I was going to say some things are as predictable as the seeing the sun rise in the morning. However that only happens once a day. No, a better comparison for what follows is that some things are as predictable as Trump lying all day long. In this case we are talking about journalists who are as astonished and rocked back on their heels as Trump and his campaign. With astonishing quickness the Democratic Party has been coalescing in support of VP Kamala Harris. With their dreams of a brokered Democratic Convention shattered there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that journalists, with the blessing of if not under orders from their bosses are determined to promote and dissension they can find. Or create if they have to. Oh to hell with it. They know conflict sells and are bound and determined to stir up sh*t!
Even with President Biden’s endorsement of his VP a half-hour after his statement he was withdrawing from the race everyone was taken aback by the fundraising records (small dollar donations from 900k plus people, sixty percent donating for the first time), not to mention a record of tens of thousand of volunteers. Endorsements including from some of those who’d called for the President to step aside quickly happened Sunday and picked up steam. By Monday it had become a raging river and endorsements from key constituent groups rolled in too. By Tuesday we learned that after some quick canvassing of DNC delegates VP Harris had already secured enough pledges to receive the nomination on the first ballot. I wrote earlier this week that by week’s end she’d like have not just well over two thousand of the four thousand delegates needed, but probably over three thousand pledging to support her.
To the dismay of news bosses and the “talent” there will be NO brokered convention. In fact, things are shaping up for a helluva show of unity.
This of course is the opposite of what these people wanted, even worked for for months in trying to promote the “Is Joe Biden fit for another term?” narrative. They wanted dissension, DIS-unity and an open challenge to the President come convention time with delegates openly saying they wouldn’t vote for Biden. Just to remind you I wrote earlier this week how for decades in the Democratic Party that while delegates are picked by their respective state Parties to follow what the primary voters wanted they are free, even on the first ballot to vote for whomever they please. The news biz did it’s job effectively and there were strong indications there might be a fight at the convention.
Then the debate happened and pretty much the entire world of journalism went in for the kill, scaring the hell out of Democrats that polling data to the contrary they would lose THEIR seats. Names of potential replacements were floated, with Harris getting relatively little mention. When Speaker Emeritus Pelosi made her statement the Rubicon was crossed. My oh my the corks popped and the champagne flowed in newsrooms! Biden would be forced out and chaos would rule and they’d have have their precious brokered convention.
Ah, but the law of be careful what you wish for has bitten them all in the ass. They got the first part of their wish – President Biden dropping out but the ensuing chaos, the food fight they were sooooooooo sure would ensue never happened! As I noted earlier. Well, Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee with tons of endorsements, tons of money and a full head of steam going into and after the convention next month.
Unless journalists can somehow throw sand in the gears. So, by god they wasted little time getting started. Their “tool” is talking about the “Process”, or as they want the masses to believe lack thereof. A good example of what they are trying to do can be found in this Tampa Free Press article. It reviews MSNBC talking head Elise Jordan’s sit-down with Democratic voters in Wisconsin. I recall watching her one day earlier this week with two different panels of Republicans/Independents, then waiting an entire day to air her interview with a panel of YOUNG Democratic voters. I’m sure it was pure coincidence that the panel she assembled ALL had “issues” with the process of Harris becoming the nominee. Surely no journalist in this day and age would ‘stack the deck!’ Perish the thought!
However, as I watched I couldn’t help but think the whole thing was an exercise in trying to promote dissension in Democratic ranks. With the extra touch of YOUNG voters being nonplussed by what has transpired. Voicing complaints about “process.” One voter complained the President should have allowed all this to happen a year ago. I guess he wanted to have an open primary. Or for real challengers with some gravitas to run against Biden. Perhaps he needs to study a little history. When that happens it cripples incumbents. Hell not he doesn’t want Trump. But I guess he wanted President Biden to say he wasn’t running again a year ago. Which would have crippled his ability to deal with Congress and critical international issues! Anyway there was other grumbling like this:
“I think by trying to clear the field and ensure that it was going to be Biden and… not allow us to have an actual democratic primary process — I’m not saying I think Kamala Harris is going to lose, but I do think that we would have been benefited significantly if he had figured this out far sooner so there could have actually been more time to have an internal debate, have internal democracy within the party,” another male voter said.
And this:
“I feel activated. I don’t like the process either. This whole, we started the conversation with like there are people behind closed doors and curtains making the decisions for us, and it’s supposed to be a process,” a female voter said. “We’re supposed to be part of it. So that part I don’t like on principle. That being said, she’s the vice president, and we’re late in the game, and therefore we would’ve elected her into office by electing Biden, and therefore she’s there. She would have been president had he went to office and something happened, God forbid. I think what she brings is fresh. She was in office for four years. So she might not have the network, but she knows the network. She knows who the players are.”
You get the idea of what the panel Jordan assembled had to say. I smell bullsh!t. Jordan couldn’t find ONE young person who didn’t complain to her while she was putting together her little focus group who didn’t have complaints? I know a reporter promoting an angle when I see it. It reminds me of Trump’s first address to Congress. A new President’s first such address isn’t called the SOTU but it’s effectively the same thing. Outlets had reporters set up out in the hall corralling Congress Critters for short, live interviews as is always the case. Unless it’s Fox they always find people from both Parties. Yet MSNBC’s Kasie Hunt couldn’t seem to find one single Democrat willing to talk to freaking MSNBC? That didn’t pass the smell test either.
The point however is that having been denied their dreamed of brokered convention journalists, whether on their own or at the orders of the bosses are DETERMINED to sow discord. As much as they can dig up and if necessary foment. Decades ago when news divisions of networks decided to pump up profits treating news as entertainment they looked at the Jerry Springer Show. It’s ratings and therefore revenue had them saying ‘we want some of THAT.’ Crossfire is what we got and things have gone downhill ever since.
I’d like to remind everyone of what I’ve said more than once. NO ONE of substance chose to take on the President in the primaries. After the debate when some Democrats drew their knives and started using them the stories included parts about the worries (about Biden) had existed for months. But no politician named a name of who should take over. And after the debate when possible replacements were floated by journalists for the inevitable moment that came NO ONE actually stepped up and said they should be the one. In fact some said no, not me.
I’d also like to remind you of what I pointed out earlier. Delegates have been free all along to ignore the choice the primary voters in their state made for a Biden/HARRIS ticket. I’m quite certain that if feelers had gone out to recruit delegates to switch candidates we’d have learned about it. Nobody did jack. Even with a convention coming up. A quick, national “mini-primary?” What the hell does “mini” mean? It takes years for a state to deal with the logistics of something they do every four years which is put on a primary, and they were expected to organize something, some brand new “mini” primary process no one had even figured out? In a freaking month?
Yes, I’m sure there is some grumbling in in the ranks. Personally I think it’s fear that being either a woman or a person of color dooms a Democrat against Trump. And being both is a double barrel blast Team Trump will unload on the VP. I’m not about to dismiss such concerns but with a few days to consider things, as I wrote earlier today as Biden’s pick for VP Kamal Harris has endured some good sparring practice for her championship bout. I really do believe she’ll handle the racism and sexism better than many fear.
In the meantime though journalists are bound and determined to piss in the soup, through turds in the punchbowl or if it comes down to it start flinging their poop at the crowd. ANYTHING to create controversy. That’s so much easier for them than doing you know, actual journalism.
Some things are so predictable…
Marketing insights professional here.
Yes, the focus groups were stacked. It’s called screening. You can use it as it’s intended (to remove bad respondents or non-target audiences-e.g., non Democrats for a group to focus on Democratic candidates) or you can use it to create dishonest and biased groups.
It’s too bad the media weren’t as interested in a “brokered” GOP convention, especially after the “assassination” attempt. What ratings the media could’ve had (let’s just say that champagne bottles wouldn’t have been the only things “popping”) if they’d just spent half as much time with a “disunited” GOP which was, and is, closer to reality. I mean what percentage of Dem primary voters were voting against Biden compared to GOP primary voters voting against Trump?
Even AFTER she suspended her campaign Haley was still pulling twenty percent (or more) in GOP primaries. It got mentioned some by journalists, but NOTHING on the level of the near (if not at times full-on) obsession cycle after cycle of “Dems in Disarray.”
I’m not sure how old you are. I figure you’re probably old enough to fully understand the post 911 environment and so much of the country panicking (led by Bush and his neocons) in a Chicken Little ‘the sky is falling!’ mentality. But literally hours after the attack, even though there were good indicators (almost gold-plated evidence) of the fact that Al Queeda was responsible and Iraq (who was actually at odds with them and vice versa) had nothing to do with it discussions got underway to use the attack as an excuse to invade Iraq and take out Sadaam.
If you recall, in the runup to the war Baby Bush (and his team) literally would sometimes say ‘you’re either with us or against us’ and COWED much of the media into submission. Questions about the Bush narrative about Iraq having a hand in 911 and of course still possessing WMD and the capability to make more were met with pointed accusations of ‘supporting terrosism’ and some in the media actually became cheerleaders so as not to offend sources in the Bush administration. Bush and Cheny had journalists running scared, and so it’s been with Trump.
I’d urge everyone who remembers how things were between the media and the Bush 43 administration for years after 911, and how they’ve been with Trump. Even now. And tell me I’m wrong saying it’s the same old thing all over again.
No, you’re right. But many of us, and many Democratic politicians, understand this better than they did 20-30 years ago, I think. I thought it was interesting that AOC, in her now-famous speech of last week, specifically let the media of the hook, stating that the main culprits were no they, but “the donor class” and “elites.” The relationship between donors/elites on the one hand and media on the other is complicated — and they are intimately related, as the owners of the media are themselves elites and donors — but I do think that if most of the money and power people were OK with the choices, the media would not take such pains to inject itself into the process. I don’t think I’ve addressed this adequately, but I’ll leave it here for now.