Dave Weigel: The Todd Akin “legitimate rape” gaffe happened during the 2012 presidential election cycle. Broke through, Romney had to comment on it. Very different media cycles this year, and Biden’s age overwhelms many of them.

The Todd Akin “legitimate rape” gaffe happened during the 2012 presidential election cycle. Broke through, Romney had to comment on it. Very different media cycles this year, and Biden’s age overwhelms many of them.

In a normal campaign, this would have dominated the weekend’s news. I wrote about @gregsargent.bsky.social’s scoop about the Christian nationalist GOP nominee for NC Gov calling for murder of his political enemies: ‘Some folks need killing’: www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

Opinion | ‘Some folks need killing’: North Carolina Lt. Gov takes Christian nationalism to dangerous lowwww.msnbc.com Mark Robinson’s newly explicit calls for killing perceived enemies show how seamlessly Christian nationalists can glide into promoting real violence.

Some REALLY WEIRD agency going on there, Dave. "Biden's age" is not writing the political columns. Reporters with autonomy (or editors) are. Pack punditry has decided political violence is less important than one of two candidates' age.

Look, if nobody at the GOP Jonestown compound is concerned about Trump being 97% of the age of Biden and actually spouting long paragraphs of unhinged drivel (but doing so ENERGETICALLY) then it can't be helped.

Amphetamines are a helluva thing

I would love to see someone with a platform re-frame this story as one about Americans' deep discomfort with aging. We seem to have two paradigmatic elderly white men running for president, but one is energetically obnoxious and the other is halting and decrepit. Pundits prefer the first.

Choices are being made and we must remember this both now and after the election.

That is a *choice* made by people running media outlets. It is not organic.

Why is the press always overwhelmed by events and talked about in the passive voice? Someone chooses which stories to publish and how theyre written and presented. Is it that i mostly read journalists who feel as helpless as the rest of us at the hands of editors and publishers?

This is not some magical doing. Directives by editorial were made, and people wrote those articles; *choices* were made by humans. You don't get to go in with the passive, exonerative voice, here.

I know we take it for granted, but legacy media, whose remaining subscriber base is largely Dem, bludgeoning Dems in cycle after cycle & Dem leadership - which could threaten to tell its membership to cancel & put those outlets under - choosing to sit there silently & take it ... it's wild, man

I have yet to hear of anyone pointing out how Biden's age has effected his doing the job he's been doing for the last three years. Biden is too old to campaign seems to be the actual point so good thing the job isn't campaigning then. People getting old is normal, threats of violence are not.

There are two conversations being had: A) Is Biden too old to effectively govern and fight against encroaching fascism? B) Is Biden too old that letting the fascist govern is a better alternative The NYT et al seem to have decided on B based on their coverage.

It dominates the news cycle because journalists are openly cheering for Trump's return and (not) asking questions accordingly. That's the difference this year.

Is Biden's age in the room with your right now?

Is it? Do they?

But you guys create the media cycles.

The media decide which questions they ask people like Biden, Trump and congressional representatives. Let’s be honest… here are some really stupid questions being asked of Biden, and not nearly enough being asked of Trump or about Trump.

Directive from management: Rewrite your profile to "former journalist, now carrying water for right wing private equity firm" and feel free to use an updated photo.

Hey, the hotdog men are out in full force today

MSNBC was talking about it today - CNN is useless. Always regret it when I happen to surf over - vapid, irrelevant, mainly anti Biden/Dem reporting. There are a couple of good anchors but the rest spoil it for them.

It's overwhelming because the press is choosing to spend so much energy on it, to the detriment of anything else.

Democratic voters voted for Joe. They knew his age. It's the media feeding frenzy that's different.

Post