The lack of self-awareness here is stunning:
Good and obvious point by @oliverdarcy here: If “the media” was truly in the tank for Biden (as conservatives have long insisted), how to explain the avalanche of negative coverage and commentary after June 27 that helped drive him from the race? https://t.co/SbREeHN7iw
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) July 23, 2024
The post-debate media campaign to drive President Biden out of the race didn’t prove that journalists were honest brokers — it proved the exact opposite.
Throughout his presidency, the media were downplaying concerns about his obvious mental decline, but his unraveling during the debate made that no longer possible. Democrats immediately realized that they could not beat Donald Trump with Biden, and the media joined with them to help drive Biden from the race so Democrats could pick somebody whom they deemed more electable. During this period, the media literally cited as evidence of his mental-decline video footage that they had previously “debunked” as right-wing disinformation.
As soon as Biden agreed to drop out of the race, the extreme focus on his mental acuity evaporated. The media no longer care that the president has not appeared in public since last Wednesday, or question whether he is too far gone to remain as president. Instead, they have moved on to the project of breathlessly rehabilitating Vice President Kamala Harris’s image.
There should be no doubt that, had it not been for the debate, the media would still be working with Democrats to cover up Biden’s mental decline.