Media bias against Harris. Who will administer CPR to a comatose American body politic, if not the press?
A great deal of the news coverage about Kamala Harris reflects a deep innate bias against her.
The press doesn't know how to report on Trump. They don’t know how to analyze crazy. And they or their young editors are not inclined to look beneath the surface to find out and report on what is going on under the hood, so io speak, at the deep subconscious level where voters’ emotions will determine how they vote on November 5, 2024.
November 5 is the day of America’s date with Destiny.
The bias that is an innate feature of their reporting is that they chold Kamala Harris up to comparison not to her actual opponent, Donald Trump, but rather to some idealized rational presidential candidate who exists only in their imagination.
Their comparisons of Harris’ speeches, policies, or character are always against this illusory candidate of their imagination. Making such comparisons, they strive to show how brilliant they are analytically. Meanwhile, the necessary comparisons with the real candidate, Donald Trump, are never formulated and never presented to their readers and their listeners.
Reporting on what is really going on in the campaign is consequently absent from their newspaper articles and their television reports.
How do you report on crazy?
How do you report on Trump’s policies when he has no policies, other than talking points that might occur to him or his advisors on any given day, at any given moment?
Kamala Harris might not be the best presidential candidate the Democrats could have produced. But given Joe Biden’s stranglehold on the nomination process and his obstinate refusal to withdraw from the race until he was absolutely forced to do so, Harris was the only feasible candidate for the Democrats–-at that moment in time.
With Harris the Democrats at least had a chane to win the presidential election and control of the Senate and the House. With Joe Biden, an increasingly senile candidate, they faced inevitable defeat in all three arenas.
Kamala Harris was the best possible candidate for the Democrats.
For press and television and other reporters, the central question is, and always has been, how does she stack up against Donald Trump and how do the Democratic candidates stack up against their Republican opponents?
How do they stack up against Crazy?
How do they stack up against the lying Republican candidates who are utterly under the thumb of the crazy, lying, and criminal Leader of their authoritarian party?
Let us be frank and call it what it is: a fascist party totally controlled by a fascist Leader, Donald Trump.
Crazy, surrounded by leaders of a would-be fascist government.
Ponder this: Neither Trump, nor vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance, nor Republican House Leader Mike Johnson will admit publicly that the 2020 presidential race was won by Joe Biden. Nor will they admit that there was virtually no evidence of any significant fraud–- none. This fact was confirmed by the decisions of all 62 courts in which Trump raised spurious claims of fraud without a shred of credible evidence.
Furthermore, these same Republican leaders will not commit to accepting the presidential election results in 2024 if Trump doesn’t win.
It is past time that reporters started reporting on what is really going on in the 2024 elections, and on the true character and democratic commitment of candidates from each of the two parties.
Without a fearless and vibrant press, America seems to be in a political coma.
Who will administer CPR on the comatose American body politic, if not the press?
James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.
He is the author of The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (September, 2024, now available on Amazon and soon to be available from IngramSpark).
His most recent book, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump, will be available on Amazon and IngramSpark by mid-September.
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