Damn the sneaky monopoly media

In the future, we might look back and see the most important difference between the Biden and Harris campaigns is their level of trust in the press corps. The president believed voters would reward him for the substantial things he has done, and he trusted – indeed, he depended on – the press corps to inform voters, as it’s supposed to. "But where he saw fact and substance, the press corps saw only vibes. And in depending on the press corps to get his message across to voters, Biden effectively handed over power that was rightfully his. He allowed the press corps to be the principal arbiters of his reality, rather than reserving that right for himself. You could say Biden was waiting for power to be given to him and he suffered gravely for it.

By contrast, the Harris campaign is not letting the press corps wedge itself between her and voters. She is not allowing the news media to mediate her message. In effect, she’s preventing the press corps from speaking for her and, as a consequence, she’s preventing it from exercising a de facto veto on her speech. In that, she is taking power – defining her campaign as well as Trump’s. She is turning the narrative about Biden’s age (81) back against Trump’s (78), such that whatever he says in self-defense is seen as proof of the allegations against him.