Thoughts on Biden's speech on democracy

The network news media

The Washington Post writes that his speech was deemed political or not important by major TV networks. ABS aired a game show called “Press Your Luck.” WaPo writes:

As Biden spelled out his objections to former president Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans,” NBC was broadcasting a rerun of “Law and Order.” CBS skipped the speech to show a rerun of “Young Sheldon.”

[Broadcasters] have passed on speeches that were part of campaign rallies or events, or when the subject was deemed insufficiently important or newsworthy. The networks, for example, decided not to carry a speech on immigration reform by President Barack Obama in November of 2014.

People involved in negotiations over Thursday’s address said the networks deemed Biden’s remarks as “political” in nature and therefore decided not to televise it.

Is the broadcast media off its rocker? Broadcast networks deemed a desperately needed defense of democracy speech by a sitting president to be too political and/or unimportant. That tells us that corporate news sees the threat of radical right authoritarianism as not real. Corporate lust for profit and power have subverted what integrity was left of broadcast news. 

It is fact- and reason-based to argue that (i) TV network news as a pro-democracy institution has fallen to authoritarianism and profit lust, and (ii) it is a betrayal of the American people and democracy. ABC, NBS and CBS appear to be enemies of democracy, at least by complicity, if not by quiet active subversion.

The Speech

If one believes the threat to democracy to be serious and urgent, Biden's speech was long overdue. Other than urging people to vote, the speech was generally vague about how democracy could be defended. There was no outline about how to protect civil liberties, including voting rights that are now under direct attack. The speech seemed designed to inspire, which is fine. But is that enough? 

Biden understated the threat when he asserted that most Republicans are not MAGA Republican Party (RP) extremists. Some recent polling and political facts indicate that is not true. More than half of Republicans support the ex-president. Only two Republicans in congress (Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger) openly oppose RP authoritarianism. That includes alleged Senate moderates Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. Essentially the entire RP leadership, its donors and elites and the radical right media are all in support of authoritarian, Christian theocratic RP extremism, election subversion, attacks on civil liberties and outright dictatorship. If one believes the threat to be serious and urgent, Biden seriously underplayed it. Maybe he did that in an attempt to be unifying and not divisive. Unfortunately, years of divisive RP propaganda has made defending democracy highly divisive. 

Divisiveness cannot be avoided under current circumstances. Simply saying that RP MAGA-style extremism is a threat to democracy is a necessary attack on the RP. Speaking truth directly attacks the RP's authoritarianism. The RP will respond as is now always does, with blasts of divisive lies, propaganda, slanders, vulgarity and crackpot conspiracy theories. Biden seems to be unaware of all of this. If not, in my opinion, he falsely believes that trying for unity will be helpful to the cause of democracy.

Qs: Was Biden's speech adequate or not? Should he give at least a couple more speeches in defense of democracy that are less vague and more accurate about the depth and scope of the RP authoritarian threat? Did the TV networks make the right call by airing reruns instead of airing the speech? Being for-profit capitalist businesses, should TV networks have any moral or other obligation to defend democracy or otherwise serve the public interest?