The one thing that worries me right now
The contrast couldn’t be much more glaring. Donald Trump is coming off one of his worst weeks to date. His criminal trial went poorly for him, his own loyal aide just destroyed him on the stand, and the media is finally talking about the fact that he’s too far gone to stay awake during his trial. Meanwhile President Joe Biden got more good economic news this past week, and hosted Mark “Luke Skywalker” Hamill at the White House.
It’s actually the contrast that worries me. Things are going well for Biden, and horribly for Trump. And that contrast is so blindingly obvious, the media has been forced to spend the past few days acknowledging it.
The problem for the media is that when things are this blatantly one sided, it can become very difficult to keep up the suspense and keep people tuned in. Sure, the most anti-Trump people are going to keep eagerly watching this trial as it continues to bury Trump. But what about the people in the middle, who only tend to watch political news when things are suspenseful? Once they figure out that Trump is getting convicted (and is too senile to keep functioning politically), what would keep them tuned in?
And so I fear that the media might soon try to find a way to artificially manufacture some suspense. What will that look like? After months of ignoring the polls, will the media start quoting outlier polls in order to pretend that Trump is gaining? After admitting that the testimony of David Pecker and Hope Hicks has put Trump firmly on track for conviction, will the media now try to generate baseless fear about how Michael Cohen’s upcoming testimony will go?
I’m hoping that I’m worrying about nothing, of course. I’m hoping that the media will simply factually acknowledge that things are going pretty well for Biden and horribly for Trump, and let the ratings work themselves out. But if the media does decide to spend the upcoming week trying to manufacture enough panic or fear to keep people tuned in even as Trump’s trial destroys him, let’s keep in mind that it’s just what the media does.
The media pretty much already admitted on Friday that Trump is going down in that trial. That’s not going to change, even if the media strategically changes its tune later in the trial. Biden’s position in the polling averages has been incrementally improving for months. That’s not going to change just because the media manufactures one wacky new poll next week.
The news ebbs and flows on its own, of course. Biden’s trajectory isn’t going to be a straight line between now and November. And while Trump’s trajectory will continue going downward, that won’t be a straight line either. Blips happen, real and imagined. And the media will exploit that. But let’s not forget the overall trajectory that we know things are on. If we put in the work required for Biden and the Democrats, they will win in November. Let’s be sure to keep a level head, no matter how much of a roller coaster others might try to turn this into, and let’s keep our eye on the prize.
