate but aping what FOX and the rest of the right wing echo chamber is doing is not the solution.
Mainstream media is becoming obsolete, anyway. Gen Z doesn't watch Fox, and half of them voted for Trump. Dems need to get better at memeing and social media in general.
I might agree with you if all of the outlets had been owned/edited by conservatives during his first term, but it was the same during his first term and some of those purchases/editor changes happened after.
And the general pattern has existed since Reagan was in office (that I have noticed), and that when the Network News, and things like 60 Minutes were still decidedly independent.
It's a Mommy/Daddy difference in how the two parties are seen. GOP is the "bumbling husband" and so get a lot of slack.
A good supporting piece of evidence for this is libs tried working the refs for better coverage early on in Biden’s term and it backfired and made media worse out of spite.
In addition to right wing corporate media monopolies, worth saying Columbia J school et al also trained ppl to believe that false equivalency and “objectivity” are the same thing. To illustrate: “well the Jews in the cattle cars say x, but Reich spokesppl say y.” See I presented both sides! 🙄
it’s basically the way US media covers Gaza/Israel for example or how climate deniers got platformed in the aughts as if it was a“debate” with two sides as opposed to a scientific consensus.
It grates, but these comparisons don't mean that we shouldn't have said more about Biden's senescence, especially after 2022, but that we should say more about Trump's. The crazy things that Trump sez are really highlighted on cable, though - not so much the NYT.
I canceled my WaPo, NYT, Atlantic and other subscriptions last summer weeks after the debate when the feeding frenzy on Biden just would not stop. (I truly believe you are the last good thing about the NYT, Jamelle.)
It was so egregious, especially in light of Trump farting and sleeping his way through his own felony trial at the very same time. And now, surprise, every one of us is fucked.
I’m just done paying to get lied to by journalists who have no values and no sense of proportion.
In the end, the problem was the 90 million eligible voters who did not vote, and the reluctance of many people to vote for a
black woman. It’s not much more complicated than that.
Just as it was talked about in the summer and as it is talked about now, Biden’s age is just a distraction by people in power who want more power. It is not the story.
It completely grates -- because it's not an argument focused on newsworthiness / relative harm. It's one suggesting the press could've helped avoid the Trump harm that's befallen us.
And, the press could've helped with THAT interest by... FOCUSING ON THE TRUMP FASCISM HARM THAT HAS BEFALLEN US.
In the midst of the destruction of American democracy and the most flagrant corruption and bribe-taking imaginable, their big story is that there wasn't *enough* coverage of Biden Old last year.
Feels like they're openly 'conceding' this one to avoid people digging for what they really should have done, which was reported accurately across the board and not be so utterly captured propagandists.
Biden’s age and obstinacy is half the story. The other half is that other than Pelosi, the also - gerontocrats covering it up *are still close to the top* and massively unable to meet the moment.
That’s not just news, it’s long term helpful to the Dems to hammer this.
The purpose in talking about the recent past is that we see its extension in the present and future. We see a Bidenish response to Trump on Schumer's part, and on Jeffries. Biden's DOJ gave Trump impunity (on perhaps the most treasonous act since the Civil War), and Schumer signed off on the Budget
Can we forget about Biden for a second and focus what’s actually going on? That’s what I’d like the press/media to do. Talk about the idiot that’s letting everyone else do his job for him. Talk about how every time he’s asked a question his answer is “I don’t know about that.”
yeah, the “Biden old” thing rings completely hollow when trump is practically the same age and showing far more signs of age-related decrepitude, including obvious cognitive impairment.
Just another example of how the attempt to avoid accusations of “liberal bias”, which are going to be levied in bad faith anyway, ends with a severe right-wing skew and actually NOT treating two things even close to equally, let alone fairly.
The difference is that the press still wants to "talking head" the last election, because they think it drives clicks. Versus most Americans who have moved on for many reasons, like the election was six months ago and BIDEN WASN'T EVEN THE CANDIDATE.
The press needs Trump because they have a severely declining audience and they have found no other way to keep viewers and readers. They need the outrage and him being the corrupt cretin that he is fits their purpose. Biden was competent but boring and that was bad for the media.
The media is not wrong to blame themselves. The shittiness of the electorate is proportional to how (mis)informed they are. It would be off-brand for them to not focus on a trite issue like this. But if anything, they failed to portray the equivalence of Donny’s cognitive liabilities
What does the media mean anymore? It's grouping The NY Times with Politico with Newsmax with comments on Truth Social. Choice is media has basically become a projective test. You seek out what reflects your worldview and your personality. Everything is available, so ignorance is not an excuse.
Yes - and the line there is corporate vs oligarchical media. Truth is astroturfed opinioneering, full of bots. Real differences btw the 2 kinds but also a common trait of being fronts for big $/resources to affect public opinion. Less giving ppl what they seek, more corralling into defined boxes
I think you're right. Seems to me it's also a play to distract from MSM's outsized role in forcing this shitshow on the country. I would LOVE for meidas touch to start shining some light on the part MSM played in getting chump elected, especially in how they so often gave him a free pass.
I'd kind of like to remind these people that Biden's not president any more. He wasn't even the nominee. They're fighting a war that they won a long time ago.
Just a collective decision to sniff Alex Thompson’s farts when his beat for a while was essentially aimed at getting Hunter Biden to take his own life.
The thing that frustrates me is the focus on Biden acts like there were no ramifications. He got forced off the ticket and the party got clobbered! The public was aware of his issues and did not like it. Accept, learn and move on!
idk, I think both can be true. no argument that he’s always been stupid, but comparing footage of him now vs. even five years ago, let alone eight, there’s a pretty noticeable difference. he’s declined both mentally and physically, imo.
Life is moving too fast for institutions to keep up with and a large part is probably the "consultant brain" thing where winning once means you should keep that position forever which infects politicians and journalists quite a lot it seems
And Biden did not insist on being so hands-on, so limitations were not as devastating as DJT’s. Things got done correctly by and large - Garland’s lack of performance a notable exception. Trump has had disaster after disaster because he insists on being il capo.
Exactly—before he dropped out & there were “Biden old” comments I was like…
Have you read a transcript of Trump? It’s utter NONSENSE. He just delivers it without stuttering. I’d vote for Biden’s corpse over elderly Trump cuz Biden’s cabinet is very competent and that WILL NOT be the case with Trump
Agree. Some of the Washington press corps sound like vapid gossips. Do they not think about the consequences of decisions and policies on the world outside of the DC?
I don’t even understand the rhetoric on that point. How many more articles about Biden being old do they think needed to be written beyond the hundreds they did?
I mean wtaf? Do they not know we all think they’re “in on it” in regards to undermining our democracy?
.....the press is supposed to be the accountability arm for our government like historically. This is the entire purpose of the first amendment protecting criticism of the government. The ms press being compromised should be more of a concern
Biden was old and should have dropped out earlier. Medical experts didn't respond to covid, a scary novel virus, with absolute perfection. So hey, let's rehash these past events forever, because there's nothing going on in Trump world that threatens our existence or anything.
We focus so much on the PoTUS when so much of what's impacting our lives is decided by the personnel he puts in place. Focusing on Biden's age instead of talking about the important work Lina Khan was doing seems criminal.
Similarly, Trump is corrupt, but we should talk more about Stephen Miller.
If Biden's age was truly the most important issue of 2024 (and I think that's an insane thing to think) then that's like the one area where the media served Americans very well. We heard a lot about it! The issue was brought to the fore! A campaign ended because of it!
The entire reason Biden's age was an issue in 2024 is because it helped Trump win lol. Like, no other bad outcome could be linked to his age. So instead of covering the bad outcome (Trump becoming president) they are going to pretend they didn't cover Biden's age extensively in 23 and 24.
You are 100% correct. Even at the time, media like @CNN were beating the "Biden is too old" drum. We were saying, "Trump is in mental decline. Why aren't you talking about that?" But now that @jaketapper.bsky.social has his new book out, we know why he did that.
I do wonder what universe these people were living in where the focus of the 2024 campaign coverage until Biden dropped out wasn't 90%+ on Biden's age to the extraordinary detriment of anyone looking to be informed about Trump's plans for his presidency.
Trump’s staff is currently behaving the same way as Biden’s did. Feinstein’s staff covered for her; Grassley’s staff is covering for him. staff of old elected officials have done this for decades. At least Dems (i.e. Pelosi)told Biden No even if it was late in the cycle. Old story, nothing burger.
Until it's obvious, it's really had to tell from a distance if a person is suffering age-related neurodegeneration or just normal age-related decline that doesn't really affect judgment. That's true of Trump just like it is of Biden. All we've got is "Maybe" and "We'll see..."
People have been speculating Trump has Alzheimer's type dementia from some odd traits of his since early in his first term, and that quite clearly wasn't the case. He wouldn't function like he is now if that were true then. I think people should take that as a lesson in hasty diagnosis.
The media is trying to retcon "Biden old" into the sole reason we are here, because that narrative would excuse the self serving journalistic malpractice the likes of Thompson and Tapper are engaged in
the only obsession Democrats should have about this is that the staffers who hid Biden's dementia, just like the staffers who hid Feinstein's, should never be trusted in those sorts of positions again, and should be grilled about this specific failure if they try to run for office.
exactly, we all saw it, it was kind of sad...now maybe let's talk about the current guy who wants to add a new number to a plane model because he wants two engines on it? like we're 6 year olds playing legos?
YES! Focus on how deranged the current President is…every news station should be reading his comments verbatim. They are nearly incomprehensible once he starts to riff. Every news cast should start with “Their eating the dogs and cats”. The man is an idiot and it should be pointed out consistently
I don't understand how any journalist is saying "we should have said more about Biden being old" when they literally said so much they ousted him from the race and power. Is this some weird victory lap to say "see we can hold powerful people accountable...when we choose to?"
"When we choose to" being the operative phrase, since they clearly choose not to make Trump's decline an issue. We know they're capable of being a dog with a bone, just not against Trump.
People’s takeaway from this has been “democrats are bad liars” instead of “we shouldn’t let this happen again. Make sure Trump’s age is addressed” . We don’t have a Time Machine
Of course we could have talked about Biden and (yes Bernie too!) being too old in 2020. Biden is easy pickings for media types rather than say investgate Trump and the suspiciously fake looking assassination attempt in August.
I’ve completely lost ALL respect for Jake Tapper. Writing a book about it (not mentioning on purpose) is verging on elder abuse and… who cares?! Biden was a really great president. He had some faults, everyone does. But he got this country back in excellent standing, and did so with grace & dignity.
Comments
It wasn't about reporting in any fair way, it was about ratings.
•cognitively impaired but propped up by the most self-interested cabinet/WH/GOP
or
•not at all impaired but simply malevolent and amoral
* How to stop masked guys without badge from grabbing your neighbours
* How do I remove a congressman breaking a law?
* Ten easy signs to tell your mayor is a fascist
That stuff was harder to pull off in 2020 because of the heavy use of vote by mail.
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lp7yfaoxcj2w
But people seem to only care about optics. It says a lot about Americans these days. 😔
https://bsky.app/profile/michaelmpennsy.bsky.social/post/3lp7ethd4n22t
https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo?si=ux8vKS7Fwsewddnn
Especially right now, there’s no coverage of protests happening across the country. I was in some backwoods hick town in Ohio a few weeks back and, even they were protesting trump.
The GOP doesn't get better coverage because they are louder and meaner. They get better coverage because the people who own the outlets make it required if a journalist still wants to keep their job.
The 'working the refs' thing is decades-long fact, not an idea.
And is itself one of (though not the primary) the reasons the owners act as they do
It's a Mommy/Daddy difference in how the two parties are seen. GOP is the "bumbling husband" and so get a lot of slack.
I’m just done paying to get lied to by journalists who have no values and no sense of proportion.
black woman. It’s not much more complicated than that.
And, the press could've helped with THAT interest by... FOCUSING ON THE TRUMP FASCISM HARM THAT HAS BEFALLEN US.
That’s not just news, it’s long term helpful to the Dems to hammer this.
And we were proven correct. Again and again.
Dear press, we want the news, not the olds.
As soon as there’s no longer any risk for the corporate media owners in crossing him or any rewards left for sucking up to him.
Have you read a transcript of Trump? It’s utter NONSENSE. He just delivers it without stuttering. I’d vote for Biden’s corpse over elderly Trump cuz Biden’s cabinet is very competent and that WILL NOT be the case with Trump
I mean wtaf? Do they not know we all think they’re “in on it” in regards to undermining our democracy?
Similarly, Trump is corrupt, but we should talk more about Stephen Miller.