Peter: 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.

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

Not sure the unrelenting discourse is helping. Unless you mean helping to sell clicks.

My MSNBC mom texted me the night of the debate, in real time and well before any media color, in basically a panic

A text convo a friend started with me, 14 minutes in:

Same.

He was already trailing and the debate was an opportunity to assuage some concerns. Instead it just reinforced them

This.

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.

it’s really not, because 50 million people watched the debate and a tiny fraction of that read New York Times op-eds.

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.

Watch the best analysis moments of CNN's Presidential Debateyoutu.be Catch up on CNN’s reporters’ and experts’ analysis after the CNN Presidential Debate. Watch the full debate: https://www.youtube.com/live/-v-8wJkmwBY?si=RoFY...

Hell, far more people probably saw the "Biden should resign" sentiment than actually watched the debate!

This seems quite likely, let alone the repetition.

I mean more than the 10 million who subscribe see the headlines, and other media picks their shit up

I believe someone responded to me and then blocked me by sarcastically saying that the average person has their opinion zig zag around based on headlines. I don't think that, and I don't know why they think I think that. It only takes a 1 or 2 point change in the election to make a difference

More people will see a stream of out-of-context op ed headlines that they don't realize aren't actually news headlines (and also will not read) than watch the debate.

The net effect of how the Internet works now is that people will see 100 snippets of text or video saying people think Biden should drop out and just assume that's the conventional wisdom without really looking into it.

Never had a chance to divorce debate effects from renewed and fresh calls among Dems for him to step down save one reaction poll. IMO the calls are the root cause of the frenzy. Massive lack of message discipline trying to relitigate the nomination via the press.

When Biden said in his Stephanopoulos interview tonight that he would be at peace if he lost to Trump because "I gave it my all", that's when I knew for sure that he needed to be replaced. He has lost the plot if he thinks this is only about him.

The only polls I saw either didn't change or only dropped within the margin of error. It's far enough away from election day that it's barely different from random noise. Obama saw a bigger drop after his first debate in 2012. Where was the party calling for him to drop out then?

I stand by what I said the night of: I would vote for Biden over Trump even if his staff were doing a Weekend at Bernie’s with him. The debate made me think they’re inclined to test that

why wouldn’t they test it when folks are on here saying they’d vote for a corpse? It’s really note cute to admit you don’t expect anything from the party.

I’m not the guy they need to be appealing to. Which is kind of the whole point

well with all due respect the reason they have to convince others is because of the attitude of folks like you. THAT is kind of the whole point.

But the media coverage also immediately followed the debate. Not sure which is the bigger driver, but I know I personally didn’t start freaking out until I saw NYT calling for Biden to drop out

Thank you. It was HIS fucking performance. I agree most of the pundits are shitheads who called us all ageist POS 6 months ago, but Biden ultimately fucked his. They buck stops there.

Except that it is definitely the ongoing media coverage. Without a doubt.

not surprising I guess but none of this discourse takes into account his funding of two wars, one of which is an active genocide what foreign policy?

All my friends have the same story—freaking out within the first 15 minutes or so. No media narrative needed to reach our own conclusions. A text convo a friend started with me. See the time stamp:

He has not really declined since the debate, it's some small movements both ways and a lot of bed wetting

50 million people also heard Trump talk about post-birth abortions and Mexicans stealing "Black jobs" -- any press on that? (By the way, Black press and social media LIT UP about the "Black jobs" comment -- seems like an important constituency to pay attention to!)

Yeah, that's the thing that folks like Stancil and all haven't kinda squared up. They say it was bad, and they point out the rallies he's done and kinda bouncing off press, but don't acknowledge the fact that the campaign utterly dropped the ball into a bottomless chasm to stop this.

They should be hammering Trump, non-stop, and now they have to convince a hostile media, and frankly, party, that their candidate is fine. They didn't get out ahead of it, due to hubris? stupidity? Who knows.

Is it though? 80 million people heard TFG say a lot of crazy shit and reporters went wild reporting the lies. And he just kept lying. And eventually the press gave up.

So Biden should lean into being a senile old man in the hopes they'll stop reporting on it?

nah as someone who hates biden it's super clear they're all attacking him and his campaign has completely failed in every regard to rein any of this in (because they're not willing to attack his opponent, who deserves the wrath of zeus)

I don't think "we" took on anything. We're getting hammered by "questions" about Biden's viability as a candidate by every media outlet because they want to scuttle his campaign. That they're using a spoonful of truth to do it makes it extremely effective but they could just as easily do it to Trump

they absolutely could not just as easily do it to Trump

If the media went after Trump with the same consistency and frequency it would absolutely change the narrative about his candidacy. And I mean none of this subtle bullshit where you just repeat what he says and then look at the camera and make a face.

I do not have faith in the media to be able to grow enough backbone for that. it's been years of anderson cooper looking physically wounded saying "how can you say that" to aoc's simple observation that trump is racist

I 100% agree. What I'm saying will never happen. I just think people are underestimating what would happen if we lived in opposite land and underestimating how susceptible they are to propaganda.

Just compare and contrast Biden's old age moments with Trump's in every article about either. Yeah, it won't change Trump's base, but it will make everyone else clear on what a malevolent pudding brain he is.

But everyone is already very clear on that. It's not a secret. Do you really feel like Trump is _under_exposed in the media?

That he is kind of vaguely strongman evil, which is the identity he wants? No, he is not. That his brain does not work at all in the same way that it worked in 2016 or 2020 is yes, very underexposed.

Because his support is more hardened and his base and party would rally behind him, right?

because his base is more ideologically heterodox and he has positioned himself as an opponent of the mainstream media for a decade

No part of it is that the media attacks wouldn’t find traction or people willing to embrace them from Trump’s own side?

what I’m saying is that the reaction by Trump’s base to media attacks is the output of ideological and demographic factors that you can’t just replicate on the left

There's this bizarre attempt in center-left circles to try and convince us that this pushback against Biden didn't happen until 3 days ago and I'm sorry but we all saw with our own eyes what happened. This is not manufactured. It's probably too late but it's not manufactured.

The polls in the two days following the debate indicated that by a 2:1 margin voters said Trump won. 25% of Democrats wanted another nominee. But the number of those who were for Biden before, still said they'd vote for him. The media onslaught (not just NYT opeds) has done more damage.

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