They're making it clear that every single event, no matter how mundane, will get framed as a referendum on Biden's age. Stumbles in a speech? Doesn't stumble in a speech? Spends the weekend with family? Age, age, age.
The Supreme Court rules that laws don’t apply to Donald Trump and the fundamental principle that nobody is above the law is dead? Gots to figure out a way to frame that primarily through Biden being old.
At this stage, it might be good for Biden to step aside for Harris just to give her a chance to shake this age narrative, but they are also showing that they will be equally hard on her for other things. You can't fight a feeding frenzy.
Yeah, I feel like the people who say it would be all positives are really not doing an honest assessment of the lay of the land here. I get the argument but the feeding frenzy we see now would just transfer, and Harris would face questions of why she backed/hid the infirm Biden for so long.
Don't forget the shit-ton of immediate "but she's seen as unlikeable" and "a lot of people find it hard to trust her" misognoir.
If Biden *died* she'd get a honeymoon. If he stepped down? Catastrophe.
I certainly don't think it would be uniformly positive, and carries tremendous risk, but the press always craves something new. That means, I suspect, that First Black Woman Becomes President would be an awfully positive, and unavoidable, headline.
Right. Everything we know about how news media has covered prominent female Democratic politicians at the presidential level over the last several years tells us that they will immediately pivot to some of the most ugly, misogynoir coverage of Harris possible.
Yeah.
I think there was maybe a time that it might've been prudent for Biden to bend the knee to Newspaper Man. Like, 6 months ago, give Sulzberger his interview, tell him he's the specialist boy. Invite Haberman into the Oval to drop some juicy goss.
But now? Knuckling under only chums the water
I’d allow it if they held Trump to the same standard.
“In his most recent rally, Trump mumbled incoherently and trailed off on three separate occasions.”
And for any lingering "double-haters", I get why they feel the way they do, but when free & fair elections are on the ballot, there's no margin for error.
