Democrats looking to point fingers after ‘humiliating’ election defeat should start with media: WSJ columnist
Democrats who want to point fingers at President-elect Trump’s Election Day thumping of Vice President Kamala Harris should look directly at the mainstream media, according to a scathing Wall Street Journal column.
Opinion columnist Kimberley Strassel penned a piece headlined, "A Landslide Against the Media: News organizations tried to prop Biden and Harris up. How did that work out?" She noted infighting among Democrats who want to blame someone for the party’s "humiliating" election night defeat.
"So long as the left is pointing fingers, let it direct a big, fat digit at the outfit that played the biggest role in losing it this election: the U.S. media," Strassel wrote.
"That isn’t the conventional wisdom, which holds that the press’s naked shilling for Democratic candidates amounts to an in-kind campaign contribution. And no doubt the media’s ceaseless attacks on Donald Trump and Republicans did help round up some undecided voters," she continued. "Yet the boosterism for Kamala Harris & Co. came at a far bigger cost: A narrative full of fantasy enabled Democrats to live in a world disconnected from the mood and worries of the country."
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Strassel feels "the most damaging of these fantasies was the four-year press assurance that Joe Biden was sharp as a tack," and noted that the journalists who insisted "video evidence in June of a confused president wandering aimlessly" was edited, misleading or lacking context were part of the problem.
"Only when the Trump-Biden debate made Mr. Biden’s decline undeniable did the media drop the charade," Strassel wrote.
Once Biden was pushed aside, the press worked to recast Harris "as a political genius and the obvious savior of the Democratic Party" despite her record as a "primary loser turned unpopular vice president."
"How’d that work out?" Strassel asked.
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She wrote that "Biden’s failing constitution would have been front-page news in time for Democrats to confront the unpleasant (yet manageable) reality of needed change" if the press were actually competent.
"A primary would have produced a tested nominee, likely one less encumbered by the Biden record. As Harris adviser (and Obama veteran) David Plouffe complains that Team Biden created a ‘hole’ too ‘deep’ for his sidekick to dig out of, don’t forget the industry whose job it is to call out political fiction, but instead wrote the ‘Joe Is Fine’ novel," Strassel wrote.
"Of course Democrats are shocked that they lost," she added. "In a world with a functioning press, the politician who tries to make lemonade out of inflation, crime or border chaos, is slapped as out of touch. In Biden-Harris world, the press printed their spin as gospel."
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Strassel said four years of coverage that insisted the economy was strong under the Biden-Harris administration, along with claims crime rates were falling and the migrant problem was being magnified by Republican governors resulted in liberals believing "climate, systemic racism, abortion and transgender rights" were the biggest issues Americans face.
"The fantasies were maintained right up to the election. Even as Republicans pointed to surging voter registration, unprecedented early votes and notable demographic shifts, the headlines insisted that Kamala would claim victory on a wave of abortion-and-Liz Cheney-loving suburban women, comedian-condemning Puerto Ricans, and White dudes impressed by Tim Walz’s camo hat. No wonder Tuesday was a surprise. The America that voted for Mr. Trump has never even made an appearance in these outlets," Strassel wrote.
The Wall Street Journal columnist said that Democrats now face a choice, as "one side are party grown-ups who are publicly acknowledging this defeat as a sharp voter rebuke of progressive policies," while the other side are fixated on "racism, sexism and America’s supposed love affair with ‘fascism’" securing President-elect Trump’s victory.
"No surprise, the media is already running with this latter narrative, again providing the party a soothing alternative to the blunt reality of its ideological fail. Will Democrats be lulled again? If they really want to reconnect with voters, they will at some point have to break with what is proving to be a debilitating feedback loop," she wrote.
Strassel feels podcasters such as Joe Rogan are now trusted to deliver realistic information and analysis that used to come from the legacy media.
"The Founders accorded the press the honor of inclusion in the First Amendment in recognition of the vital role it plays in keeping pols honest. The industry is meant to ride herd on government—on both sides—in the interest of the people. That job is essential—not only for transparency, but to provide self-deluding politicians constant gut checks as to how their policies sit with the nation. When that guardrail falls, the nation suffers, but so too does the party that gets to live the make-believe," Strassel wrote.