“I think what you’re reacting to is that, at the moment, Biden is an unpopular president seeking a second term while Trump is a popular figure inside his party who is winning primary races. I wouldn’t necessarily compare the two.”
Credit to @JoshuaHolland
I think you’re misunderstanding his point. Biden is facing the difficult task of governing a divided country. Trump is looking to consolidate power within his own party. One of these tasks is a historic, perhaps insurmountable challenge, and the other is routine. Even from a completely neutral perspective, this means you will report on more failures by Biden and more successes for Trump.
I personally don’t find this “the media is so mean to Biden!” narrative any more compelling than when Trump was claiming the same thing as president. The media has always been critical of those in power and this is a healthy part of our democratic system.
Except Trump isnt overwhelmingly popular within his own party. Yes it’s a strong majority within the GOP but its not a stranglehold. Nicki Haley was getting a consistent 40-45% of the GOP voters.
That’s not in line with the polling I’ve seen. Where did you get that number?
GOP Primaries.
Only two states where she won over 40% so far, Vermont and Utah. Those two are definitely not representative of the Republican electorate as a whole. In national poll averages she has never broken 20%. That is a significant faction but her defeat was never in doubt to careful observers.
How it will affect the general election is a more interesting question.
And DC.
And Iowa
And South Carolina.
And New Hampshire.
All places where Trump had less than 60% of the GOP vote
I was answering where they got the numbers, thank you for confirming which states.
I mean, if they were reporting on Biden’s progress in governing through that lens, and Trump’s progress in the election, then I could see validity to what you’re saying as the reason why. But that’s not the case – they’re reporting the election in those unequal terms.
One great example is the little nugget contained in his answer, where Trump is “winning primary races” and that’s a notable point about his popularity. Biden’s won 86% of the primary popular vote. Trump’s won 72% of the primary popular vote. Every single person who follows political news knows that there’s a little revolt of “uncommitted” voters because of Biden’s support for Israel. How many people know about 30+% of voters in Republican primaries saying that they won’t necessarily support the eventual nominee in November? That’s very unusual, and clearly a bigger story on exactly the same subject, and it’d be worth diving into the reasons behind it because they would uncover some objective things underlying their decisions that would be great to report on. Yet somehow it gets less press than the uncommitted voters making problems for Biden (which, obviously, are also an important story to report on.)
I mean, every president in modern history has whined about how the press is being mean to them (usually with some validity). It’s part of the job. But it doesn’t mean that careful analysis of “is the press coverage actually slanted” suddenly turns into an automatically wrong thing.
A lot of media coverage, especially in elections has to do with expectations. Biden is an incumbent facing no real opposition in the primary. Trump had real opposition, and there was a chance he would lose. You could argue he’s a semi-incumbent but I don’t think the media views him that way. Reporting on his overcoming this obstacle is naturally going to look a little more positive. In contrast, Biden has little to no chance of losing but has somehow managed to create major opposition to his candidacy anyway. This is noteworthy.
The non-committed vote is an unusual event and it ties into an important issue: the US government’s ongoing material support for ethnic cleansing in Gaza. I think it would be quite bizarre if this did not get coverage.
I am not saying that arguments of bias are automatically wrong, but as you say they have been (falsely, I think) repeated by every president. It’s going to take some compelling evidence and argumentation to overcome my natural skepticism of this idea. So far, I haven’t seen any real case be made. Not to mention that I think there is generally a greater danger in coverage of the powerful that is too positive as compared to too negative. See right-wing media’s fawning Trump coverage for an example.
It’s equally routine for Biden to be campaigning as an incumbent and due to his competition is age is also routine at this point. While Trump is actively currying favor with fascists (Orban, Putin) and trying to overthrow democracy. Which is objectively a massive new development in the history of America. The fact they aren’t covering it like this shows inherent bias.
Being the oldest president in history is by definition not routine. I know people like to point out that Trump is almost as old, but 4 years is significant at these ages.
I think there has been coverage of Trump’s autocratic tendencies so I’m not sure what you mean by that part.