The Voters’ Repudiation of Harris, the Democrats- and the Media

By Gary Fouse

Now that the 2024 elections are over, Democrats are trying to figure out how they lost the presidential and senatorial elections so badly. There is finger-pointing by many at President Biden and his refusal to drop out until there were just over 100 days for Kamala Harris to put a campaign together. Some Democrats are conceding they need to do a lot of soul-searching, but it seems to center mostly around Biden’s refusal to drop out until late in the game and their own failure to convey their message to the voters. (Never mind that Harris failed to articulate much of anything during her failed campaign.)

More than usual, I have been watching CNN and MSNBC to get their take. MSNBC has been particularly painful since they are little more than an echo chamber. Their talking heads feature nothing but Democrats and liberals, aside from a few disgruntled “Republicans” like Michael Steele and Joe Scarborough. Yes, Fox is pro-Republican, but they do have some Democrats like Marie Harf, Juan Williams, and Harold Ford. Fox is pretty much the only major news source conservatives can turn to aside from talk radio.

But as for all the analysis I am hearing on the part of the mainstream media, there are a few points I am missing. First of all, there is no admission that the Biden-Harris administration has been a huge failure. From the economy to the open border (and resultant crime wave), to a failed foreign policy, the last four years have been catastrophically bad for Americans and the world.

In addition, it took the mainstream media three full years to admit to the public what we already knew: Joe Biden was in cognitive decline. Only after his disastrous debate against Donald Trump did they admit the obvious. To make things even more mysterious, it was literally seconds after the debate ended. It was as if somebody at the DNC called the networks in the middle of the debate and told them to switch to Plan B. Of course, after Biden dropped out, that discussion ended, let alone discussion over Harris’ own misleading denials about Biden’s state of mind.

In addition, once Harris took over, there was no criticism of her lousy campaign, her refusal to hold a news conference, how badly she handled the few easy questions that got through to her. She even blew a simple question appearing on The View! All we got from the media (Fox excepted) was how terrible a person Trump was. The race was neck and neck they told us. It wasn’t.

Now they are scratching their heads trying to figure out just what it is the American voters have repudiated.  The Green New Deal? A wide-open border that has literally led to the rapes and/or murders of American citizens by gang members? Bidenomics?  The anti-Semitic outrages on our campuses? Wokism? That Harris is a far-leftist? None of that.

But perhaps more importantly, the biggest thing the media refuses to face is that the voters also rejected them.

If Biden’s debate performance against Trump put the exclamation mark on his cognitive unfitness to continue as president, this election puts the exclamation mark on the American public’s rejection of the mainstream media and its blatant partisanship at the expense of true journalism. They can dismiss the majority of voters as white nationalists, MAGA extremists, and haters all they want, but it’s pretty hard to label over 50 million voters as such, especially in light of the fact that Trump got votes from blacks and Latinos at a record number.

What is clear is that the media tried to hide the obvious signs that Biden was in mental decline. They refused to discuss his failures. They refused to draw comparisons between the Biden economy and the Trump economy (at least prior to the pandemic). They refused to talk about the open border and the wave of criminals coming in from places like Venezuela and the would-be terrorists from other points on the globe.

They also refused to discuss the lack of qualifications of Kamala Harris to fill any position, let alone that of president of the United States. They refused to point out her evasions from press conferences, the dopey word salads she put out when asked even the easiest of questions from friendly reporters.

The Biden-Harris administration has been a colossal failure, arguably the worst administration in history. But if all you do is stay inside and watch CNN or MSNBC, that would come as a surprise to you.

There is much to criticize about the Democrat party (the Republican party too, for that matter). I would hope that as the Democrats do all their soul-searching, they will consider how much to the left they have drifted. Hopefully, they will decide that it is time to move back toward the center. As for the news media, it is time for them to do some soul-searching as well. With few exceptions, they will not do it. They are too smug, too arrogant. This is a (liberal) culture too long in the making. They are attracting the wrong kind of people, activists rather than true journalists. Too many journalism schools in our universities are dedicated to turning out social justice warriors rather than true journalists; people dedicated to affecting societal change as opposed to reporting the news. The end result is that the difference between the front page and the Op-Ed section is blurred. And as a result of that, too many people lose the ability to read between the lines and separate fact from opinion.

This week, the American voters, even if they didn’t like Trump personally, decided that the alternative was much worse. They repudiated the Democrats and their candidate. They also repudiated the mainstream media. Will the media admit that and use it as a learning experience? Don’t bet on it. They are too focused on making their own transition from State-run press to opposition press.