Yesterday, a lot of folks were asking a very simple question: If the Washington Post/ABC poll that showed former president Donald Trump was up 10 points over President Joe Biden is such an outlier, why did they even report on it in the first place?
Perhaps, as my colleague Nick Arama pointed out yesterday, it has to do with the fact that what Americans were saying was so impactful.
“74 percent of the country — that’s about three-quarters of Americans — say the economy is either not so good or downright poor,” ABC News reported Sunday morning. That’s an absolutely devastating number, especially when you consider the poll oversampled independents and younger voters. That’s a nightmare-level scenario.
So, while the poll is an outlier, they still ran with it. That is a sign of something else beginning to stir within the media.
Take, for example, this morning’s frankly hilarious scoop from Axios.
President Biden and his campaign are working on a critical project for his re-election bid: Make sure he doesn’t trip.
Driving the news: As voters express deep concerns about the 80-year-old president’s age and fitness for office, Biden’s team is taking extra steps to prevent him from stumbling in public — as he did in June, when he tripped over a sandbag at the Air Force Academy.
[…]
Why it matters: Democrats, including some in the administration, are terrified that Biden will have a bad fall — with a nightmare scenario of it happening in the weeks before the November 2024 election.
Zoom in: Some senior Democrats privately have been frustrated with Biden’s advance team for months, citing the sandbag incident and noting that the president often appears not to know which direction to go after he speaks at a podium.
When asked by Axios about Biden’s health, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, “This article fits an unfortunate pattern of media attempting to sensationalize something that has long been public, rather than covering the president’s very real achievements for hardworking Americans.”
However, there is now a ton of polling asking the question if Biden is too old, and Americans are resoundingly saying “Yes” (to be fair, they also say Trump is too old). And while you may want the media to write about Biden’s accomplishments, the fact remains that Americans by and large are viewing Biden’s first term as a failure. They don’t feel comfortable economically or socially, and it’s only getting worse.
But Axios is now clearly joining the Washington Post and ABC News in doing the only thing they can for the side they are ideologically aligned with: Warning the Democrats that Biden has a massive problem. One might even go so far as to suggest these reports are indicators that even allies in the media think it’s time for Joe Biden to bow out of the national stage.
If the Democratic incumbent is, in fact, losing to the former president (a man under indictment for nearly a hundred charges, who has been demonized by the media nonstop for the past seven years) by one point, much less 10, it’s time for that incumbent to step aside. There’s nothing dishonorable in saying “I did what I came to do” and just James K. Polk-ing right out of the White House. But he’ll be leaving with no real accomplishments other than responsibly noting he could not effectively manage the country at his age.
But, as mentioned yesterday, there is another looming problem and it’s exactly why the Democrats are having such a hard time wrestling with this issue: There’s no way you can replace him without a civil war within the party.
You can go with Kamala Harris, who almost everyone dislikes, or you can skip over her and go to a rich, white man like Gavin Newsom, which would create an intersectional battle within the party. Add in the fact that Pete Buttigieg also wants to be in and it’s black woman vs. gay man vs. yet another rich, white guy. It would be an absolute trainwreck of a fight for a party that has gone all-in on identity politics.
It’s clear the media suspects what’s coming, and they aren’t happy. They don’t want to see another term of Donald Trump. But, of course, they won’t ever acknowledge the fact that they are responsible for Trump’s rise in the first place. However, that’s a discussion for another day.
