When did it change for me? Over the summer, over the subject of Biden dropping out of the race. That remains a huge sore spot for me; I still think he would beat Trump, even though I see the breath of fresh air Harris has become in stepping in his place. But even though forces behind the move may have been the final straw (and that hasn't really been sussed out ... which would be the responsibility of Washington reporting), beltway "journalists" did a lot of heavy lifting. It really started with the debate, where Trump railroaded the moderators and the debate format and caught Biden looking ... well, I guess it all depends on how you look at it, but apparently the money forces in the Democratic party saw it and decided he needed to go. And that was all the political reporting focused on -- Biden is too old, he might have dementia, "some people" say he's not up to the job of being President even now, oh, no, what is America gonna do???
I had thought, for a long time, that reporting had the important duty to tell what those in real power (in this case, senior Democratic strategists and, well, rich Democrats) are thinking. But this, at least to me, went beyond reporting. It was tipping the scales. I had worried that national political publications were hellbent on reporting not on the stakes of America and American democracy, but on the horse race between Republicans and Democrats. And the focus on whether other people think Biden is the Democratic candidate was one the beltway press hammered home, non-stop, to the detriment of covering vital topics -- such as Trump's own mental fitness for the job, and even (I would say especially) Trump lying in the debate. They can cower behind the (possible, maybe probable) fact that Nancy Pelosi, George Clooney and others wanted Biden gone and they are just reporting that. Those people in power might have moved to push Biden out because Washington reporters were relentless in talking about Biden's age, like a puppy to a chew toy, never mind ample evidence that Trump and Republicans have plans to turn the United States into a dictatorship.
That's when my feelings turned. It has been cemented by this bullshit from The New York Times and The Washington Post and other reporting companies not to publish information a foreign country (in this case Iran) that hacked into Republican servers gave to the newspapers. Those same fucking rags are the ones that gleefully published private information from Democratic servers that Russia -- helping Trump, who asked Russia to help him -- gave them eight years ago. These reporters were gleeful in reporting every stupid thing about Clinton and her campaign. But when the same goddamn thing happens with Republican secrets ... they have fucking standards now? Honestly, they could say they they learned from 2016 that they failed then and are doing better now. But as far as I know, not one publisher or editor-in-chief from any of those publications has said that. I don't know if they've said anything. That means that they and their reporters are either scared that Trump and Republicans will find their personal information and harass or even try to kill them -- to which I say I am sorry, but fuckin' A, our democracy is at stake, at some point you sack up and you publish the information anyway because that's the fair thing to do -- or they need to hype up a horse race that may or may not be true so that people continue to read their papers and websites -- to which I say, fuck you, that's not your goddamn job.
Yeah, I'm done. I hate how the profession I got my degree from has curdled into a combination of public relations and empty-calorie snark. It's supposed to be a noble job, one that involves serious people and a lot of humility. When it comes to national politics, I no longer see it. And it has gotten so bad that I no longer give it a pass. I do believe people in a democracy have a responsibility to find and educate themselves on facts and real stories about things that affect all of us. But it's been beyond time for Washington-area political "journalists" to dig for and publish that information to the people. Instead, over the past several months, it has refused to publish important stories and to report on drivel.
A serious segment of journalism is beyond broken. Ignore it. Ignore it all. And vote Democrat.
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