The Permission Structure of the Media

 I think Joe Biden is an excellent president and a bad candidate. Concerns about his fitness for four more years were legitimate, if ironic since Harris was the heir either way. His stutter, in particular, has gotten noticeably worse and made him an ineffective opponent to a man who lies with the strength and volume of a firehose.

Another reason Biden had to step away was that the media were never going to move on from the Biden Is Old story. That narrative had begun at the Times and the debate cemented it in every reporter's mind. Biden's eloquent address on Wednesday has done two things that are really going to help this fall, and they both revolve around the Biden Administration as a whole.

First, Biden's selflessness stands in such stark contrast to Trump's selfishness. Biden was the nominee. There was almost no way to change that. He made a decision based on what was best for himself and his party to voluntarily give up a chance at re-election, and he did so to have a better shot at preserving democracy. This makes him the perfect foil for Trump's coup plotting ways.

Second, as I said, Biden has been an excellent president. However, the Biden Is Old narrative crowded that story out. By withdrawing, Biden has set himself up for more laudatory coverage. This includes covering the economic goods news. We've even seen some improved coverage already. I want to go through some charts to show what that good news looks like.

One significant departure from Obama to Biden has been what we might loosely call "industrial policy". Biden has embraced bills like the CHIPS act to on-shore manufacturing. There is a LOT of manufacturing coming back to America. For all his economic nationalist rhetoric, Trump didn't do that; Biden did. Next let's look at wages:

(Not sure why there's a huge gap there.)

These wages are by state in comparison to other OECD countries, and they are adjusted for Purchasing Power Parity. Wage growth is absolutely real in America right now, even if inflation has eaten into that. 

This leads to the final chart, and the most important:

This one is tough to read but it's Consumer Sentiment. Few metrics are more important to a president's re-election campaign. The red line connects the beginning of the pandemic with today. One of the metrics that has benefited Trump has been (undeserved) credit for the economy. Trump inherited a growing economy, juiced it with a tax cut and then saw the economy collapse during the pandemic. Biden has slowly resurrected the economy (that was the point of the first two charts) and now people are finally "seeing" or perhaps realizing that improvement.

The "vibes shift" among Democrats since Sunday has been amazing. A nervous, depressed party is re-invigorated. However, the key for Harris will be to consolidate the Biden 2020 voters and add the post-January 6th/Dobbs voters who have finally had enough of Trump. The Harris campaign is settling on an optimistic, forward looking vision and also an attack line of "Why are they so weird?"

If the media start to report on the actual good news in the economy and people start to feel better - not just about their own economic status, but the country's - then that's a massive shift that could tilt some Trump-leaning independents to Harris.

That was simply never going to happen with Biden as the nominee. Partisans can lament that fact and decry the bullshit coverage of Biden being old without balancing it with Trump's obvious cognitive decline, but it's a reality.

Joe Biden deserves to go out with hagiographic coverage of a remarkably successful presidency, and that coverage will accrue to Harris' benefit.

UPDATE: This is just wrong. Harris does not need a policy agenda separate from Biden's. The rhetoric and perhaps focus will change, but the policies are popular and good. The policies have always been popular and good. If people voted on policies, Democrats would never lose an election.