Biden wasn’t the only one exposed last Thursday; the establishment media were too. National reaction has rightfully focused on Biden’s halting, jarring performance. Overlooked however, has been how this happened in the first place. Why wasn’t this exposed earlier by the group that professes to scrutinize and report on America’s behalf?
Clearly, the establishment media was not “in darkness” over Biden, it simply found this information … not “fit to print.”
Last Thursday, Biden didn’t answer the bell. He looked terrible, sounded worse, and was repeatedly lost in his statements — garbling his obviously memorized responses. He was a shell, an empty suit. (READ MORE from J.T. Young: If Trump Wins, the Far Left’s PTSD (Post-Trump Social Disruption) Is Coming)
Trump appeared to soar in comparison, because there simply was no comparison. He certainly missed opportunities. But Thursday night, all he really had to do was to not be Biden, and not interfere with Biden being himself.
Reactions were instantaneous and virtually universal. The analysts of debate-stager, CNN, made no attempt to spin or even ameliorate what had just seen been. The response at MSNBC was similar.
Time’s passage has not assuaged the shock. The call for Biden to be replaced, once a steady backbeat, is now a crescendo. On Friday, the New York Times issued an editorial calling for Biden to quit the race. On Saturday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution followed suit. The Biden campaign’s post-debate message has been reduced to saying that Biden won’t withdraw.
Viewer reaction was also harsh. A poll of 500 registered voters by Schoen Cooperman Research immediately following the debate found 51 percent of those who had watched (or were familiar with) the debate believed Trump had won; 23 percent felt Biden had.
More telling will be the polling capturing changes in support. According to Real Clear Politics’ average of national polling on the day of the debate, Trump led Biden by 1.5 percentage points in a two-way race, 2.6 percentage points in a five-way race, and 3.2 percentage points in the top battleground states.
Hold The Media Accountable
Yet once the immediate fallout from Biden’s debate debacle has subsided, America’s next reaction should be against the establishment media. Simply: How was everyone in the establishment media so completely surprised by Biden’s performance?
To this point: it is illustrative how the establishment media reacted to Biden’s performance. Implicitly, they expected — or rather, feared — it. As evidence consider: Had this truly been unexpected, it would have been news — real news, not the canned and regurgitated fare routinely passed on as such. Had any other major American politician appeared on a stage in this condition there would have been expressions of shock and a stampede to determine and report why.
With Biden, there was none of that. Instead, acceptance was immediate; there was no hint that his performance was either unexpected or inexplicable. Instead, what followed were calls to withdraw.
The establishment media’s reaction tells us what we knew all too well, that they had seen prior evidence of what only America at large was seeing for the first time in an undeniable form.
Biden’s clear decline does not happen overnight. Nor does it just manifest itself all at once in a single episode. Similarly, the establishment media tells us how good they are at doing their job, how they are constantly doing it, that their access to the president is without parallel, and that they are telling everything that we need to know in order to be informed citizens. In short: as the New York Times assures us, “all the news that’s fit to print” because, as the Washington Post swears, “democracy dies in darkness.”
Clearly, the establishment media was not “in darkness” over Biden, it simply found this information — about the President of the United States — not “fit to print.”
It was not as though there was no evidence. “Cheap fakes” the administration called them. They had done so from the White House press briefing room, just as they have been diligently fighting to block the release of the audio of Biden’s testimony to Special Counsel Robert Hur (testimony, the release of which is now all the more important). Yet, the establishment media did not feel compelled to investigate them — this despite the fact there was seemingly no sensational report about Donald Trump that they did not find newsworthy and worthy of prolonged investigation. (READ MORE: Average Americans Are Taking the Radical Left Personally)
Sherlock Holmes famously solves a case not by recognizing what had happened but by what had not: a dog that had not barked. Holmes’ realization was that the dog had not barked, because it had known the culprit all too well.
America’s establishment media has been the dog that did not bark. It didn’t — not because it did not know — but because, as Holmes reasoned, it knew all too well. America’s establishment media has been doing a disservice to the nation for some time. But none greater than in this instance. Their action — or rather, inaction — has been nothing less than a self-negation of the First Amendment.
J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.
