Jonathan V. Last writes for The Bulwark, an excellent Never Trumper site. He noticed a curious phenomenon. Whenever there’s good economic news, the mainstream media worries that good economics news is bad news for Biden? What?
He writes:
We’ve reached the ne plus ultra of Here Is Some Good News and Also Why It’s Bad for Biden headline writing. I present to you an April 13 story in the Washington Post by Abha Bhattarai and Tyler Pager. (Don’t click the link yet.)
The piece is about the current economic indicators we’re seeing in the March reports: Job growth, wage growth, consumer spending—all headed in the right direction. The economy is, the piece declares, “booming.”
Now, are you ready for the two headlines the Post gave the piece?
Before I make your head explode, this is the part where I say that you should join Bulwark+ because we don’t do happy talk, but we also don’t pull the type of nonsense where we say “Puppies were spotted at the White House, here’s why that’s bad for Biden.”
If we want a better media, we have to build it. That’s what we’re doing here and we’d love it if you joined us.
Okay, so back to the Post.
Here’s Headline #1:
And here’s Headline #2:
Here is a real sentence written by a real person at the Washington Post: “The economy’s unfettered strength is becoming more of a political liability for the White House.”
Are you forking kidding me?
We are deep into heads-I-win, tails-you-lose territory. Would it also be a political liability for the White House if, I dunno, we were experiencing deflation and the economy was shrinking? If unemployment was rising? If wage growth was stagnant?
Pray tell, describe the economic conditions which augur political benefits for the Joseph Robinette Biden?
My two complaints:
(1) The piece is wrong on the merits: We have seen a small—but measurable—increase in Biden’s poll numbers over the last month. He is not being harmed by the economy. Or at least, his political prospects are improving, so if the economy is causing him harm, that debit is being overbalanced by something else that’s working in his favor.
(2) The Post isn’t providing analysis, it’s manufacturing a rationalization. As I’ve written before, if you came down from Mars and looked at all of the economic data and had to guess who was winning the election right now, you’d think Biden was on track for a landslide. The fact that he isn’t indicates that something interesting is going on. Instead of investigating that interesting thing, the Post is trying to pretend that everything is normal. Which is what causes them to say, Uhhh, Biden’s not doing so hot. And the economy is great. So . . . here’s why having a great economy is bad for Biden!
1. Oh, who am I kidding: The videotape wouldn’t hurt Trump at all. Sigh.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Media MUDDLE…ala the WAPO.
LikeLike
There seems to be a “too good to be true” aspect to the narrative that Biden’s accomplishments are bad. To be charitable, I would call it pessimism. To be real, I would call it a deliberate distortion on the part of in-the-closet Trumpers.
These strange reverse-spin pronouncements, equating success with failure, take different forms. Like the NYT’s steady overplaying of “scientific ” poll results showing Biden trailing. Or cable news stations doing the twist to keep their audiences watching nervously on the edge of their seats.
Whether to serve political ideology or good old profit-making, at-any-cost motives, such contrivances do nothing to advance the public good.
LikeLike
fjstats: ”Whether to serve political ideology or good old profit-making, at-any-cost motives, such contrivances do nothing to advance the public good.”
I think, for people like Trump and MTGreene and most of the GOP, that’s exactly the point. CBK
LikeLike
The media does not want to give Biden credit for the economy because most news outlets are influenced by billionaires and corporations that would rather see a deregulatory lunatic in The White House than a moderate Democrat like Joe Biden. Interests rates are unlikely to come down since inflation was recently reported to be at 3.8% over the past year. Robert Reich proposed that we stop calling the price gouging “inflation.” He said we should call it the corporate greed index. He also said we should stop making working families pay for corporate greed and that inflation is not driven by higher wages which is the go to talking point of many corporate media outlets.
LikeLiked by 1 person
PREACH!!!
LikeLike
Reich has a point. Why not discuss the point? In the news. This used to happen. Why not now?
LikeLike
Marshall Mcluhan said, “The medium is the message.” When the medium is controlled by the ultra-wealthy, the message will get filtered by those with special interests and lots of $$$. Reich has his own media group that posts on social media because he knows corporate media does not want to hear what he has to say.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very well put. Sarcasm: I thought “the Jews” controlled the media.
LikeLike
US: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
It is difficult to get a group to see through exceptionalism when their salary depends on mythologizing the USA. Undermining the mythology not only threatens how group members perceive themselves, it threatens their social function. Questioning the mythology at the group’s core, questions the groups social status.
Whether the economy quibble is bad or good for Joe, this much is certain: Words don’t buy food.
LikeLike
God what took so long. Well better late than never. Retired Teacher nailed it. What we call MSM is owned by very wealthy people whose interests will not be hurt by a Trump re-election. Tax cuts for the wealthy don’t trickle down and never have, but they go into his and their pockets . But even a more benign explanation is that Trump is good for the business of the Washington Post , the New York Times , CNN… All with increased readership and thus advertising sales. Generated by the buffoon. The Jobs report was released on Friday the 5th showing a remarkable stretch of below 4% unemployment not seen since ” we partied like it was 1965″ . Showing millions of more Jobs created on top of all the Jobs recovered since the Covid recession. Jobs recovered in record time for any recovery. After a recession business close employees who were employed have moved on it took from 2010 till 2017 to just recover the Jobs lost in the great recession. The US has a higher growth rate and lower inflation than almost the entire G20. We have been told by the MSM (not just Right Wing Media )that the 10s and 10s of millions who either went to work or changed jobs during the recovery , don’t really care about easily getting a Job and changing Jobs for better paying Jobs. Don’t care that the real (inflation adjusted) median wage actually exceeded inflation by a few dollars a week. That most of those raises went to non supervisory workers. Another words the working class. Not the upper middle class and the wealthy. What they care about we were told was inflation that subsided almost as quickly as it arose. Inflation that was due to supply shortages of Labor and Materials generated by Covid shut downs at home and overseas. By autocrats overseas manipulating oil prices to see an autocrat elected in America. Not due to the typical wage price spirals of the past. Inflation that saw corporations because of the hysteria generated in the media feel free to boost profits by raising prices far and beyond any increase in Labor or material costs. Laughing in many Corporate Board Rooms that the people have been duped to expect inflation and we are going to give it to them as corporate profits rose to record levels not seen since WW2 and profits still are near record highs. I thought I could sleep after Biden was elected. Garland dispelled that hope quickly. So on Sunday the 7th two days after the employment report , I am up at 4AM. I tuned to CNN . They ran a story I thought was about the fantastic employment report that quickly turned to “but this may not be good for Biden”. And then for the next 8 minutes of perhaps a 10 minute segment diverted to the”oh but inflation”story. I will say this again !!!! when Reagan declared morning in America inflation was 4.3% not 3.5% as now. Un-employment was still at 7.8% not 3.8% as now . Mortgage rates were at 13% not 7%. Biden compared to the Reagan administration should be declared the second coming by the media. But it gets worse. As I pointed out by November of 2021 and several times since on this Blog and elsewhere. The media was hyping inflation beyond any reality. The National price of Gas before Putin was $3.21 a gallon as people went back to living their lives after Vaccinations and Oil fields had not fully opened!!!!!. Yet the NY Times , CNN and PBS found people who used a 1000 gallons of milk or Gas a week to highlight the impacts of inflation . Worse the Picture in the NY Times on line was of a station that had to be in the Pacific off the Coast of California with gas at $5.99. As their own writer Niel Irwin pointed out the price of Gas was CHEAPER than it was for 4 whole years from 2011 till 2014 when the Euro crisis tanked oil prices. Pointed out that workers were working significantly fewer hours to fill that tank than in 2011-14 when the National Average never went below $3.60 and went as high as $3.90. So imagine me waking up two Sundays ago to see the picture on that CNN segment with gas prices at $5.39 a gallon . The National Price was $3.50 . I had paid $303 a gallon in Trumplandia Long Island (Commack ) on the Friday before. I had paid $3.13 a gallon in Hicksville LI to fill my wife’s car the day before the Employment report . I rewound the TV and paused the TV to snap a picture of the $5.39 cent gas on my cell phone. The following Thursday I filled up in Elmont Long Island at an Exxon station cash or credit $3.15. Long Island is not Texas it has new Wind Mills going up , not oil wells and refineries. The inflation report that rattled Wall Street last week was a whopping 3.5% up 2/10ths from its recent lows in December of 2023 . Not exactly historically high and food inflation was 1.2% year over year . But again the other day Niel Irwin now writing for Axios (?) came to the rescue with an interesting tidbit. This gets a little nerdy. As Krugman points out rents are responsible for 1/3 of the Consumer price index. The US Labor Department computes rents with a factor no or few other Foriegn Economies do “Owner Equivalent Rent”. Something that does not exist in the real world and no body ever actually pays. It is what you would have to pay to rent your own home. If you had to rent it. But I don’t rent my own house I own it (and the mortgage is free and clear ). Neil Irwin pointed out that back in January the BLS changed the way it computes this fictional cost. It added 5% more single family homes and thus 5% fewer less expensive multi family homes and condos to the mix. As detailed in an Email from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that soon got deleted. Now this may be a perfectly legitimate statistical change from their view point . But it is like declaring Ketchup a vegetable . Forcing you to compare apples to oranges.Rent increases across the Nation have moderated significantly . “BLS data on rents for new tenants out today(4/17) show they rose just 0.4% over the last four quarters, marking the slowest pace of advance since 2010. The largest and most important component of the consumer price index is likely soon to follow them lower.” Dean Baker WELL MORE BAD NEWS FOR BIDEN
LikeLike
I have no deep statistical models, just lifetime experiences in the fields of politics
Implied bias is a polite way of saying racist and sadly too many of us voted for Trump because he says what they believe …
Many women are so appalled by Trump that no matter their husband says they’re voting against Trump, and for Biden
Neither group is “Pollable,”
I have more faith in angry women, you what is said about a women scorned.
LikeLike
I have no deep statistical models, just lifetime experiences in the fields of politics
Neither group is “Pollable,”
I have more faith in angry women, you what is said about a women scorned.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Peter,
I wonder what neutral organizations are keeping track of the amount of air time Biden and Trump are now and will continue to get. Wasn’t there once an equal time doctrine that gave an even amount of political coverage to each nominee?
My sense is that Trump receives vastly more (ugh) face time than Biden. To me, every bit of Trump’s exposure is a combination of politics and so-called “news” that he turns into a rally and political messaging (e.g. court appearances that allow him to rant about injustice and endless tweets that breathless cables multiply via their 24/7 outlets).
Who’s keeping score? If this observation is correct and Trump is being given an advantage, then it is a decision by mainstream media to get him elected.
The good news is that Trump has become so infinitely obnoxious that this imbalance will backfire.
LikeLike
According to The Independent, “The former president is required to be at the trial every day, as New York state law makes it a necessity for defendants to be personally present during the trial.” His trial is expected to take six to eight weeks. So, he will have plenty of time to nap.
LikeLike
The fact that he is out of commission every day for six to eight weeks is a big deal. So is the fact that he has been flatulent or experiencing bowel incontinence while sitting long hours in court, according to Meidas Touch, two members of which say that they are hearing reports that the stench around him is extreme. This is not surprising because many have commented that Trump has this issue. Perhaps Flerp could comment on the legalities here. Does the court have to excuse him from being present for this reason?
LikeLike
Perhaps, Trump can dig up Dr. Bone Spur to write him a note saying that 45’s “flatulitis” disqualifies him from sitting all day in court, but is not severe enough to keep him from campaigning.
Or maybe, he can wear size-48 Pampers to court each day–designed for 260-pound toddlers who were never potty trained. Maybe he can auction off trial-worn, fully loaded ones to the highest MAGA bidders.
LikeLike