Joe Biden’s low numbers: Disinformation helps

Here’s a small clue as to why a president who has put serious money in the pocket of American families amid rising financial markets, increasing employment and an unprecedented investment in infrastructure has low polling numbers:

An unrelenting and often dishonest attack on him by right-wing media.

Case in point, the erroneous barrage of lies from right-wingers that Joe Biden called Kyle Rittenhouse, the mass-shooting punk viewed as heroic by the violent authoritarian crowd, a white supremacist. This relies on manipulation of material from an interview Biden gave in 2020, as the link from Media Matters explains. CNN also gives a full account.

What Biden actually said immediately after the Rittenhouse verdict:

“Look, I stand by what the jury has concluded. The jury system works, and we have to abide by it.”

Later, he elaborated that the verdict “will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included.” He said that everyone “must acknowledge that the jury has spoken.” Whiteness, supreme or otherwise, was not mentioned.

Nonetheless, see this morning’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. 

There, columnist Mike Masterson complained unnamed “media mouthpieces” had branded Rittenhouse a white supremacist. And then he added:

Even Joe Biden felt he had to weigh in after the shootings to imply Rittenhouse was a white supremacist. In light of the outcome, I’d say it’s time for ol’ Joe to apologize.

I’d say it’s time for a newspaper that displays a statement of “core values” daily and promises “fair and accurate” work should read ol’ Mike a little more closely.