Staff Reports
It appears that Vice President Kamala Harris has found the perfect scapegoat for her political woes: the media. According to Dan Pfeiffer, a former aide from the Obama White House, the media landscape is so heavily skewed against Harris that even the birds in the sky must be right-wing. This statement was made during an appearance on MSNBC, which one might argue is the culinary equivalent of eating a salad at an all-you-can-eat buffet—when there’s a mountain of ice cream around.
Pfeiffer’s assertion hinges on the idea that Republicans have a kind of media juggernaut that Democrats simply don’t possess. Fair enough. The Democratic Party, after all, has outlets like CNN and MSNBC—networks that seem dedicated to propping up their narrative without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, Pfeiffer bemoans the need for Harris to engage in all sorts of media appearances, from local TV to podcasts, as if she’s on a quest for the Holy Grail of public approval. The irony, however, is that every time she does make an appearance, it seems to backfire. Those cringe-worthy moments on shows like “60 Minutes” weren’t just past headlines; they were past moments of horror for any self-respecting political aide.
Obama Bro Caught Trying to Spin Utterly Ridiculous Narrative About 'Massive Media Operation' of Dems via @WestJournalism https://t.co/3oYy8IdeDe
— David Wedding (@hdwrench51) October 12, 2024
Behold, the joy and vibes campaign that Harris was supposed to run. It sounds delightful in theory, but in practice, it still needs facts and substance. In a world where political debates are often more akin to a comedy roast, Harris finds herself floundering, wondering how she can manage more than a few catchy soundbites. Not only did she crash and burn during the campaign trail leading up to 2020, but her campaign was so unimpressive that she packed up her candidacy before the year even ended. Quite the irony considering it wasn’t just the media labeling her as a “substance-free shell,” but voters who didn’t seem to buy what she was selling either.
What Pfeiffer also pointed out is that Trump isn’t playing the media game to the same tune that Harris is. For Democrats, it’s a two-sided tale of woe: Trump is lazy, old, and perhaps not fit for the limelight. Meanwhile, Pfeiffer slips in the old reliable complaint that Republicans have Fox News and a whole stable of conservative media while Democrats are left in the cold. One has to chuckle; after all, Democrats have their army of liberal pundits ready to cheer on the line of thought that “everything is fine!”
In a world powered by sensationalism, understanding the nuances and facts seems to be lost in the shuffle. While Democrats might bemoan their bias in media, they should take a long hard look at their own. The New York Times hasn’t endorsed a Republican since the Eisenhower era (yes, that Eisenhower), and networks like ABC are known to roll out coverage that hardly seems balanced. If Pfeiffer and Harris really want to lay blame, they should consider the mirror—it might just show them the truth.
So, while the left is out there lamenting their media misfortunes, the reality is a little harsher. The dream of a level playing field seems more like a fairytale. The notion that Democrats are under siege from an unfriendly media might just be the funniest delusion in liberal political comedy. After all, with a majority of journalists leaning left, the idea of a conservative media cabal pulling strings is laughably outdated. Harris remains, in many ways, her own worst enemy, lost in a web of political miscalculations while the establishment media reigns supreme—at least in their own echo chambers.
