THE MEDIA’S QUANDARY: What Do You Do with a Failed Coup? Biden’s refusal to succumb to the media’s demands for his ouster reminds Dave Seminara of failed coups against African leaders that he monitored during his career at the State Department.
Of course, being the president of a democratic country, Biden doesn’t have all the tools these authoritarian leaders have at their disposal. He can’t singlehandedly rig elections, shut down independent media, imprison enemies, and terrorize the populace like a proper dictator. And yet, repression wasn’t the key factor that enabled these dictators to survive coup attempts and cling to power. Each was able to retain the loyalty of people who mattered—rank and file soldiers, party leaders, tribal elders, and so on. Biden has sagely done much the same during his five decades in politics. The media has deserted him, but key Democrats and Democratic constituencies (unions, the Congressional Black Caucus) have not.
When I was the State Department’s desk officer for Chad, French diplomats made many overtures to Idriss Deby, offering significant incentives and soft-landing sinecures to try to convince him to retire. He wasn’t interested, largely because he enjoyed being in power. President Biden is the same. He thinks Trump is beatable (and he is) and doesn’t want to be a one-term president. In the same way that Third World tyrants disregard public opinion, Biden brushes off polls showing that close to 80 percent of the country thinks that he’s too old to be president. That’s not what our polls say, Jack.
Unless something changes — like a whistleblower leaking evidence of a Parkinson’s diagnosis — journalists will need to adapt.
The media thought that they could take Biden down, but it’s becoming clear that he’s not stepping down just because armies of polyamorous, Brooklyn-dwelling sub-editors have soured on him. The question now is: In the wake of their failed coup attempt, how will the media go back to shilling for Biden? It seems like an impossible pivot, but somehow I’m confident that the same lying, dog-faced pony soldiers who told us the president was as sharp as a tack will return to business as usual. That is to say, after a brief hiatus, they will go back to promoting the perceived interests of the Democratic Party, hoping that voters forget all the mean things they said about Joe Biden during the brief, heady days when it looked like the coup was on.
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