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When you learn and watch mainstream media (MSM), you’ll assume the principle challenge for the nation is Biden’s age. That the media has prioritized this messaging speaks to how a lot MSM has normalized probably the most irregular actions by the Republican get together and most dramatically, their chief, former president Donald Trump. Trump is presently below indictment on 91 felony counts and lately was levied an $83.3 million judgment in a defamation go well with introduced by the lady Trump was discovered liable of raping.
Trump repeatedly makes egregious statements about ladies, minority teams, abortion rights, local weather change and immigrants. He has mentioned outright that he desires to be America’s dictator and regularly lauds the world’s most oppressive dictators, from Putin to Xi.
So why has the media made Biden’s age the preeminent speaking level each in information and punditry and what does that imply for probably the most susceptible People who can be most harmed by one other Trump presidency — like ladies, LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants and other people of colour.
Anybody who lived by means of the “October shock” of 2016 had a visceral frisson of déjà vu when Division of Justice Particular Counsel Robert Hur launched his 388-page report on the investigation into President Joe Biden’s dealing with of categorised paperwork when he was vp.
In 2016, then-FBI director James Comey re-opened the closed investigation into former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s electronic mail server mere days earlier than the Nov. 8 election. Many really feel that motion misplaced the election for Clinton — the primary feminine presidential candidate of a significant get together who had been main within the polls towards GOP candidate Donald Trump. Comey’s motion was splashed throughout the entrance web page of the New York Occasions and different newspapers, making Clinton look responsible of one thing, at the same time as he exonerated her. Comey didn’t reveal that he was additionally investigating Trump for election interference.
Former FBI official Andrew McCabe mentioned Monday the similarities between Biden and Hillary Clinton experiences had been “nauseating.”
Quick ahead to now and Hur’s report which, like Comey’s eight years in the past, exonerates Biden of any wrongdoing, however with caveats that had been meant to lift different doubts in regards to the president. “Our investigation uncovered proof that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed categorised supplies after his vice presidency when he was a non-public citizen,” the report mentioned, however added that the proof “doesn’t set up Mr. Biden’s guilt past an inexpensive doubt.”
Hur additionally mentioned that Biden’s carelessness with the paperwork that had been packed away by workers when he left the White Home in 2017 “current severe dangers to nationwide safety.” The damning pièce de résistance was Hur including that he declined to cost Biden as a result of the president can be perceived by a sympathetic jury as a “well-meaning aged man with a poor reminiscence,” and thus be exonerated.
Biden, already polling badly with questions on his age dominating mainstream media, was dealt the identical physique blow as Hillary Clinton in 2016 — the inferences had been worse than a doable cost.
Many information tales have mentioned Biden’s age for the reason that Hur report, and quite a few pundits throughout numerous information networks and Sunday politics exhibits have debated Hur’s feedback extensively. GOP candidate and Trump challenger Nikki Haley, used Hur’s report back to bolster her marketing campaign narrative that “America doesn’t want two 80-year-olds” as president. Haley turned 52 final month — a technology youthful than each males.
On the floor, polls agree with Haley: voters are dissatisfied with each candidates, however extra discover Biden’s age regarding than Trump’s, regardless of a mere three years between them.
In 2019, 26 candidates ran within the Democratic presidential main, ranging in age from 36 to 78. The 2 finalists had been the oldest: Biden and Vermont senator and Socialist firebrand Bernie Sanders, who’s a yr older than the president.
So sure, Biden is 81. That’s outdated. It’s additionally not information. And regardless of the invidious nature of Hur’s insinuating his snarky present to the GOP and by extension, Trump, along with his repetitive feedback about Biden’s reminiscence lapses, mainstream and legacy media have the choice of not making that the one story.
The media’s laser give attention to Biden’s age and a few Home GOP utilizing the Hur report back to counsel invoking the twenty fifth Modification towards Biden, has just about ignored what Trump has been telegraphing on the marketing campaign path about his personal reminiscence failures and extra alarming nonetheless, his quest to be an American dictator.
Anybody who’s had somebody with dementia of their household is aware of Biden doesn’t have dementia as Hur implied and the Home GOP claims. It’s one factor to say Biden is outdated — that’s no secret. It’s one other to say he’s mentally incompetent, when he fairly clearly just isn’t.
Inside hours of the Hur report reveal, Trump was in Harrisburg campaigning. Throughout one other of his rambling excesses, Trump’s personal severely challenged reminiscence was on show, as had been his more and more extra disturbing — and harmful — feedback about world affairs.
Whereas telling an oft-repeated lie about going to Floor Zero after 9/11 — which might have required Trump stroll seven and a half miles from Trump Tower to the location as all public transit was stopped — Trump confused the comfort retailer chain (7-Eleven) with the worst U.S. terrorist assault (9/11): “I went down there, and I watched our police and firemen,… down on 7/11,… down on the World Commerce Middle proper after it got here down!”
Trump additionally claimed that if he loses Pennsylvania in November, “they” will change the state’s title. Trump made these feedback in a speech to 1000’s of members of the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation (NRA) in Harrisburg on Friday evening.
“We have now to win in November, or we’re not going to have Pennsylvania. They’ll change the title. They’re going to change the title of Pennsylvania,” Trump mentioned.
On Saturday, Trump needed to know the place Nikki Haley’s husband is, implying Michael Haley had left his spouse of 28 years. “The place’s your husband? Oh, he’s away. He’s away. What occurred to her husband? What occurred to her husband? The place is he? He’s gone! He knew. He knew,” Trump mentioned. Michael Haley is deployed in Africa.
Michael Haley responded to Trump in a put up on Twitter/X, tagging him alongside a meme saying, “The distinction between people and animals? Animals would by no means enable the dumbest ones to guide the pack.” The tweet acquired 5.8 million views.
Trump’s remarks on NATO not solely included a sequence of unfaithful statements but in addition served as a warning to U.S. allies. He said, “One of many presidents of a giant nation stood up and mentioned, Properly, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you shield us? I mentioned. No, I’d not shield you. In truth, I’d encourage them to do regardless of the hell they need.”
Trump — operating for president of the U.S. — mentioned Putin, who’s presently main a struggle towards Ukraine, to have free rein over U.S. allies.
Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who has been a vociferous critic of Trump, advised MSNBC, “Pay attention, that is completely ridiculous that we’re even speaking in regards to the candidacy of a Donald Trump. Somebody who we all know was at all times palling round with Russia, who inspired interference with our home elections within the first place.”
The New York Occasions selected to prioritize Hur and say Trump’s poisonous masculinity is a promoting level over Biden’s “seeming frailty,” ignoring the NATO feedback altogether. The remainder of the world is listening to Trump, even when the U.S.’s newspaper of report just isn’t. The New European famous Tuesday that “Europe’s NATO members should brace for a re-elected Trump.”
Trump’s repeated statements about ridding the U.S. of immigrants whereas doubling down on his Nazi rhetoric about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the nation is a part of his rising fascist playbook. Biden being 81 just isn’t similar to Trump’s plan to spherical up immigrants on Day 1 and deport them.
With Trump’s extremism on full show, it’s deeply regarding that this isn’t the precedence of the media — simply as Hillary’s emails had been the main target in 2016 and never Trump’s blatant racism, misogyny, xenophobia and hyperlinks to Russia.
People know Biden is outdated. However additionally it is true that Biden’s presidency has been largely progressive and centered on the betterment of the whole American society, together with traditionally marginalized teams like ladies, LGBTQ+ folks and other people of colour. Biden has prioritized science, from ending the worst of the pandemic to specializing in arresting local weather change. Biden has been one of the best president for LGBTQ+ folks in historical past in addition to for unions, working folks and Black People.
We additionally know what a Trump presidency seems like and the way harmful it’s. Media narratives drive affirmation bias. So long as the media thinks Biden’s occasional reminiscence lapses are similar to telling a world dictator to assault our allies, the 2024 election — and with it democracy itself — will proceed to be in jeopardy.
Story courtesy of Philadelphia Homosexual Information through the Nationwide LGBTQ Media Affiliation. The Nationwide LGBTQ Media Affiliation represents 13 legacy publications in main markets throughout the nation with a collective readership of greater than 400K in print and greater than 1 million + on-line. Be taught extra right here: https://nationallgbtmediaassociation.com/
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