The Corporate Media and Economic Gaslighting
The corporate media desperately wants a republican in the White House again, and failing to report President Biden's accomplishments is nothing short of media malfeasance.
After two and half years of President Biden’s administration, we are experiencing the lowest level of post-pandemic-level inflation of any G7 nation, and workers’ wages are outpacing that inflation.
Gross domestic product (GDP) increased by a 2.1% annualized rate last quarter and continues to improve.
The Standard & Poors (S&P) 500 index is up 16%.
Thanks to a key provision in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Medicare is now permitted to start negotiating for more affordable pharmaceutical drugs, and companies that report more than $1 billion in profits are required to pay a 15% minimum corporate tax rate.
Wealthy shareholders have to pay a 1% tax on stock buybacks.
Americans making under $400,000 have not and will not see a cent increase in their federal taxes.
All federal employees and federal contractors must now be paid at least $15 per-hour minimum wage.
We will finally start manufacturing some technology again in America thanks to the “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America (CHIPS) and Science Act”.
The advanced Child Tax Credit implemented after Biden signed the American Rescue Plan reduced child poverty by 30%.
Unemployment plummeted to 3.8%, the lowest in over half a century, and worker pay increased by 4.6%.
So why are two-thirds of Americans so unhappy about the economy?
Two words: messaging and skepticism.
According to a recent Harris poll, many Americans are unaware of upward economic growth or just simply don’t believe the positive economic news coming out of the White House.
Two-thirds (68%; republicans: 69%, Democrats: 68%) of the poll’s respondents reported difficulty feeling happy about positive economic news when each month they feel financially strained.
Two-thirds (65%) believe the economy is worse than the media reports.
51% believe (incorrectly) unemployment is nearing a 50-year high.
A recent U.S. Census Bureau report attempts to shed some light on this disparity. It states that, corrected for inflation, most U.S. households’ earnings declined 2.3%, from $76,330 in 2021 to $74,580 in 2022.
The culprit is the 7.8% inflation rate, in spite of increased wages and it being the lowest of any other industrialized country.
The media, reporting steady growth, though?
Rarely is the billionaire-funded corporate media interested in reporting positive economic news from a Democratic administration.
Since most of the wealthiest people have a personal stake in staying as rich as possible while paying next to nothing (and in some cases, actually nothing) in taxes, they naturally gravitate toward the party whose raison d’être lies solely in massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations — the republican party.
But there aren’t enough morbidly rich in the country to win all the elections republicans need to hold onto power, so they traditionally resort to fear, outrage, grievance, desire for horse race, racism, and a little salacious conspiracy theory to crank up average voters.
This is where the corporate media is happy to oblige.
The corporations that own the big American media conglomerates thrive on horse race because it’s how they generate ratings. Since those corporations are owned and run by people interested in staying rich (corporations themselves are not people, after all, despite what the almighty US Supreme Court argued), their personal fortunes depend on this.
This is why we rarely hear on television and radio anything about organized labor, or from people with serious criticisms of the rigged tax code or the republican tax cuts from which the economic royalists maintain their hegemony.
Put simply, the media is as “liberal” as the corporations that own it.
When was the last time we heard anything on the so-called “liberal” CNN and MSNBC that at the end of his first term, Donald Trump and congressional republicans passed the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”, a massive bill that handed a $1.5 trillion dollar permanent tax cut to the morbidly rich and the corporations they use to exploit workers and despoil the environment?
Why would we hear about it when it risks underscoring the greed and corruption animating the billionaires who own the means of messaging?
Best keep quiet about it and get us fighting amongst ourselves about “Critical Race Theory (CRT)”, transgenders in sports, books about LGBTQ+ characters and/or by authors of color, Biden’s age, supposed “failing” poll numbers, and his son Hunter’s indictment.
Where are the 35% who believe positive economic news when there is barely a whisper about it?
This is nothing short of a failure of our media, at our expense.
Turn on any so-called “liberal” news outlet and watch the commercials for the pharmaceutical and fossil fuels industries and Medicare Advantage.
As progressive talk show host and author Thom Hartmann — a frequent critic of our obsequious corporate media — recently wrote in his piece “ Why We Urgently Need Media Outlets for the Common Good”:
These are dangerous times, and news organizations putting profits over democracy is a sure path to America ending up like Hungary with a corrupt, strongman ‘conservative’ running the country.
Joe Biden is one of this country’s most consequential presidents.
He has ceased to be the tepid centrist he was most of his political career by demonstrating his willingness to evolve and grow with present progressive priorities.
Is there more he can do?
Sure.
For starters, he needs to declare a climate emergency.
He needs to fully repudiate his predecessor’s immigration policies.
But his accomplishments making him the most significant president since Franklin Roosevelt should not be ignored.
Except that it is.
The corporate media desperately wants a republican in the White House again, and failing to report President Biden’s accomplishments is nothing short of media malfeasance.
No surprise, really.