Mark Hemingway of the Federalist notices that major legacy media outlets seem to be avoiding real presidential campaign issues.
Following the dramatic reveal of Joe Biden’s age-related decline on a national debate stage, there was a brief period of self-examination among the press where they asked themselves whether regurgitating Democrats’ credulous and self-serving narratives was in the best interest of the American people. That lasted about a week, and was clearly insincere.
We’re now three weeks from the press hounding Biden out of the race because they looked like fools for defending years of video clips showing him stumbling around on the international stage non compos mentis. And with no remorse or self-awareness, the media are already back to doing everything they can to serve Democrats’ narrative.
What this means in practice is that, unlike a traditional presidential campaign, there’s been virtually no discussion of actual issues such as the economy, immigration, education, taxes, health care, foreign policy, and so on. The last four years have been pretty disastrous. As a result, if this campaign becomes about issues and what’s happened under the Biden-Harris presidency, Trump is going to benefit greatly from that discussion. So the press won’t let it happen.
Kamala Harris could not survive the scrutiny of a real presidential campaign, and the media know this. They figure they can skate by with three months of embarrassingly puffy coverage and fool just enough voters with the talk of “vibes” and “joyful” campaigning, because vibes are all the Harris campaign has. The Harris-Walz record is indefensible. There’s a reason their website has seven donation buttons, but no webpage dedicated to issues.
Again, it is worth noting just how crazy and disturbing recent events have been. Joe Biden dropped out of the race, Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president just a week ago through an unprecedented and dubious “roll call” of delegates on the internet without Harris receiving a single primary vote, and even more incredibly, without answering a single substantive question from a member of the press.
