Note I skipped over the prior begged question there, by not deleting the “Why?” up there, because the pattern is crystal clear by now I’d say, after examining the events of the past month or so.
Biden, to maintain his approval rating, has to NOT ever fuck up, ever. Once he (allegedly) does, his entire political world comes crashing down around his ears (I’m not denying that he hasn’t, note). Even worse, other people not even part of his administration or party (GOP governors >ahem< if not the GOP Covid denying public as a whole) can screw up royally, but Biden is the one who gets blamed for it (yes I am aware that their approvals have also gone down, but not nearly as much as you’d expect of course, considering). The press specifically seems to utterly delight in raking him over the coals, even if they are (allegedly) part of the Liberal Media Elite.
Meanhoo Donald Trump can spout the most horrid, false, and/or malignant statements imaginable, can completely botch how he deals with any given issue (yes such as Covid), and both the press and public yawns (past tense) and pays him very little attention. When the pussy grabbing tape came to light in Sept. of 2016, I thought that was that for his chances. But it just seemed to slip off of the public consciousness very quickly. A Presidential candidate admitting to wanting to sexually assault women became ancient news within a week. Say that last sentence again, very slowly…
I’ve heard one justification for this in that the media supposedly wants a “horse race” and will thus maximize Dem sins and minimize GOP ones, with all of the Ratings numbers flashing madly in their eyes. But wouldn’t reporting on the President of the United States saying or doing the stupidest or most offensive things be hugely newsworthy in and of itself?
Maybe Biden isn’t expected to screw up, and if and when he does people get upset because they expect more of him? But then we’re back to why Trump then got elected in the first place, and around and around we go…
It’s like any classroom or family: Students are held to the expectations that are tailored to them. When a good student misbehaves, that’s bad for someone like him, so goes the logic, so he’s held to tougher accountability than when a bad student misbehaves (which is just “par for the course.”) Similarly, when a bad student behaves well for once, he gets more praise than when a good student behaves well (which is simply expected of a good student.) Or like a workplace - when a good employee starts getting lazy, the boss will chew him out in a way that he wouldn’t if it were a bad employee goofing off like his normal self.
That, and also, sheer fatigue. Trump said or did 10,000 odious things. If we were to really dwell on them nonstop and hold him to a Biden-level of accountability, people would get their brains wrecked out of outrage-fatigue.
That being said, there are sometimes it works the other way. To give one example, Michael Moore once criticized George W. Bush for “only receiving 50 million votes out of 250 million Americans” in the 2000 election. He neatly omitted the fact that by that same logic, Gore did pretty much the same likewise (not to mention the fact that the “250 million Americans” included many people, such as children, who couldn’t vote anyway.)
Because there’s a ridiculous double standard promoted by an extremely well-funded right-wing network of media, business owners and politicians, and spread by those in whose interests it is to portray their own tribe in the best possible light and the opposing tribe in the worst possible light.
I wouldn’t say it’s a “right-wing network of media” (sure, Fox News and OANN are, but…MSNBC, CNN, NYT? No…) but rather that it’s that for a long time, Democrats have tried to portray themselves as the “adult in the room” party - the mature, sensible, dignified party. That works well for picking up the votes of moderates or centrists, but results in more trouble when you screw up. By analogy, if someone likes to wear white, and try to keep it as white as possible, any mud or stain that soils the clothing gets noticed much more glaringly than if someone just wears grey or dark to begin with.
I don’t think he means that, but rather, that proportionate to what Biden would have gotten, Trump got off easy comparatively speaking for Covid. If Biden’s presidency had led to 500,000 dead in one year and 30 million infected, his approval ratings would have been perhaps half that of Trump and he’d have lost his reelection bid by a bigger margin than Trump did.
It did then, but this is now, and now everything is Biden’s fault, including the Delta surge. It’s his fault that people are wearing masks, and that people are not wearing masks, that businesses are mandating masks and that they’re not mandating masks-- see how that works?
The Afghan war is Biden’s fault, even though it’s been going on for 20+ years. If we stay it’s his fault, if we pull out it’s his fault. No matter which we do or how we do it, if anything goes wrong, it’s Biden’s fault.
In fact, I’m planning on suing the White House now that my dog has fleas.
It’s because so-called liberal news sources work extra hard to seem balanced, due to non-stop berating of them by right-wing so-called news sources. So, they go easy on the Republicans and hard on the Democrats. Further, Democrats still seem to be able to feel shame and will respond to these kinds of things. Trump has zero sense of shame and wouldn’t give a shit about any of this.
On mainstream Sunday morning shows, Republicans get on and lie their asses off, never get questioned about supporting the insurrection or the big lie about the election, and go on their merry way. Democrats are pinned down for any misstatements and any problems with the Democratic administration. All in the name of balance.
Because Biden is a sane person with the experience and qualifications to do the job, whereas Trump is an insane person lacking the required experience and qualifications to do the job. More and better is expected from Biden because he has the potential to actually deliver that. The most Trump could deliver was 3rd grade level insults, and stepping out of McConnel’s way.
The thing is, it’s not just Biden vs. Trump, it’s Democrat vs. Republican.
It should be clear to any non-insane observer that the only standard any Republican is willing to actually apply is “Republican good, Democrat bad”, so obviously Biden, and AOC, and really every other Democrat in the United States, will be considered the Worst Person Ever, no matter what they do or say.
Meanwhile, Democrats, by and large, have actual, reasonable standards, which they largely apply in a non-partisan fashion. As such, when Biden makes a mistake, such as the messed up withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Dems will, quite rightly, tell him he messed up.
So this is just an inherent feature of modern US politics, and any honest analysis of how well any given politician is doing has to be calibrated with this in mind.
I agree with this. Biden IS a competent politician, and is a human, so he can make mistakes. And I think after 4 years of the Trump administration debacle of corruption and incompetence, everyone is expecting Biden to be “safe”, so he’s not given any latitude for errors.
Trump was like an overflowing toilet - this week’s scandal and outrage would be replaced days or hours later with some other scandal and outrage. There was just so much going on demanding attention, all the time, it was not possible to pin him down on any one thing (Bannon’s strategy of “flood the zone”). Biden is not like that, so it’s easier to pick-apart any one thing he did.
Biden having a scandal is like someone stepping on a nail. It causes injury to the foot.
Trump having 10,000 scandals is like stepping on a tightly packed bed of nails. Each nail takes the distributed pressure and thus one suffers little, if any, harm in stepping on it - in fact that’s how walkable or pressable nail mats work.
The Wall Street Journal published an editorial a couple of days ago saying that the public was yearning for a return to competency.
A return to competency.
The rest is paywalled, but who is the president with competency they think people are pining for? Obama? They have to mean Trump. They have to be saying that Trump was competent and Biden is not.
Biden did screw up the end of our Republican-funded 20-year fiasco in Afghanistan, and in such a major, visible way that it would be a crisis for any administration. Those in left (or reality) leaning media are right to criticize in the strongest terms. The right has no leeway to judge real mistakes. Everything Trump did must be glorious or the mob attacks, funding craters, states lose power, and the deaths of tens of thousands are placed on their heads. It’s existential for them.
The press is supposed to be oppositional to those in power. We’ve forgotten that because it stopped being true for half the world since Reagan. The right keeps digging its hole deeper and to shore up the sides must create an environment where nothing done or said by leftists can be allowed to be good, where their very existence is a blight and boil.
Totally dominating one half and getting one half of the other half, as a rational press would split, gives them three-quarters of what is right, good, and competent. It’s a winning formula.
It may cut both ways, but not evenly. Note the title of the thread.