What happens when the media gets tired of the Kamala Harris success story
We’re in a rare moment right now in which the mainstream political media’s coverage of things is pretty much what it should be. The media is accurately portraying the historic momentum that Kamala Harris is garnering out of the gate, and the media is accurately portraying that this is bad for Donald Trump. But the media will stick with these accurate takes for only as long as they continue to deliver ratings. What happens then?
Part of that depends on just how far Kamala Harris’ current momentum carries her. If she’s able to carve out a significant lead (three points or more) over Trump in the polling averages, then the media will have a very difficult time going negative on her. In such case the media would have little choice but to focus on Trump-Vance scandals for ratings – which would be ideal for us.
On the other hand, if Harris isn’t able to pull ahead of Trump and merely finds herself tied with him heading into the Democratic National Convention, the media might be inclined to start trying to scare you into believing that she could be doomed if things don’t go perfectly at the convention. Then again, the media knows that a growing and enthusiastic number of Americans want to see positive coverage of Harris heading into the convention, so the media might feel hesitant to defy those expectations.
My concern is what happens after the convention. There will still be another ten weeks from the convention to the election. Even if Harris remains ahead, is the media going to be content to run the same “Harris remains three points ahead of Trump” storyline for ten weeks? Or will the media try to manufacture ratings by making a huge deal out of the occasional poll that has Trump tied or ahead?
The biggest question will be whether the media ends up trying to manufacture phony scandals about Harris between now and election day. I’m not talking about ideologically driven fake scandals from Fox News. I’m talking about ratings-driven phony scandals from the mainstream media. Remember how the entire media collectively manufactured Hillary Clinton’s email scandal before the 2016 election cycle even got started, so it could keep using that fake story for ratings throughout the election cycle? That was great for ratings. But getting a fake scandal to stick can take a very long time. And because Harris just entered the race this week, there may not be time for the media to introduce a phony scandal about her and turn it into a ratings juggernaut before the election. In which case the media may not even bother.
The bottom line is that as long as the likes of MSNBC, CNN, and the Washington Post can keep hitting their ratings marks simply by accurately hyping the historic momentum that Kamala Harris is enjoying, they’ll probably just keep doing that (while also milking Trump’s troubles for ratings). Audiences would have to grow tired of hearing about Harris’ momentum for the media to feel compelled to go negative on her.
So, as is always the case, it really comes down to you. If you make the effort to keep Kamala Harris’ momentum going, and if you vote with your eyeballs and clicks and let the media know that you want it to keep providing this kind of accurate honest coverage of her momentum, then you’ll get more of it. But you can’t let up, because we all know that the mainstream political media is willing to be as dishonest as necessary in order to maintain its ratings. So don’t get complacent. Be vigilant. Hold the media accountable. And let’s go win this.
