Friday morning, after the Trump-Biden face-off, the Washington Post printed the front page headline Biden struggles in testy debate, with letters more than half an inch tall. They were welcome words for the skeptics. We all know how the Post feels about Trump. Few running pages in so-called “TDS” circles said much different. The Donald’s friends in the press might like to consider a few reverse dance-steps too. Did 45 come off sharp and precise? Or, was it just not quite as addled as the other guy?
The apology for Uncle Joe’s feeble performance came up in the WP second sub-head; Trump’s untruths go unchallenged as barbs fly. There’s no doubt he was less than 100% accurate. But then, how close did 46 stay to the facts?
The overwhelming fact is that neither man looked close to a commanding performance. That description should be in broader circulation. Biden’s enemies have nothing to get excited about. How does a prosperous country of 350 million find these two inflicted upon them? I thought we were unduly oppressed when “W” and Prince Al were the choices in 2000. The latter candidate sounded like he would run out of steam groping for the next word. The former sounded like his father; the words didn’t really have to connect at all.
This time it was different. Both had a rough sense of their messages, a little too rough by any 8th grade standard, but straight, sensible sentences and answers evaded either of them.
The supposedly dull, lackluster Eisenhower came across with far more rhetorical force. Has the US degraded into a place without competent public speakers? Or people who fail at articulation altogether?
The rules in this debate were, by my lights, a vast improvement. That might be Joe Biden’s finest accomplishment. The powers that be should have imposed similar debate structure long ago. By the time two doddering cranks arrive for the second time on the national stage the imposition of decorum is too late. The media sanctioned free-for-all of the past got us here. People looking down on the public from news industry pinnacles are always behind the curve.
Why anyone could be a devoted fan of either candidate is mysterious. What kind of air-head would want a seat next to Trump or Biden in situations that required lengthy engagement? International travel on Air Force One over the past seven and one half years safely ranks among the top ordeals of the 21st century.
The editorial board of the New York Times authored “TO SERVE HIS COUNTRY, PRESIDENT BIDEN SHOULD LEAVE THE RACE” for the Sunday, June 30 Opinion Section. After going over Biden’s shortcomings they say: “It is a tragedy that Republicans themselves are not engaged in deeper soul-searching after Thursday’s debate. Mr. Trump’s own performance ought to be regarded as disqualifying.” The next two sentences – which could have come from nearly any legacy media source – explain how we get such dismal candidates in the first place. Referring to Trump:
“He lied brazenly and repeatedly about his own actions, his record as president and his opponent. He described plans that could harm the American economy, undermine civil liberties and fray America’s relations with other nations.”
The editors didn’t bother listing all the falsehoods from Atlanta on the 27th. It would be a long tally from either source. What of it? Boomers endured an adult lifetime of Trump and Biden. Seeing neither of them as truthful, polite or less than narcissistic has never required the human acumen of Dostoyevsky. Joe Biden was widely known as a pathological liar when Trump was just an egomaniacal Big Apple Boor. That he could lie as persistently as Biden is more recent news.
The NYT can be awfully myopic when it comes to plans that “could harm” the economy. Do they notice the many who want out from under the foot of Biden energy policy? This administration is afraid of a gas stove. As home ownership slips out of new buyers reach, cities up and down the East Coast are teeming with vacant commercial square footage. Has the president given any thought to why people are short of living space? The Biden priority is re-engineering every appliance from electric can openers upward. Has that NYT board noticed the cut price rises have taken out of lifestyles? Kids not named Biden might get raised on Ramen. The gang at 1600 Penn will gladly trade peasant nutrition for artificially inflated fossil fuel costs. Meanwhile, its federal, state and municipal employees – who have to commit murder on film to be fired – that look forward to pensions no one else gets. In times like these incumbents are usually sent packing, whether they can speak English competently or not.
What really astounds prescient readers is the “undermine civil liberties” line. Do the media-crats think nobody has heard about Biden’s creation of a Ministry of Truth? What about the criminalization of protest along political lines, selective prosecutions, strong arming social media, rifling the metadata, going after concerned parents at school board meetings and using churches to find DOJ prey? Biden minions on the Hill are livid with anyone second guessing Fed interference in electronic media. Access for all reduces Democrats into raging enemies of the first amendment. The press corps is scared to death of Trump stifling them like Archie on Edith. Several described PTSD and paranoia when the incredible orange blob was less than polite to them the first time around. What, other than rehabilitation camps, could be next?
In the meantime, they find restricting the reach of Joe Six-Pack’s voice to word of mouth a vital public service. This administration, with its numerous celeb and media friends, is ever in a rage that divergent opinion exists. There is nothing tacit about elitist desire to crush dissent. It is stretching from the classroom to the barroom. While all this goes on, every agency and bureaucracy in the alphabet soup finds itself above answering to the American people. Establishment print dailies have yet to report on the matter – YouTube is awash in videos attesting bureaucratic mum defiance before the legislature of the United States.
Then we get warned that Trump might “fray America’s relations with foreign nations.” Snowden revealed that beltway banditos were listening in on intimate conversation of foreign leadership everywhere. The NYT was mad the public found out – it never occurred to those geniuses it might “fray” anything. National secrets, from the developing world to the G-7 nations, were safely in the hands of Booz Allen. Major media has reincarnated Karl Rove, kingmaker of 2000, as a man to heed. The unnecessary war ginned up by the schemers he placed in the White House has lost relevance on the global playing field. The word “sh—hole” supposedly did more damage than thousands of drone attacks and missile barrages. Victoria Nuland bragging about handing out sandwiches in Maidan Square to feed a Ukrainian coup got little traction in the NYT. That same then high-ranking State official was recorded picking the interim government for country 5000 miles from us that Russia borders on. It was up at YouTube days later. Media rarely gives any attention to high-handed American moves on the global playing field. They prefer to piss and moan about skeptics who bother reporting that diplomatic “experts” contaminate every policy they touch. Noting any connection to new wars, violent unrest and terrorism is deemed treasonous heresy.
None of this should be taken as an endorsement of Trump. The point is media responsibility for the state of the American political arena. Did they actually believe they could get away with a system of selective reporting that would maintain the elitist status quo indefinitely? Are they really unaware of beltway insiders ruling federal fiefdoms with sullen contempt for popular volition?
The latest hot fad in 21st American journalism is ridding the industry of the twin plagues “objectivity” and “both-siderism.” Management is never satisfied, the truth is a moving target. Only yesterday those in charge of “the way it is,” lectured us on the greatness of yesteryear’s press heroism. It was, supposedly, lost in a new era of unvetted voices of deception. The fakes, we soon found, had swiped the expression “fake news” from Associate Professor of communication and media Mellissa Zimdars of Merrimack College. New expressions that include the word “fake” the media runs to like teen hipsters. Once common currency op-edifiers drop them – after finally grasping what they mean. The story in 2016 went that the gold standard maintained by Murrow, Cronkite, Reston, Lippmann and Rather had become a distant presstopia.
Suddenly, that wasn’t good enough. We now find that past professional informers, once canonized, employed “objectivity” as a bludgeon to snub minorities, keep women in the kitchen, promote hate and heterosexuality and entrench the white male patriarchy. The furtive truth, it seems, is always coming into its own. Whatever you do, don’t tinker with it at home. It’s a commodity too volatile for any hands but those of the experts. Catching them afoul of the facts is frequently likened to fascism.
What’s next in the program to legitimize some words and delegitimize others will be interesting. If you’re waiting for it to include what establishment voices got wrong, intentionally left out or simply lied about, don’t hold your breath. Media arrogance, incompetence, hubris and snobbery are what leave the public desperate for alternatives. The choices have degraded to the present two because of an agenda in newsrooms in spite of facts.
The Newspeak word “cheap-fake” is getting a lot less post debate ink. Editorial creep-fakes have taken over. Their next plot to improve on your understanding will be the old one repackaged. ‘Listen to us, nobody second-guessing the academy, the beltway blob, the foundering 4th estate or trusting his own senses can be trusted.’ Once you’ve been poisoned, finding the culprit might come too late
