Joe Biden’s presidency is bursting with all the swagger and success of President Carter. There are even six American hostages in Israel. His polling is absolutely dismal. Yet Mr. Carter faced a rough primary season with Senator Ted Kennedy. The Democrats and their press allies have suppressed all primary opponents for Mr. Biden.

The polls clearly suggest broad distaste for this president. On Sunday, ABC “This Week” host Jonathan Karl was breaking the bad news to Governor Pritzker. “Our poll this morning has Biden’s approval rating at 33 percent. That’s historically low.” He left out the 58 percent disapproval. Mr. Karl added only 31 percent approve of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy. Yet all Mr. Karl could ask Mr. Pritzker was “How does he turn that around?”

Does anyone think if President Trump had an approval rating of 33 percent in 2020, Mr. Karl wouldn’t ask a Republican how on Earth anyone expects him to win, and suggest he would help his party best by taking himself out of the race?

For his part, Mr. Pritzker tried to accentuate the positive. So Mr. Karl unloaded another number: “Just 28 percent think that President Biden has the mental sharpness to effectively serve for another term. So how does he address those concerns, those very real concerns that voters have?”

Later in the interview, Mr. Karl offered a number from a different network, that CBS found 68 percent disapprove of Mr. Biden’s handling of the border. And yet he asked, “How does the president address this going forward?” Naturally, this spurred Mr. Pritzker to repeat all his attacks on Governor Abbott for sending illegal immigrants to Illinois.

So why isn’t there major opposition to Mr. Biden? Start with this ugly fact: Pro-Biden press outlets don’t want to give opponents any airtime. Then there are the individual states blocking Mr. Biden’s opponents from getting on the ballot.

ABCNews.com reported in December on some of those antics. In late November, Florida Democrats “quietly” submitted a list of candidates to their secretary of state — and only Mr. Biden was on it. The move is expected to cause a cancellation of a primary. Democracy triumphs again?

The campaigns of Congressman Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson, and Cenk Uygur sounded the alarm over this “authoritarian” and “unconstitutional” decision, but you wouldn’t know from watching TV. Nothing died in darkness. You can’t prove it was Mr. Biden.

The same thing happened in North Carolina and Tennessee and Massachusetts — Mr. Biden alone was “the list.” Perversely, a spokesman for North Carolina’s Democratic Party told Mr. Biden’s challengers they did not reach the standards for their nomination: a candidacy that is “generally advocated and recognized in the news media.”

Mr. Phillips complained to Politico that since declaring his candidacy on October 27, he hasn’t been interviewed once on MSNBC or the big Sunday talk shows. CNN’s had him on, but not in a “town hall” setting like the Republicans this cycle, or candidates like Congressmen Eric Swalwell and Seth Moulton in the last cycle.

The Republicans have held five debates, and the Democrats have had zero, even if polls show voters would like to see Mr. Biden debate — to see how spry he is. As Mr. Phillips complained, “How can Democrats say we’re fighting for democracy… yet removing me from the ballot in Florida and North Carolina? … How can you say you are for free speech and protecting freedom and democracy and not even consent to doing one debate?”

These would be great questions for reporters. Yet the people who march around touting themselves as the guardians of democracy are the ones squashing this primary race like a barrel of grapes.

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