Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race?
They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one.
According to one journalist’s tally, the New York Times has run 192 stories on the subject since the debate, including 50 editorials and 142 news stories. The Washington Post, which has also gone for saturation coverage, published a resignation speech they wrote for him. Not to be outdone, the New Yorker’s editor-in-chief declared that Biden not going away “would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment” and had a staff writer suggest that Democrats should use the never-before-deployed 25th amendment.
Since this would have to be led by Vice-President Kamala Harris, it would be a sort of insider coup. And so it goes with what appears to be a journalistic competition to outdo each other in the aggressiveness of the attacks and the unreality of the proposals. It’s a dogpile and a panic, and there is no one more unable to understand their own emotional life, biases and motives than people who are utterly convinced of their own ironclad rationality and objectivity, AKA most of these pundits.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/06/biden-trump-race-rebecca-solnit
The interesting thing about this push from pundits (including those who think they are pundits or part of some elite ruling class) is that it is very much top down. The great unwashed - meaning most of us on here and rank-and-file Democrats - appear to greatly oppose these efforts.
Also, there is an insightful take in the article about Biden's speech issues and views from gerentologists who say his speech is part of normal aging and not signs of dementia.
= new reply since forum marked as read
. . .out of horse manure.
And as I've said previously:
The chattering class / has its head up its ass
The man has done how many rallies, off the cuff remarks and interviews since the debate? He's fine. He's as fine as he was 6 months ago. He's as fine as he was during the last SOTU. This is all a dust up over nothing and makes me hate the yapper / scribbler class all the more. They serve no purpose other than to serve themselves and spread bullshit with a bullhorn. I despise their very existence. They're a waste of time, money and organic molecules. At least Clinton actually HAD a private email server, as did many Sec States before her. But THIS issue has nothing, absolutely nothing, behind it. 
Joe and the Democratic party are going to get through this.
That makes it hard for them to do bizniss in the manner to which they feel entitled.
(Left to Right) Scarface. Stoneface. Loserface.
