Are the media guilty of judging Joe Biden more harshly than Donald Trump when it comes to things like verbal gaffes and a general lack of popularity? That’s the narrative I keep seeing from liberals and Democrats on social media. As Paul Glastris, editor in chief of Washington Monthly, complained recently: “If Trump wins [South Carolina] by 70 percent, [the] media will say ‘crushing victory.’ If Biden wins [Michigan] by 80 percent, it’ll be ‘catastrophic underperformance.’”
Well, the South Carolina votes are in. And Trump garnered 60 percent of the vote in the Palmetto State on Saturday, which is to say he lost nearly 40 percent of Republican primary voters in a deep red state. (It’s worth noting that South Carolina has an open primary, meaning Democrats and independents can vote as long as they didn’t vote in the Democratic primary.)
And, like clockwork, headlines touted how Trump easily defeated Nikki Haley in her own home state.
Glastris has a point. Most mainstream media types would be writing Biden’s political obituary and demanding he drop out “for the good of the party” if he turned in a similar performance. Yet, despite being a former president who is effectively running in the GOP primary as an incumbent, Trump somehow continues to enjoy the rewards from the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Still, despite benefitting from this double standard, the South Carolina results (particularly when you delve into the exit polls) have exposed some of Trump’s vulnerabilities. And more and more media outlets are starting to catch on.