About ten years ago, I was working as a sports editor in deep south Louisiana, where the Cajun accent was so thick you feel it in the air. There was one high school football rivalry I covered and, in an effort to provide some sort of analysis, I wrote a story comparing the teams' season up to that point and created a graphic to compare records, stats, and all that. It was unique and, for a small newspaper, relatively different.
The night of the game was an absolute blowout. The team that, ultimately, would go deep into the playoffs won by a significant margin. After the game, I was on the field interviewing coaches and players when a lifelong supporter of the winning team and grandparent to one of the players actually came onto the field and said "How's that for your bull---- article? Like that ----ing team had a chance. That whole thing you did was awful."
I laughed and moved on. I mentioned it offhand to my boss because I thought it was funny, but he ended up telling the general manager of the paper. Next thing I know, that fan is calling me, apologizing for how he talked about the article but insisting he didn't swear at me. I told him it really wasn't a bother and he kept insisting that I know he didn't cuss me out. In retrospect, I imagine that was good experience for dealing with comments sections on the Internet.
Last night, Joe Biden called Fox News' Peter Doocy a "stupid son of a b----." He later called not to apologize but to "clear the air."
Most of the media laughed it off, and Doocy himself had a lot of fun with it. It’s a unique thing that no one else will really get to experience. Unless you were a member of the press during LBJ’s presidency, your odds of getting openly cussed at by the President of the United States are pretty low.
I am someone who swears and does so creatively at times. I can’t really fault someone for swearing. It definitely demeans the Office of the President for sure, and I said the same thing about Trump when he did it. But I’d be a hypocrite for being mad that someone said a swear.
Rather than point out the swear, though, we should take note of the hot mic moment’s delivery.
Doocy asks if inflation will hurt Democrats in the midterms. Biden responds by sarcastically calling it “an asset” before calling Doocy a stupid SOB. That response indicates that Biden knows it’s going to hurt the party and that he’s really tired of hearing about it. Which means he’s essentially giving up on trying to fix it.
That’s very bad news for the Democratic Party in a year where the Democratic Party can’t really take any more bad news.
It’s not that the government can do much to combat inflation. There are some actions the U.S. government could take, but they come with risks. Moreover, the Democrats as a party don’t actually seem to mind the inflation problem, and the American public is translating that as “We don’t care about what you’re going through and we’re going to focus on our agenda.”
The perceived (whether rightly or wrongly) nature of the Biden administration is a big drag on the rest of the party, as I mentioned yesterday.
But now we have Biden seemingly dismissing the issue with a sarcastic response on a hot mic. Like most “media scandals,” this probably won’t register long on the voters’ radar, but it will reinforce their belief that the Biden administration simply does not care.
That is the drag. That is why the Democrats cannot climb out of this hole they’re in. There are just over nine months until the midterm election, and none of the problems the country is currently facing can be easily solved by then. Some could be, but that lingering perception will remain. And with Biden essentially checking out at this point, the likelihood of any fixes becomes even slimmer.