MEDIA, 2024 ELECTION

Why Are Pundits Trying to End Biden Campaign After One Bad Debate?

It’s not as if he tried to overthrow our government, as Trump did

Vanessa Gallman
3 min readJun 30, 2024

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Photo by Dave Parizek on Unsplash

No doubt, President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance deserved media criticism. What’s puzzling is the high level of vitriol in the denouements and demands that he end his bid for reelection, even while admitting he’s been a good president.

Much less passionate punditry has been directed at former president Donald Trump, who had a chaotic and incompetent presidency then launched a multi faceted coup attempt when he lost to Biden in 2020.

In fact, many commentators insisted it was unwise for some states to remove him from their ballots, even if he goes to prison, because it would turn him into a martyr. Why not hammer the GOP to find a more deserving nominee at its convention? The Philadelphia Inquirer has called on Trump to drop out, in almost a counter to The New York Times attack on Biden.

One analysis of the outrage argues that the media elite has never valued Biden, who grew up lower-middle class and did not attend the Ivy League. That might be true for some. But while working as a journalist, I met few colleagues who had silver-spoon upbringings.

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Vanessa Gallman

Experienced journalist, educator and retired opinion-page editor with occasional musings