To political journalists, America is just a stage for Important People to preen and bicker

The sheer contempt this nation's political press continues to have for its citizens continues to be ... well, remarkable.

The forever-vapid but once less obviously ridiculous Politico is now under the control of hard-right German media company Axel Springer, so like Brandon I'll forgo a link to the rag. But that one is indeed particularly appalling.

"For the most part, leading Democrats are ducking what is fast becoming the first real litmus test of the 2028 campaign; former President Biden's mental acuity," the outlet announces. And that statement is objectively the bullshittiest framing of the current moment one can come up with, one ambitious enough to deserve its own trophy and glittering awards ceremony.

Unfortunately, times are tough and with the ongoing tariff chaos there's no telling when we'll be getting China-made trophies again. So we'll all have to settle for public scorn.

You will note, dear reader, that millions of people have not been protesting in the streets to demand the world talk more about "former President Biden's mental acuity." There have not been massive demonstrations in foreign nations calling on American elites to take immediate action to clarify "former President Biden's mental acuity." Our court systems have not been inundated with cases that assert fundamental American rights to be under siege due to questions about "former President Biden's mental acuity." None of this has happened; none of this, outside the imagination of a few pompous buffoons, ever will.

There has in fact been a tremendous amount of pivotal news in the last six months. Presidential declarations that congressional budget appropriations are invalid and that the Executive Branch, from here on in, will determine which federal agencies and programs should or should not exist; an assertion that birthright citizenship is no longer a birthright, not for you or me or anyone else; the rendition of immigrants to a for-contract foreign concentration camp chosen for its cruelty and its distance from American courts; an orgy of pardons for violent seditionists even as the Department of Justice avows itself the prosecutor of Trump's enemies and the ally of his friends; wild stock market swings that have curiously enriched certain elected officials even as most of America loses its shirt. It is impossible to list each of the dramatic topplings of long-standing pillars of American democracy, and a new one is announced with every passing day.

But no, we are told by the groups of professional idiots who led us here. No, the first real litmus test of the next campaign is not any of that shit. After six months of Nothing In Particular happening, it is former President Biden's mental acuity that is supposedly seizing public attention and becoming the first truly big issue of the next presidential race.

Not any of the topics that have been roiling town halls and which elected officials of both parties are cancelling events to avoid. Nope. Just the Joe Biden thing.

Just as it is impossible to catalog all of the different crises threatening to dismantle America around us, it's also impossible to list every press fetish demonstrated by this almost cartoonishly fatuous proposal that relitigating Biden's health is, finally, what will sort the wheat from the chaff in the next presidential race. It demonstrates so many damn things about what counts as "politics," to the ostensible watchdogs of the profession, and the extent to which political toe-sucking has become the be-all, end-all of electoral coverage.

In order to brush past everything that's happened to announce that it's Joe Biden's health that is the first campaign "litmus test," you by necessity need to believe that enormous public protests targeting corruption, criminality, and cruelty are less important than that. It requires believing that angry town halls pressing elected officials on how they'll protect American health programs or fight against unconstitutional looting of government agencies have all been a side show, and that the public is simply fking wrong if they think otherwise.

It is, indeed, far-right propaganda. "The first real litmus test" is a phrase that can only be used if you are so far in the tank for fascism's agenda that it hasn't even occurred to you that any of those other things might be consequential questions. It is the preening of a fascist press that believes all of those transparently unconstitutional things are legitimate enough, so long as some ghoul somewhere can offer a quote saying so, and certainly not things the American people ought to still be riled up about 40 or so months from now.

But it's also a perfect demonstration of how we got here to begin with. Very few news organizations are openly fascist—mainly the ones the Trump White House elevates rather than insults—but the rest suffer from the eternal quirk of believing that "America" consists of several hundred Important People having catty arguments with each other. That's it. Everyone else in the country is an extra. They are not supposed to talk; if the Important People need a Normal Person quote then they will trek out to an official Normal Person diner and demand one. If the Important People need a focus group.

Whether or not a million people get healthcare or don't, or whether an entire county is being poisoned by a new illegally-installed bank of generators, or whether masked and unidentified state police can toss anyone into an unmarked van for expressing viewpoints that an Important Person doesn't like is entirely immaterial, in this form of "political coverage." It doesn't matter what's legal or illegal. It doesn't matter if people die or don't die. Nobody gives a flying damn whether the markets soar or crash. The focus, forever and always, is on the conversations that the Important People have with each other.

The entire United States of America exists, in media minds, solely as an elaborate dance between a few hundred Important People. The point of government is to be the dole for the Important. It is the stage for their triumphs, for their falls, for their obsessions and delusions and above all their grudges. America, as both geographic place and a citizenry, exists solely as an abstract backdrop for the Important People to stand in front of, and comment on, and paint over.

So that's where the first real litmus test is something something Joe Biden thing comes from. An Important Person wrote a book about other Important People, a book full of grudges and grievances and oh-so-catty quotes, and if you don't think that is the most pressing fking conversation we've been faced with in the last six months then you are probably one of the peons that don't count.

Think back to the original Star Wars, the one in which a moon-sized weapon exploded an entire planet and its civilization and within 20 minutes the plot had shifted to Luke Skywalker being sad about his own problems and the planet's surviving princess having to console him about how rough has has it. Or imagine a production of Les Mis in which the cast abandons the plot entirely in favor of an extended debate over whether one particular chair wedged into the barricade is representative of Rococo style or Baroque, with not one character knowing what either of the two words actually means.

That's our political press. No matter what goes on in the world, the only things that matter are the arguments that take place entirely in their own orbit. And not even the outcomes of those arguments matter; the arguments exist solely so that other Important People can argue about who's winning the original argument.

And nobody ever wins the original argument, not about vaccines or "deficits" or anything else, because there is nobody in the media who truly gives a shit.

This isn't a case of media outlets being "out of touch" with the real-world concerns of citizens. They don't want to be in touch. They don't think there's any point to being in touch. America only exists so that politicians have something to talk about and journalists have things to quote from; you could put a million people in the streets and, as has now been repeatedly demonstrated, their grievances would still rank far below those of whatever Important Wanker last wrote a book.