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Please Keep Propping Up Biden (and the Others)
Media corporations are engineering another devastating electoral loss for the Democrats and they still don’t see it. Who are they fooling?
They have by now maxed-out on their audience and filtered it down to roughly 90 percent of Democratic voters. Very few right-leaning voters watch any of these shows, and actual independents who watch aren’t buying the soap that’s being sold. Biden is still the front-runner in most polls, and the longer he can hold onto that position, the better his chances for the nomination. Yet, savvy political analysts are saying he can’t win the general election if nominated.
But most voters aren’t so engaged politically to be paying attention to these voices. They are presented with a likable candidate whose mistakes and mental infirmities are accepted as minor quirks unworthy of attention, even by the likes Steve Colbert, who is capable of relentlessly mocking the most trivial gaffe by a candidate he disagrees with. If Colbert isn’t mocking him, he must be okay, right?
There are people who believe that of all contenders, Biden has the best shot at beating Trump. The idea is that Biden is fairly centrist and his formula of being the un-Trump, regular guy makes some sense to these people. He has “experience” and he’s leading in polls. (I also suspect the media likes him because he would be easily manipulated by them, compared to the Sanders or Warren).
He will not alarm the suburban soccer dads and moms who might have good reason to fear a socialist candidate. However, he’s not exactly exhibiting competence, which is a larger prerequisite for higher office in most voters’ minds than ideology. Candidates can tweak ideology, serve platitudes, and make false promises (see our 44th President) but they can’t fake competence.
They think they have a monopoly on the information and the narrative.
They think they can selectively report and de-emphasize negative news on their preferred candidate and over-emphasize negatives on you-know-who.
This is only true for their cloistered audience.
The media is the coddling parent of the Democratic Party. More and more, their candidates are effectively protected from the outside world. Like any child who’s been given participation trophies and had their self-esteem artificially inflated, they act spoiled and entitled. When they don’t get their way, they throw a tantrum. Any criticism is seen as hate and intolerance. Since they deem any objection to their ideas or behavior as hate, when coming from “hateful” people, they feel no need to even consider them much less address them, their enemies being so vile and despicable.
Biden has been floating on a polka-dotted tube going down the waterpark lagoon with a banana daiquiri in his hand for the last 12 years. Now, he actually has to swim and the wave machine is about to activate.
As evidenced by the recent climate change town hall and other appearances by these Democratic candidates, they are sorely lacking in the basics. Elizabeth Warren’s over-expansive gesticulation (in concordance with her expansive policy delusions), Kamala Harris’ pedestrian bureaucrat persona, Corey Bookers asburghian vibes, and Bernie’s deep reserve of saliva to punctuate his curmudgeonly edicts. The media can’t undo this in one (or even two) election cycles.
These candidates are the result of years of bad parenting by the mainstream media. The kids are now college age. They are away from home, partying, drinking, experimenting with sex, taking all the easy courses, hanging out with their woke friends in the quad. One of them will “graduate” into the general election.
The mainstream media has lost its monopoly on our minds and attention. And just like the helicopter parents can’t hover over their precious offspring, keeping unpleasantness, discomfort, and danger away, without media protection, they’re in for a rough ride.
Published in General
You assume a level of intelligence in the general electorate that I am not observing.
I have to second this. BHO never, ever displayed competence. He looked good, he was a decent speaker with a great speaking voice, yet spoke in platitudes and simplistic arguments. Mitt Romney, for all his faults, was a guy with proven competence at managing big, messy activities. And after a first term full of failures, President Glibness whipped him.
I really hope you are right. Uncle Joe has been a serial liar for decades, and yet he’s the democrat party’s biggest, most electable figure. How messed up is that?
Was the bloody eye caused by climate change or by excessive stretching during a face lift?
Enquiring minds want to know.
My Time Is Up … Joe Biden
The difference between Obama’s apparent competence and Biden’s is vast. I’m not saying Obama was especially competent. But he appeared so to the masses. I’m saying a large enough segment of people will be skeptical enough of Biden’s capability to stay home, vote 3rd party, or vote Trump giving him a significant win. That is, if he continues to behave like a flumoxed, coddled old man who gets a lot of basic things wrong. I believe it will continue and there will be many opportunities for it to reveal itself, and quite likely even more embarrassing.
Again, I hope you are right.
I’m worried about this “popular vote” pact several states have agreed to. If Trump wins a bunch of states but the states in the pact switch their Electoral College votes and put the Dem in, there will be a long, drawn-out Supreme Court challenge that will divide the country even more than the 2000 SCOTUS decision did . . .
Did Trump win any of the states in the pact in the 2016 election?
I think Biden will drop out this month. Most likely it will be an insider that sabotages the campaign that starts a dogpile and then Jill or Barack taps him on shoulder and sends him home. I am expecting an “insider says” article about Biden using Adderall or other brain stimulant during TV appearances. The media can only protect him so long before they fear another “Hillary dropping to the pavement like WTC7” moment will give them 4 more years of Trump. Electability is the only thing Biden has going for him and that can vaporize in an instant, just ask Howard Dean.
The bloody eye thing, it probably doesn’t mean anything really, but it’s certainly bad optics…
( I can’t the first with that reference, but I haven’t seen it elsewhere )
Yeah, it’ll be good covfefe when a GOP candidate takes the popular vote and Leftists in blue states that like this idea imagine their states turning red.
Don’t know, and I’m too lazy to check. Hopefully not . . .
I think he’ll go one feel too far and be done in by “Gropegate” . . .
In what world is Crazy Lizzie Warren the “most likeable candidate”? That seems like a complete non sequitur, but I have a reason and a point, I hope. Out here on the Left Coast there is an AM station that is all news. It is useful mainly for weather and traffic reports, but it also broadcast interviews with people who claim to be experts. Lately, they’ve broadcast several interviews with a political science professor from some third-rate school in San Francisco. He has full-blown TDS and is borderline incoherent, at least to me it seems he is. He lists all the reasons why 2020 will be a Democrat landslide. I learn a lot listening to him. Not about the subjects he discusses, but about how the liberal mind works. This professor adores Harris, Warren (most likeable), Little Julie Castro, but thinks Biden is too moderate. 2020 will be a disaster for the country no matter who wins. The Left will go crazy when Trump is reelected, and we’ll have to deal with them.
Perhaps you are right–maybe someone else came up with the “bad optics” line, and you were just an independent discoverer, not the first discoverer.
But I bet no one but Ricochet’s very own Franco has ever said this…
Most the people I know that get them are on blood thinners.
Something odd is going on in the not really following politics crowd. In the last few weeks I have had exchanges with people in that realm and they have brought up a dislike for Trump then drop a line from the Democrats candidates. It is like the stupid stuff the Democrats are saying is being promoted as Trump agenda. It caught me odd that these normally apolitical people mention politics at all then to get the info wrong makes me wonder if some sort of Democrat spin PAC is at work.
Disagree with the premise. the “Biden is the favorite” narrative is being banged on so hard to scare the progressive base to coalesce around a progressive. The problem is Bernie is still there, and Bernie is an electoral loser to everyone except people who like Bernie.
Of the rank and file the loud, white privilege types are dying for Elizabeth Warren. She’s their new Woodrow Wilson, supposedly without the racism. The professorial intellectual superior they can all say they are just like because they think the same way.
Elizabeth Warren feels like a strong candidate to them, it’s why they’re addressing Trump attack points. I have my doubts.