In a recent speech, President Joe Biden warned US Americans of the dangers of extremism and right-wing politics, citing former President Donald Trump and the January 6 Capitol riots as examples of the United States’s descent into anti-democracy. Typically, when a sitting US president gives a prime-time address, networks interrupt their everyday programming in favor of airing the speech instead. Biden’s speech, however, was left largely ignored by major networks in favor of game show reruns and news segments. The reason? Partisanship.

These networks do not offer special airtime to presidential addresses that are considered political in nature. Apparently, Biden’s references to Donald Trump and the Republican Party were too divisive and therefore not a broad, American concern. Instead, it is considered political rallying, especially during an incredibly contentious midterm election season. Representing Biden’s warnings about right-wing extremism and white supremacy as partisan rather than as a national concern only exemplifies Biden’s point, though.

Whether or not you believe his decision to go on air and speak out against “MAGA forces” was self-interested, the fact still remains that the issues Biden addressed are pertinent. He is correct that the United States is experiencing astronomical levels of political and racial polarization–levels of polarization that have arguably always pulsed underneath the surface. Governmental distrust is at a high due to the spread of conspiracy theories and fake news reports. At the head of it all, Trump feeds into this polarization by pushing the narrative that the 2020 US election and, therefore, US democracy is fraudulent. Networks might argue that Biden’s speech was politically charged, but the reality is that nothing is apolitical. The rise in extremism that Biden describes is a national concern, and if the public continues to treat it as though it is political propaganda or election fodder, the problem will only worsen. Extremism wins by convincing society that it is not a political tactic but, rather, a facet of everyday life.