The Manufacturing of Public Opinion For and Against the Biden Administration

American media's tradition of crafting desired narratives to influence its citizens is alive and well.

Since the baffling presidential debate that aired on CNN on June 27th, featuring incumbent President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the primary focus of the media, and everyone else, was on the ramifications of Biden’s cognitive decline on the outcome of these upcoming elections. However, the more pressing matter that deserved way more attention—how it became alright, overnight, for liberal corporate media outlets and personalities to, simultaneously, begin covering Biden critically, asking that he step down from office—has yet to be raised by many.

During the presidential campaign trail in 2020, one thing was clear to people who were not blinded by undying loyalty to political parties: Biden was not cognitively fit to be president. It was evident at every turn, as Biden campaigned and gave rambling speeches about his hairy legs, roaches, and kids jumping on his lap, displayed glaring memory lapses during rallies, and was conveniently relegated to campaigning virtually, from his basement. To dissuade the public from focusing on his age and his gaffes, however, corporate media outlets, Democratic elites, pundits, and political influencers strategically shifted into overdrive to minimize that discourse, and instead focus on their collective goal to “defeat Trump.”

For the past four years that was the tactical strategy. From the major networks and publications to the administration’s personnel, any criticism of Biden’s mental and physical fitness was met with accusations of being a “misinformation spreader,” a “right-winger,” a “conspiracy theorist,” or a person peddling what has been coined “cheap fakes.” Don’t believe your lying eyes and ears, they all seemed to declare, in unison.

But it goes without saying, corporate media institutions and influential figures, both inside and outside of the administration, since 2019, have been very well aware of Biden’s mental decline. They were just been willing to blatantly propagandize and lie to Americans because it was politically advantageous to do so. Many congress members, administration personnel, journalists, news anchors, and influential personalities in the political arena, as recently as April 2024, publicly vouched for Biden as being sharp, cogent, wise, and even cognitively capable to lead for another term.

So why the sudden change of mind following the presidential debate? Why did Democratic congress members, administration personnel, liberal journalists, news anchors, and political influencers, at the drop of a dime, collectively adopt a different narrative about Biden’s mental fitness, enough to inspire critical think pieces with similar headlines and prompt emergency press briefings about why Biden is unfit and cognitively compromised to run for reelection? Had Biden, in a few weeks, suddenly developed a more severe condition than was evident to these people in 2020? Or were these political actors simply lying the entire time to hold power until it was no longer politically feasible to run cover for Biden?

Events of the past few weeks—from Biden’s staunch address to the Democratic leadership that he would not be stepping down and was set to defeat Trump in November to his latest pivot this past weekend, announcing that he would in fact be stepping aside after his term is over, and endorsing Harris in his stead—reveal that all of this was nothing but a theatrical showcase and political spin to collectively shift the public’s mindset regarding the state of the elections. The signal, indicating to the public: “We are now done with Biden as the favored Presidential candidate, and we will be moving on to the next phase, a different nominee. You all are now free to openly criticize Biden to ensure that his public image is damaged beyond repair, and that this transition is swift.”

It is a classic display of how these institutions shape public opinion in real time, unbeknownst to many American voters. The thing about the most insidious propaganda campaigns is that they are built to appear organic and relatable, when in reality, it’s all been carefully considered.

MSNBC’s Joy Reid, for example, giving an impassioned soliloquy from her balcony at home, on social media, about how the Democratic leadership, once they’re done infighting, should let her know who the nominee will be so she can “vote to keep Hitler [Trump] out of the White House,” comes off as relatable. She comes off as another average American—although a political insider through and through—who is kept out of the loop and shares the frustration that every viewer and voter must be experiencing. The relatability exists because the target of such videos are American voters—you. And if they can get you to share Reid’s sentiment, they’ve successfully begun to shift the general public opinion toward the idea that Democratic voters will be better off without Biden, and that Democratic voters will vote for literally anybody to prevent “Hitler” from being elected to office.

This was the case across the board for political influencers like the hosts of the podcast Pod Save America, top congress members in the country, “journalists” at the New York Times, Washington Post etc, and networks such as CNN and MSNBC. Their collective urgent pleas for Biden to step down, to the uninitiated, looks like a panic within the party. In reality, they were carefully orchestrating one of the most rapid-fire public opinion campaigns we’ve ever seen.

Yet, the question remains: what is the process by which corporate news media entities, congress members, and political influencers, simultaneously, take up the very same narrative, in an effort to drum up a desired public opinion? How did all of these entities go from smearing people who critiqued Biden’s fitness to lead to instantly becoming the primary ones who had the green light to publish the most devastating takedowns of Biden’s presidency. What events are taking place in the backrooms of the Capitol, American newsrooms, and in the political influencer space? Sure, political influencers in recent years have been exposed to be receiving funds from presidential administrations for favorable coverage and propaganda. But we should know more, in detail, about these particular processes that influence public opinion. We should know how the largest news institutions in the country get their marching orders from the top, and how that messaging gets filtered all the way down. We should have whistleblowers or anonymous insiders willing to share how all of this works.

If our goal is to deal a final blow to corrupt news publications and networks, exposing how this messaging chain works is critical.

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