During the Nevada debate, multiple candidates held Bernie personally accountable for online threats to the Culinary Union made by his purported followers. So obviously, if a candidate were himself to threaten a union worker with physical violence, it would be a massive, disqualifying story, right?

In perhaps the most abject journalistic hypocrisy of my lifetime, you may not have even heard that on the day of the Michigan primary, Joe Biden told a Detroit autoworker he was a “horse’s a**” and “full of s***,” and responded to the worker’s expression of physical discomfort with an invitation to “go outside with me.”

Even if you did happen upon the story, it might have been through a CNN article like “Why Joe Biden’s confrontation with an auto worker in Detroit is probably a good thing for him.” Mysteriously omitted from the article’s transcript is the union worker protesting “this is not okay” before Biden unmistakably says “go outside with me,” which they replaced with “(inaudible).”

Meanwhile, Trump exploits the fact that 77% of Americans understand the mainstream media regularly publishes “fake news” to discredit CNN’s criticisms of his disastrous handling of COVID-19:

In this case, CNN’s question was on point; by the time all is said and done, there is no doubt Trump will have American blood on his hands — but so will CNN. The paranoia our president has weaponized in service of his political ends is a byproduct of the objectivity our media has bargained in service of theirs.

Barring bilateral disarmament, we can neither rely on the press nor the sitting president for the principled leadership the coronavirus demands. Perhaps we need the latest cutting-edge policy solutions to protect us from a pandemic?