Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart opined that President Joe Biden was being thwarted by the “right-wing echo chamber” but that Vice President Kamala Harris might be coming to the Democrats’ rescue in the midterm elections.
Capehart was asked by PBS Newshour host Amna Nawaz if the Biden administration was doing everything they could given the host of problems plaguing his first term.
“Jonathan, when you look at that, are they doing everything they can?” asked Nawaz.
“Yes, I think they’re doing everything they can,” responded Capehart after a pained pause. “Maybe they could do a little bit more in one area or another. The problem for the president is, the message can’t break through.”
Capehart cited a columnist who excused Biden’s poor polling by pointing out that no matter what he did, half the country would hate him.
“The other thing is, the right-wing echo chamber is so strong that, no matter what the president does, they’re not going to report on it, or they’re — they will spin it in a way that makes him look as horribly as possible,” he continued.
Capehart went on to say that Harris and her husband have been campaigning across the country and that the local press coverage might have a positive effect on Democrats’ electoral prospects.
“And they’re not just going to safe blue havens. They have been going to Mississippi and I think also Wyoming, but to red states, to talk about either the infrastructure law or the American Rescue Plan. But when you do that, when principals like that do that, they get local media coverage,” Capehart explained.
“Whether that is going to work, we won’t know until the midterms,” he concluded.
Despite Capehart’s hope that Harris will rescue the Democrats, polling for the president and his party continue to crater ahead of the midterms which will likely be catastrophic for them and a victory for Republicans.
Here’s the video of Capehart’s comments:
Brooks and Capehart on the ‘doom spiral’ of the political culture war www.youtube.com