Lies, Damn lies, and I’m a Big Boy, Now
Lies, Damn lies, and I’m a Big Boy, Now
Biden’s Big Boy Gaffe-rence at NATO love-in 2024 ends with voters left more than underwhelmed, concerned, appalled; media thought to be complicit in years-long cover-up
(Must be nice to have so many naps / via CNN)
Democrats are fucked! Democrats are fucked! Democrats are fucked!
Joe Biden is cooked, dear readers. How do I know this? I watched him talk - at length. I sat back, let him speak as much as he wished and I listened intently to his words. And, oh boy…
As I eluded to in a previous piece, the corporate media wishes to keep the Ukraine war going because of course, war is good for business - but they, the shareholder class, also want Joe Biden gone. His stupidity (much like the man before him) is making them look not just incompetent, but deranged and negligent. It makes them look like fools, and so they’d like a new smiling face for their fascistic merger between themselves and the bureaucratic state; a face they can feel good about and not have to answer for so often. A Disney girlboss multiverse character, if at all possible. We’ll get to that at the end, but..
Ever since the Biden family decided to allow Joe to run in 2020, the corporate western press writ-large has been his most faithful servant, including at the very launch fundraiser; which occurred in the home of a Comcast executive. Comcast, America’s leading hate-them-or-hate-them media conglomerate, is the parent company of Democrat water carrier channel MSNBC, as well as others like CNBC and NBC Broadcasting. To say that Comcast has broad influence in American broadcast is an understatement, given their holdings.
I don’t need to remind you of the events of the past 3.5 years, I presume my readers to be fully aware by this point - but if you aren’t: Biden has been protected from every angle by much all of the western press that was so breathlessly critical of Trump just years prior, for many of the same “gaffes” and sins. Trump is, cordially, a bloviating idiot and says words like “hamberders”. Joe Biden is also a blithering idiot, but when he speaks the mass media in unison:
Blames the audience for misquoting him and spreading “misinformation”, or taking him out of context
Starts apologia on his behalf, explaining “what he meant to say” and chalking it up to a harmless gaffe, a slip of the tongue
Begins deriding anyone who noticed the error as some sort of lunatic fringe -ist and -phobe, incapable of humanity
Pivots to another talking point, or just pivots to blaming/complaining about Trump
Of course, all of this was not just obvious to everyone at home over the past 3 years - it was so transparently disgustingly apparent that the audience saw right through it thanks to the smell. Biden was unfit from day one and many were mislead by the corporate press into thinking everything was fine, that the ship was still under control and we weren’t in dangerous waters taking on water, just above a mass migration of sharks.
The Debate
(Photo of the debate on CNN / via WSJ)
Shocking few average voters but the entire liberal intelligentsia from the first time he opened his mouth, the first 2024 Presidential Debate was a disaster - for Joe Biden - and the media had an impossible task in trying to spin Biden’s performance as a net positive.
Somehow, the less Trump said, the smarter he looked - Biden could only stand back and watch as train after train of his own thoughts derailed, with lines like “If we beat Medicare”, to which Trump responded “Beat it? Yeah, you beat it to death!”.
Later on, Biden would deliver a gibberish line regarding the US southern border so incomprehensible that Trump remarked to the moderators with his response time “I don’t know what he said and I don’t think he knows what he said, either.”
It was over before it began. As soon as the candidate was exposed to live television cameras, the campaign went down in flames. Weekend at Bernie’s was up.
The western media, shocked and appalled by the dismal performance that was expected by everyone else, jumped into action, and began trial balloons for replacement candidates - several former primary losers among them, including current “Vice President Trump” Kamala Harris. This went over about as well as expected, with no clear answer arrived at. The ship is sinking, and rats are fighting with rats on the way off into the cold, blue seas.
The Captain, his wife, and their crack-smoking son delirious and confused at the helm, will remain. Full steam ahead.
(Image via The Times)
In the days following the disastrous debate, including a disastrous NATO summit in which Biden mistakenly called Ukrainian term-expired President Volodomyr Zelensky “President Putin” and referred to his own Vice President as “Vice President Trump”, myriad celebrities would ask for Biden to graciously step aside and leave the mantle to another candidate - anyone else - celebu-tants including George Clooney and Stephen King. Clearly fearful that running Biden again at his advanced age and mental deterioration would guarantee a Trump win (and thus, a major shift in American foreign policy), they began to scramble. Begging Biden to leave. Pleading.
Still, as of writing, Biden has no plans to relinquish control to another candidate, to the dismay of the liberal intelligentsia everywhere. Trump’s second term! No more Ukraine war! Could you imagine a worse thing? They wouldn’t have anything to complain about once his term was over! They’d cease to be able to use him as a scare tactic! Oh, the horror! They’d have to offer voters something for once. Shock and surprise.
So with celebrities fleeing the ship, and some Hill politicians joining suit - what’s a faithful media to do?
Brockman in Trouble
Yes, this is a clever reference to the image we use as our publication icon, The Simpson’s own Kent Brockman, during that one time he had to do a dram of self-reflection about something he’d done.
It’s a great metaphor for the state of western pro-corporate journalism in 2024. Journalists stuck in a Groundhog Day scenario, careening from one guardrail to the next, one outrage to the nexts, ignoring one scandal to the nexts, praying to God they can keep the lights on and advertisers coming in - with the same tragedies happening over and over and over again.
That very cynical and broad overview aside, the media is finding itself complicit in this very mess that it helped to create and fostered, and it wants no part of it anymore.
Biden went from darling child who could do no wrong to threat to democracy almost overnight, after “giving him a break, Jack” for 3.5 years straight. The media wishes to save face, at a time when self-reflection is most needed. The media just spent a period reflecting on how Trump came to power, and missed their own complicity. I fear it’s going to skip this period too, and go right back to its old ways - only to reflect on how Trump got his second term - just as Biden was getting started.
There will be no self-reflection on Biden’s failings or their own political malfeasance in failing to cover them appropriately, just as there will be no self-reflection on how the media loves to amplify war; or corporate interests above those of the common person. Brockman will remain in trouble, Groundhog Day is still tomorrow, and everything’s just peachy. Democrats have this in the bag. They can’t lose to Trump (again). It would just crush their little hearts.
Vice President Trump
That leaves us with the most likely outcome of all of this - Biden will be forced to step down, a lame duck. Kamala Harris will take his place as the presumptive nominee, as she has already been preordained by the Party Apparatus and Corporate Homunculus. As someone who obtained zero delegates in the last primary and dropped out just a few weeks in, she is a perfect fit. A loser-on-purpose. The media wish to champion this soul because:
She’s a she
She’s not white
She’s everything regressive policy wonk neoliberals crave
I don’t really have words for this vapid skin deep level of politics. Kamala Harris has very minimal executive political experience, her time as California’s Top Cop was mired in scandal-after-scandal, her time as Vice President is unremarkable, and beyond that she is a political lightweight. She was not fit to be VP, but the man who chose her was not fit to be President.
She could not win if she tried, and this is why many on the right are hopeful she will in fact be made to run - as she is somehow an even softer target than Biden in a mentally deficient sundowning state.
Running Gaffe Machine Biden is implausible. Running Cackling Kamala is impossible. Democrats are stuck between a demented rock and a loser place. What’s a hopeless monied liberal to do? Is Amy Klobuchar still available?