just as it saved America from Hillary Clinton, The NY Times has gone out to talk to those proud, lonely, enthusiastic few who think Joe Biden is a good man, a good president, who is bafflingly unappreciated by the nation at large. /s (Full access with the link.)
Rebecca Davis O’Brien and Katie Glueck have traveled out into the wild (South Philadelphia) to talk to those bewildered individuals who are “part of a small but dedicated group of Democratic voters who think that he is not merely the party’s only option against Donald J. Trump but, in fact, a great, transformative president who clearly deserves another four years in office.
They occupy a lonely position in American politics.”
Yet again the Times is riding on that one Times/Siena poll to generate a story. To quote the part they keep emphasizing:
...But his poll numbers have been especially rough lately. A New York Times/Siena College poll released this weekend found that just 43 percent of respondents would vote for him if the election were today, compared with 48 percent for Mr. Trump.
Forty-five percent of Democratic primary voters surveyed said they thought he should not be the party’s nominee — and just 23 percent of primary voters said they were enthusiastic about Mr. Biden being the Democratic nominee. That stands in contrast to the nearly half of Republican primary voters who said they were enthusiastic about Mr. Trump’s candidacy.
What you will NOT get if you only read the print version of the article is additional information in the 14 minute audio track narrated by the one of the reporters with additional commentary. It starts with the reason they were sent out to write this story.
It seems The NY Times has been bombarded with letters and emails taking the paper to task by readers who are upset by their continuing negative coverage of President Biden. (If you look at the nearly 3,000 (now over 3,000) comments on the article by reader picks, they are overwhelmingly in favor of Biden and critical of the press coverage he is getting.) O’Brien and Glueck went out to talk to a selection of people, around 2 dozen who they decided were superfans.
Rebecca Davis O’Brien narrates the commentary, starts with some personal observations, and has a brief interview with Andrea Russell, someone the photographer on this assignment, Michelle Gustaffson, said would be a perfect example. Gustaffson lives in Philadelphia and knows Russell. You hear Russell talking about her cat: she’s a spritely 77, described as a neighborhood Den Mother. When asked what she would say to a young woman about why she should support Biden, she gives a forthright fact-based pragmatic answer. You can hear her matter of fact conviction in her voice.
OBrien also talks to Julie Platt, 34 years old, a lobbyist involved in local politics. You don’t hear Platt, just O’Brien summarizing her support for Biden as a progressive frustrated by other progressives who don’t appreciate what Biden has accomplished. As a pragmatist, she says Biden has been able to get more of the progressive agenda done than a progressive might have. He’s a skilled manager, as opposed to being a movement leader.
O’Brien goes on to assert there is a generational divide, that older people are more supportive of Biden. They feel younger voters just don’t get it, or understand the risks of handing the election to Trump. She goes on to say as we head into Super Tuesday, that there is a small but forceful group of voters who believe that it is not that Biden is the best of what we’ve got, or feel that these are the choices we are stuck with. They feel he is the right man for our times. The rest of the audio is her reading the article.
I find it infuriating that Biden supporters who are sincere supporters and are operating from a reality-based frame of reference are portrayed as isolated, weird even — condescended to by those around them for their enthusiasm. The article has to toss in this reference so we get the point:
It is a familiar dynamic to fans of the TV show “Parks and Recreation,” whose lead character, Leslie Knope — played by Amy Poehler — is obsessed with Mr. Biden, much to the confusion of her colleagues and loved ones. (Asked to describe her ideal man, Ms. Knope says, “He has the brains of George Clooney, and the body of Joe Biden.”)
It is interesting to contemplate how The NY Times is on the one hand making much that Biden doesn’t have as many supporters who could be described “enthusiastic” as Trump does. But then the way they frame those Biden does have seems aimed at discouraging others to emulate them.
“Superfan” is just a bit condescending, as though rooting for Biden is comparable to rooting for a sports team or a favorite singer or actor. Never mind that supporting Biden is also based on a recognition of the literal horrors of the alternative. America isn’t going to collapse because the Buffalo Bills didn’t make it through the playoffs, or the Marvel Comics Universe is bombing at the box office. And that headline — thinking that the rest of America has lost its mind? It’s a real concern — except for the press for whom it’s just another day at the office cranking out stories. Nothing matters, and what if it did?
I posted a diary before this one taking to task the way The NY Times appears determined to sink Biden’s campaign, and how the media in general is not the friend of liberals. On Monday Bret Stephens and Gail Collins used the poll to reinforce their anti-Biden messaging in Trump is the Leading Man:
Bret: ...This is entirely on Biden. He hubristically insisted on running for re-election on the theory that only he could beat Trump, despite his obvious physical limitations and deepening unpopularity. Every time someone suggested he should stick to his original promise to be a one-term president — as I did back in, oh, 2021 — his aides and media enablers attacked the messenger. Now he has us facing the prospect of a Trumpocalypse because Biden somehow thinks he can’t possibly lose to “the former guy.”
But he can lose, and on his current course he will. He’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg all over again but worse, because the stakes are so much higher and he’s no R.B.G. in the first place.
Gail: Fulminate away. You know, when we started conversing in 2017 I presumed we’d spend most of our time arguing left versus right, but this past year we’ve both been wrapped up in the horror of Donald Trump and the stupidity of a Biden re-election campaign.
The Biden story is sad for me because I think he’s done a good job as president, and he’s in danger of trashing his legacy by running again when there are so many good potential Democratic candidates out there.
For these two, the choice between Trump and Biden is no choice at all — but it’s Biden they spend their time attacking. Trump they simply accept as a given — and they accept no responsibility for their role in making him likelier to prevail.
The hits keep on coming. Tuesday in the NY Times they have a guest editorial by the social secretary for Ron and Nancy Reagan, calling on Dr. Jill Biden to protect her husband’s legacy by talking him into standing down. It mentions the terrible example of Woodrow Wilson. (It’s as close an admission I’ve seen that Reagan had lost it by his second term.) The assumption is that Biden can’t possibly win.
Elsewhere in the “Paper of Record”, Frank Bruni, Joe Klein, and Olivia Nuzzi sit around explaining why both Biden and Trump should be terrified. They’re complaining Super Tuesday is going to be boring, and set their expectations for the State of the Union:
Joe Klein: Super Tuesday is almost always a disappointment. Too many venues, not enough focus, and not nearly the fun of the early retail primaries. This year, it’s more like Sleep-In Tuesday. It’s not nearly as important as Biden’s speech — which will provide the mental acuity assessment we’re all anxious about.
Bruni: So the State of the Union is basically Biden’s visit to the national neurologist, and the content of what he says will be lost to the winds?
Nuzzi: I think that will be the case for a majority of the president’s public appearances from now through November.
Their conversation is a bit like listening to three of the ‘cool kids’ in High School complaining they’re not being entertained, while ranking everyone around them. They diss on RFK Jr, who’ll replace McConnell, Haley, who might be next up post-Trump. They get paid for this — nice work if you can get it.
Want to bet that if Democrats have a strong showing in the down-ballot races, the headlines will be along the lines of “Democrats Overperform Despite Drag of Biden at the Top of the Ticket”?
It’s probably a coincidence that the digital front page of the Times features an article with the headline:
New criteria could lead to a dementia diagnosis on the basis of a simple blood test, even in the absence of obvious symptoms.
Probably….
While the press gets the popcorn ready, waiting and hoping for Biden to stumble in the SOTU, how many of them bothered to watch Trump stumbling and sputtering through a barely coherent speech ‘celebrating’ the Supreme Court trashing the 14th Amendment to put him back on the ballot? It’s 15 minutes of Trump free-associating the fantasies in his brain and the lies and smears.
See for yourself — painful as it is. People really need to see Trump unfiltered to appreciate just how unhinged and paranoid he is. Keep in mind too, that he’s talking directly to the camera. When he’s working in front of a crowd, feeding off their energy, he gets worse. He takes a question at the end — from whom is not clear — but he goes back to ranting about how unfairly he’s being treated and making promises he can’t keep. Everything would be perfect if he was still president… and he really REALLY needs that immunity.
If that’s too painful to watch all in one go, Digby has posted clips of some of the highlights.
Compare and contrast with President Biden sitting down with Seth Meyers a week ago. What does it say that we have to get real news from comedians and entertainers and not ‘journalists’? If you haven’t seen this, take a look. (And thanks to Paul Krugman for pointing to it and providing more context.)
I linked to two writers in an earlier post who have taken the so-called liberal media to task for the bias on full display. Jamison Foser had an article showing how multiple media outlets took a Quinnipiac Poll and reported only the negative findings for Biden — even though the poll showed him leading.
Oliver Willis is even more emphatic: The Media Wants Liberals To Shut Up And Take It. Don't. The Media Isn't Liberal And Has Never Been
...But the Sulzbergers of the world are letting liberals know that they should just shut up and take it. We also saw this over and over again from Maggie Haberman at the New York Times, who responded to legitimate criticisms of her hagiographic coverage of Trump with the bad faith claim that liberals just wanted her to say mean things about Trump, and that Hillary Clinton was solely to blame for her loss (never mind the Times front page working as a Trump Super PAC).
emphasis added
You get the sense from the commentary by O’Brien in the audio that she and her colleagues are reacting the same way to criticism of the way The NY Times is covering Biden — and are just as oblivious to how much it aids Trump yet again.
This should be a bat signal-style sign to liberals to pour on the pressure, don’t relent. Thus far liberal media criticism largely reflects what I have described as a Pollyanna world view that is all too pervasive on the left. This absolutely naïve notion that the mainstream press shares our values and our worries about Trump and the radical right, but that the media just keeps making honest mistakes in their coverage.
Balderdash. They know exactly what they are doing. They like it. They love it.
emphasis added
Super Tuesday and how the media will spin it is going to be interesting. Buckle your seatbelts. Digby links to a cheat sheet so you can track the down-ballot races. The State of the Union address — Thursday March 7, 2024 9pm ET - is likely to be too entertaining — does anyone expect the lunatics in the House to behave themselves? The press will be gathering like vultures and stocking up on popcorn. (Here’s an official guide on ways to watch it.)
Are you not entertained?
One more thing: Digby has put together a list of Biden accomplishments.
UPDATE 6:00 PM ET
The latest newsletter from Jamison Foser shows The NY Times continues to put its thumb on the scales for Trump: Most Americans think Trump committed serious crimes. The New York Times says that's good news for Trump. The Times is lying to you about its own poll.
This is the headline on a New York Times article published today:
Fewer Voters Think Trump Committed Crimes, Polls Show
emphasis added
There’s more at the link, including the point that they only quote 2 people who didn’t think Trump had committed any crimes, and the drop in numbers between the two polls is within the margin of error.
BONUS:
Stephen Colbert discusses the Supreme Court decision on the 14th Amendment, has clips of Trump speaking incoherently at rallies, others serving up word salad, and fake Trump black supporters created with A.I. images.
Are YOU a Biden superfan? How many of these warning signs apply to you?
- People roll their eyes when you try to talk about what Biden has accomplished,.
- Family members watch what they say around you, and try to hush you.
- You yell at the TV, the newspaper, the radio, your computer.
- You have a life-size cardboard photo of Biden and/or Harris.
- You eat ice cream and won’t tolerate malarkey.
- You have Biden-Harris signs all over your lawn and on your car.
- You refuse to apologize for or qualify your support of Biden.
- You have a Dark Brandon t-shirt, hat, bumper sticker, or coffee mug.
- You DO wonder if the rest of America has lost its mind.
- You keep trying to make fact-based arguments for Biden.