I'm Watching Trump Get Away With Things Biden Would've Been Crucified For

If Biden had done even a fraction of this, the media would be in full-blown meltdown mode

In just one week, Trump set up a $1.7 billion slush fund for convicted insurrectionists, barred the IRS from auditing his family or businesses, said he doesn’t care about Americans’ financial situations after proposing a $1B ballroom, caused inflation to hit an all-time high during a 10-week war he claimed would end in 3 weeks, and fell asleep during a live TV healthcare conference—while still failing to unveil a healthcare plan he promised to unveil nearly ten years ago.

And yet… none of it feels like it’s breaking through the culture in the way it should.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but if Biden had done any one of these things, Fox News, CNN, MSNow, and the rest of cable media would be hounding him nonstop—wall-to-wall coverage, endless scrutiny, special reports, books, hearings, outrage panels, all of it.

Instead, it feels like the media—and even the country itself—has become numb to the sheer absurdity of what’s coming out of the Trump Administration.

Or put in other words, they’re all seemingly fine with Trump doing things they would have crucified Biden for.

For example

The $1.7B slush fund alone should have taxpayers furious and talking about it everywhere. The hundreds of stock trades made by Trump before the war should have people up in arms. Yet somehow it barely even penetrates normal conversation.

Remember how much time traditional media dedicated to Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan? Republicans held hearing after hearing. Fox News and podcasts obsessed over it for months. So did CNN. Guest after guest. Segment after segment. And that was a blip on the radar compared to the level of corruption and scandal we’re seeing now (Not to mention the gerrymandering and obscenely fascist court rulings—it was only two weeks ago that the court in Virginia nullified the results of an election, and already our media has moved on!)

And then there’s Gaza

Kamala Harris got endlessly attacked over her stance on Israel and Gaza, yet Trump yesterday bragged that he’s polling at 99% in Israel, praised Netanyahu as a great leader, and suggested that he should run for Prime Minister because of how well he’s polling in Israel.

The same people who refused to vote for Harris over Gaza suddenly have nothing to say now about Trump—even though Harris’ position was objectively more nuanced and compassionate toward Palestinians than Trump’s ever was (remember Trump made an AI video turning Gaza Strip into a resort?)

Here’s what bothers me

Democrats have so much ammunition: real corruption, real broken promises, real abuses of power. But for whatever reason, none of it seems to penetrate the culture or stir outrage in the way Biden’s mistakes did.

Jake Tapper literally wrote an entire book—Original Sin—analyzing Biden’s mental state. Yet there’s no equivalent deep dive into the Nixon-on-steroids level of corruption coming out of Trump world on a daily basis, or Trump’s own obvious cognitive decline.

The double standard is crazy

I genuinely don’t understand how we ended up in a place where Democrats are held to an exponentially higher bar than Republicans while being electorally punished for doing far less.

If I had to guess, maybe algorithms are simply pushing right-wing narratives more aggressively to huge portions of the country. Maybe people just aren’t consuming the same reality anymore.

Had to vent it.

Onward.

Happy Thursday.