Once upon a time, journalists demanded “access” to presidential candidates. Suddenly, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris’ calculated refusal to do a solo sit-down interview becomes a nonissue. Harris served as President Joe Biden’s co-pilot and cannot credibly distance herself from the 40-year high in inflation, from gas prices 50% higher than four years ago and from the nearly 12 million illegal aliens who have entered the country in the last four years, so her media avoidance is tactically smart.
The Trump-hating, pro-Democrat media and pundit class are perfectly OK with this. Rather than face blistering criticism for ignoring or disowning the many radical positions Harris has taken in the not-so-distant past, she is being praised. Former President Donald Trump, for example, denounced the Harris-Tim Walz interview as “boring.” MSNBC’s opinion editor wrote: “(Trump) wasn’t wrong about that. But I think Harris is banking on voters’ choosing boring over the drama — no, let’s be real and call it the chaos — that Trump inevitably brings.”
About Harris’ vacuous politics of joy and good vibes, CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali said: “It has been effective in American history. Franklin Roosevelt ran on the New Deal, of course, he was running at a time of economic collapse, and he was running against an incumbent. But he didn’t actually say what the New Deal was. … John F. Kennedy ran promising to make the country move again. Well, how vague is that? He ran a vibes campaign for the most part in 1960. Richard Nixon in 1968 promised to end the war in Vietnam, but didn’t say how we would do it. … And 2008, Barack Obama promised change. He did promise some policy changes, of course, but he was basically saying, ‘We’ve had enough with the Bush administration. We’ve had enough with its wars.’ So historically, a vibes campaign can be very effective.”
Did Roosevelt, Kennedy, Nixon and Obama treat the media like an infectious disease? So, Harris’ agenda of “joy” and “vibes” should soothe the two-thirds of Americans who consider the nation on the “wrong track”? This silliness works because the media is complicit. They cannot abide Trump’s “lies.” But Biden and Harris can lie with impunity.
In a July interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Biden again pushed the Trump-Charlottesville “both sides” lie. No pushback from Holt.
Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash that Trump bushwhacked “a conservative border bill.” Bash failed to point out that several Republicans spoke out against the bill before Trump did; that this “tough” border bill, among many problems, permits an annual floor of 1.8 million new illegal entrants; and, most importantly, Trump secured the border without any congressional action — and Biden could do likewise by simply reinstating the Trump policies he started reversing on his first day as president.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer recently allowed not one but two guests in the same segment to refer falsely to Trump as a “convicted rapist.”
Biden and Harris brag, with no media pushback, about “creating 16 million new jobs.” Never mind that 10 million of these “new” jobs were bounce-backs from COVID and that the economy was recovering well before Biden-Harris took over and unnecessarily spent trillions, triggering the inflation that peaked at 9%.
Television journalists routinely allow guests/pundits/politicians/surrogates to call Trump “fascist.” But isn’t it fascist for government to pressure social media platforms into suppressing dissent about COVID; for government to pressure social media platforms into restricting the Hunter Biden laptop story; and for Harris to propose price controls?
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About Harris’ “flip-flopping” on fracking, former New York Times columnist Anand Giridharadas on MSNBC said: “I think sometimes we in journalism shame people kind of figuring out a different view that they might hold and call it flip-flopping and try to kind of catch people in it when, in some ways, on some issues, that’s a measure of progress. … She’s in a general election against an American fascist, Donald Trump.”
A 2023 poll by Syracuse University found just 3.4% of reporters are Republicans. According to the Media Research Center, the ABC/NBC/CBS recent news coverage of Harris-Walz has been 84% positive, while that of Trump-Vance is 89% negative.
Welcome to modern journalism. Water is wet. Sky is blue. Trump is a fascist.
Larry Elder is a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an “Elderado,” visit www.LarryElder.com. Follow Larry on Twitter @larryelder.
