The media environment is just abysmal for the Democrats right now. The media decided it hated Biden after he decided to pull out of Afghanistan and it's just been history ever since, ruthless non-stop brutalizing of the man and zero credit for any accomplishments.
Crisis after crisis after crisis, emergency after emergency after emergency, the media demands Biden solve it at noon, and if he hasn't solved it by 6 PM they declare him a failure. Then when he actually does solve the crisis, nobody cares. They just talk about how bad the crisis was and how awful Biden was for not solving it faster.
Biden does dozens of excellent things every day, and they get no coverage. No coverage at all. I bet most people on this board can't even name three of the good things Biden has done. The American people trip all over themselves to make excuses for Trump and discuss the few "good" things they give him credit for. But they'll never acknowledge a single good thing Biden has done.
Meanwhile the media just normalizes and apologizes for Trump at every opportunity. The both-sides-ing is off the charts. They absolutely devour everything the right throws at them and let the Republican Party control the narrative 24/7. People complain about Democratic "messaging failures" but the media won't cover anything we say. They just ask the RNC for talking points and then present those as "bad news for the Democrats." Just sheer garbage. Look at the recent Peter Alexander. Literally just dumping talking points sent directly to his inbox from right-wing operatives, totally uncritically. Imagine if Democrats had that kind of power!
Then Democrats need to do a better job at controlling the media narrative.
The reason why the Republicans are so successful at it for both the better and the worse in this sort of spontaneous news cycle is because they say a lot of crazy things and through out a lot of garbage that makes good headlines and ignites culture wars.
If the media just covered Biden's Presidency as "today Biden signed x, y, and z" or whatever, they would lose a lot of coverage because unfortunately to a lot of people that's boring.
Biden himself is a pretty humble, respectful, and "boring" speaker, which I also think doesn't help the situation. Trump got to control much the media because he was loud and bashful.
Long terms, Dems needs to do some more explosive things to call out the GOP for what they are doing on issues such as abortion and also blame them as the reason for a lot of the perceived failures of Biden. This doesn't necessarily mean becoming more radical, but just having Biden give a monotone speech in front of a podium every now and then doesn't cut it. If Biden himself can't do it, try to find other folks who are good communicators to participate in the effort.
Also generally, Democrats need younger, though again not necessarily more progressive, blood. Generally someone who is younger is able to be more engaging and also better be able to tap into a large chunk of voters Dems heavily rely on (young people).
I think a good example of this would be Mallory McMorrow who got quite a bit of media a while back for calling out the GOP for parental rights; her speech came across as powerful, serious, without feeling radical, and by the end of it I both felt mad at the GOP and also felt hopeful about the future.
I will say that "younger" and "more progressive" go hand in hand in this case, if only because young Democratic moderates are the biggest bunch of robotic empty suits I've seen in my life. Look at Buttigieg, Lamb, etc. Occasionally you'll get someone like Beto with a little fire in his belly, but the point remains.
Of course, a big part of this is due to Democratic voters. They all talk about how they want young blood and a stronger nationwide bench, and then they turn around and vote for wildly corrupt and half senile ten-term House incumbents over young challengers in the primaries. It is political malpractice that old men two decades past their expiration date like Danny K. Davis are clogging up the basepaths in seats that could produce the next Obama or Duckworth.
