Some Democrats are litigating their case against Joe Biden via national political reporters, who are painting a vivid picture of a weakened party in crisis. Democrats are "panicking" in private, the Washington Post tells us, while Biden remains in a "cosseted bubble." The New York Times similarly describes Biden's camp as digging in against Democratic criticism, remaining confident "that the race remains unchanged."

Because much of the sourcing for these stories is opaque, it is hard to know the precise breadth of Biden's intraparty detractors. Some prominent Democratic lawmakers are making public statements open to interpretation. Rep. Jim Clyburn said he'd back Vice President Kamala Harris if Biden dropped out. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, 84, indicated the party should ferret out whether debate night was "an episode or is this a condition?"

While these jitters are absolutely real, remember also that political reporters are on the hunt for exciting, narrative-shifting stories in a race they have spent many months convincing readers is a historically dull rematch. As long as actual panic or the perception of panic continues, these stories aren't going away or quieting down.

The longer they go on, the more they damage Democrats. And the longer they go on while overshadowing the catastrophic impact of the Supreme Court's immunity decision on Monday, the better it is for Trump.

Trump loyalists are taking full advantage of the Democrats' turmoil, crowing on background that Trump would very much like to run against "the dementia patient." To make replacing Biden less palatable, the Heritage Foundation is publicizing its planned devious maneuvers to keep any possible replacement off the ballot in key states. Although it is not clear this would be a legally winning strategy, the disruption, confusion, and fear are the point. [UPDATE: Not a legally winning strategy.]

All of this is coming at a time when Trump has notched some truly awful "victories." He "won" the debate by lying more 30 times in 90 minutes, by CNN's count:

Trump’s repeat falsehoods included his assertions that some Democratic-led states allow babies to be executed after birth, that every legal scholar and everybody in general wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, that there were no terror attacks during his presidency, that Iran didn’t fund terror groups during his presidency, that the US has provided more aid to Ukraine than Europe has, that Biden for years referred to Black people as “super predators,” that Biden is planning to quadruple people’s taxes, that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 National Guard troops for the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, that Americans don’t pay the cost of his tariffs on China and other countries, that Europe accepts no American cars, that he is the president who got the Veterans Choice program through Congress, and that fraud marred the results of the 2020 election.

While he was still riding high on his debate bombast, the Supreme Court bestowed its magnanimous gift to a dictator in its historically stunning decision upending the Constitution by shielding presidents from criminal prosecution for a wildly broad range of "official acts." Trump will never be held accountable for working with a loyalist he installed in the Justice Department, Jeffrey Clark, to substitute fake slates of electors for real ones. Other aspects of his January 6 prosecution, and even his New York felony convictions for falsifying business records to aid his 2016 election chances, are now in doubt.

The opinion is not only a get out of jail free card for Trump now, it is an open invitation for his rampant lawbreaking in a second term. Trump and his allies at the Heritage Foundation are predictably thrilled that an anti-democratic Supreme Court has given them license to carry out a "second American Revolution," in the words of Heritage president Kevin Roberts. It "will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be," he added, a not at all veiled threat that a president shielded from prosecution could violently crack down on political opponents that he and his party have spent years equating with demonic, anti-American agitators.

But Biden stories remain above the proverbial online fold. Yesterday, just one day after the Supreme Court's earthquake of a decision, the New York Times featured multiple stories about Biden's "lapses" and Democratic "panic" that overshadowed the very real possibility that Trump could become president again and consolidate power in a way never seen in American history, carrying out vengeance on enemies and eviscerating the rule of law. Obviously Trump's dangers play in the background of the Biden anxiety. Yet too much coverage of this radical Supreme Court decision is polite and measured. The Washington Post featured a headline, "As Trump dominated the docket, divided Supreme Court moved boldly to the right" and the headline on the Times' analysis was "In Immunity Decision, Clashing Views of the Nature of Politics." The Post headline, by using the word "boldly," suggested that the anti-democratic court was somehow intrepid. The Times' "nature of politics" essentially erased the urgency of our very real battle between democracy and dictatorship.

The longer the Biden stories go on, the more Trump will try capitalize on his own "wins" and "strengths." But his "wins" are those of a lying dictator, his "strengths" those of an actual strongman. Can we count on political coverage making those distinctions clear?