Unless there is powerful push- back, the "mainstream media" is on track to pull another 2016 on us, using false norms and "both sides" asymmetry to bring progressives down to the level of existential threat Donald "Rump" Trump. Paul Rosenberg has a good read about how Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is the first example out of the box in the 2020 cycle:
This is precisely what’s happening again with Elizabeth Warren. And it will happen with every single Democratic candidate, which is why they ought to have rushed immediately to her defense in solidarity. What’s especially striking is how this is already playing out against a woman who has arguably been Trump’s leading target in the potential 2020 field ever since the 2016 election, precisely because she is his arch-nemesis: a good-government progressive, a woman and a genuine self-made success.
Warren’s supposed stumbles or difficulties are not actually about anything she has actually done, but rather how the so-called liberal media has been hacked to turn against her. They never effectively recognized or responded to the racist “Pocahontas” slur when Trump first deployed it, or when he doubled down on it, much as they failed to respond to Trump’s tireless promotion of birtherism. Nor did they take much notice of the Boston Globe report that cleared Warren of charges that she used her ancestry claim to gain unfair professional advancement. To top it all off, they badly mischaracterized her follow-up release of her ancestry DNA — a move she clearly saw as routine, following the Globe report. [snip]
If Warren was guilty of anything, it was failing to recognize how badly the so-called liberal media had been hacked by decades of right-wing ideological warfare. She’s not alone in this, and it can’t be separated from everything else going wrong in America today. It’s exceedingly difficult to grasp just how badly the media’s false balance and other misleading norms have been twisted to produce such high volumes of misleading propaganda, usually without the slightest awareness of what they’re doing. (our emphasis)Rosenberg goes on to promote Jay Rosen's "citizens agenda" model of campaign journalism, where voters are placed in the role of identifying their issues and forming the questions journalists would be asking candidates, while offering additional thoughts on reforming how elections are covered. (Also: FFS, Anderson Cooper!)
But, it seems, you'll always have Fox "News." Robert Brent Toplin takes the chaotic events of December 20 to illustrate how that Republican media organ responded to the meltdown:
What kind of reporting does the Fox News viewership receive through prime-time reporting and commentary? Consider the lessons viewers learned on Thursday, December 20, 2018, an extraordinary day of troubles for Trump’s presidency. Leading print and television journalists outside of Fox expressed shock that Trump suddenly announced plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and quickly draw down half of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. [snip]
General Jim Mattis’s decision to resign as Secretary of Defense, also received abundant commentary on December 20. Mattis’s letter of resignation communicated strong disagreement with the direction of U.S. foreign policy. [snip]
On the home front, President Trump led congressional leaders to believe that a compromise was workable on temporarily funding the government. But Trump suddenly reversed his position, insisting there would be no settlement unless Congress provided $5 billion for a border wall. On December 20 the stock market tanked on this news and other developments. The next day Wall Street closed with its worst week since the financial crisis of 2008. [snip]
Even though the real “news” on December 20 was about struggles in Congress to keep the government running, Fox’s prime-time programming highlighted stories about an immigrant invasion. Commentators asserted falsely that Democrats advocated “open borders.” They accentuated a report about a violent undocumented immigrant in California. In each program hosts and commentators left viewers with an impression that the big news of the day concerned security threats from aliens. Speakers praised President Trump for his determination to build a wall.As long as there's a Fox "News" and other right- wing media, their loyal but credulous followers will continue to be gulled into thinking everything is just fine -- except for existence of the damn libs. It seems quaint now to think how, less than two years ago, the ascendance of the sons of Rupert Murdoch at Fox was seen as a moderating turn by suckers in the media =cough= New York Times =cough=. How's that workin' out for ya?
Paul Krugman compares the tax policies supported by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) with those of the Republican caucus:
Why do Republicans adhere to a tax theory that has no support from nonpartisan economists and is refuted by all available data? Well, ask who benefits from low taxes on the rich, and it’s obvious.
And because the party’s coffers demand adherence to nonsense economics, the party prefers “economists” who are obvious frauds and can’t even fake their numbers effectively.
Which brings me back to AOC, and the constant effort to portray her as flaky and ignorant. Well, on the tax issue she’s just saying what good economists say; and she definitely knows more economics than almost everyone in the G.O.P. caucus, not least because she doesn’t “know” things that aren’t true. (our emphasis)We can't resist Krugman's companion tweets on the subject:
This is a member of Congress who danced in college and recently called for a change in tax policy based on the work of leading economists. Washington considers her a flaky nitwit 2/ pic.twitter.com/7wR4SFcyUz— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) January 6, 2019
Finally, please check out Infidel 753's comprehensive link round- up. If you can't find something there that's funny, thought- provoking, infuriating or surprising, you may want to check your pulse!
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