sorry but this is just wrong. yes, there’s a bad faith media feeding frenzy. but *fifty million* people watched Biden sputter his way through that debate. it is not a creation of the media, it is a real problem.
I don’t like to embrace doomerism but I’m pretty sure the moment we took on this narrative as a true “concern” Biden needed to disprove, especially party leadership, we were fucked.
the implied premise here is that the decline in Biden’s polling numbers is being driven by the media coverage rather than the debate itself. but several awful polls came in the days immediately following the debate. the debate itself was the problem
But that's really hard to disentangle from the center left elite media collectively freaking out and calling for Biden's withdrawal immediately after the debate.
That's why I didn't say NYT oped page but rather a big chunk of center left media, including people immediately after the debate on CNN, MSNBC, etc. Biden was bad, but the TV coverage was immediately asking if he should withdraw, and it's been relentless since.
