In 2020, corporate media blacked out coverage of the bombshell Hunter Biden laptop right before the presidential election. After the election, a survey of Joe Biden voters in swing states found that nearly half were unaware of the pay-for-play scandal evidenced by the laptop and nearly 1 in 10 said they would have changed their vote if they had known about it. That’s an election-altering percentage of voters.
Here we are one presidential election cycle later, and 62 percent of voters say “Joe Biden not having the necessary mental and physical health” for another term is a major concern of theirs heading into November. A full 89 percent say it is at least a minor concern. But again, media outlets are telling voters to disbelieve their own eyes about Biden’s unelectability.
Even after a special counsel declined to charge Biden for his apparent crimes relating to classified documents because he deemed the president too senile for a trial, corporate media are extending a generous double standard to Biden at best and outlandishly lying for him at worst.
NBC News cited “brain experts” to assure readers that “forgetting the names of acquaintances or having difficulty remembering dates from the past doesn’t affect decision-making or judgment.” Then they took things one step further: “There are cognitive benefits that come with growing older,” the paper insisted. “Mental processes like decision-making and judgment can actually improve with age.”
The Associated Press downplayed Biden’s apparent case of Alzheimer’s by observing that “any parent who’s ever called one of their children by the other’s name — or even the family pet’s name — likely could empathize” with Biden’s clueless verbal fumbles. “Verbal gaffe or sign of trouble? Mixing up names like Biden and Trump have done is pretty common,” the headline insisted.
The Washington Post got experts to say platitudes like “An older brain is a wiser brain” and “We should not be prejudiced about age,” as if Biden’s number of years alone — and not his repeated, severe symptoms of cognitive decline — are what worry voters.
“Verbal slips happen,” promised NPR, suggesting Biden’s slip-ups really aren’t a big deal and that they simply feed “into an existing narrative” perpetuated by pouncing Republicans. The networks trotted out Biden’s Democrat allies to say he is “sharp, he’s focused, he’s bright,” he’s “on top of his game,” and he “knows what’s going on.”
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow suggested Biden’s fitness for the presidency is evidenced by the fact that “he rides a bike!” — even though when Biden tried to ride a bike across a crosswalk in summer 2022, he ended up taking an embarrassing fall.
Age may just be a number, but it’s not just about Biden’s age. Anyone who has observed him can tell that the current president is frail, often spatially and mentally confused, prone to the impatient outbursts of an elderly man who has trouble communicating, and carefully controlled by handlers who do their best to keep his flailing public appearances scripted and limited. And while, at four years Biden’s junior, Donald Trump isn’t that much younger, voters see vastly different pictures of energy, wit, and even physical strength in the two men.
But media outlets are nevertheless determined to “both sides” Biden’s senility problems. Voters, suggest the media, are so dumb they only see Biden’s mental decline as worse than Trump’s because the Republican hides behind things like hair dye and a fake tan.
Those same outlets, you may recall, published articles declaring that Trump was “Mentally Unfit, No Exam Needed” and “has shown marked signs of impairment and psychological disability” that are “a danger to us all.” The New York Times was not writing cautionary headlines like “Memory Loss Requires Careful Diagnosis, Scientists Say” when Democrats threatened to use the 25th Amendment against Trump over concerns about his “mental fitness.”
Any Republican expecting fair and balanced treatment from such outlets should get back in his time machine and head back to never, but the double standard isn’t just a display of political favoritism. It’s an example of how corporate media outlets work to control the dialogue about candidates, and therefore, how (or whether) you are informed as a voter. It’s a truth universally acknowledged in legacy newsrooms at this point that the old standards of “objectivity” don’t apply in the face of someone as problematic as Trump — and they will tell you so.
They will do just about anything to keep you from voting for the scary orange man, up to pushing a concocted hoax smearing him as a compromised asset in cahoots with Russia. Telling you to disbelieve your lying eyes about Biden’s cerebral dehydration? That’s the propaganda junior leagues.