Jay Bookman names some names in his op/ ed about who shouldn't be the Democratic standard bearer in 2020. Here's his rationale:
Whatever else it will say about him, history will see Donald Trump as a marker in time that divides what came before him from what will come after him. He is a ridiculous figure, especially as president, but the fact that he was elected anyway demonstrates the bankruptcy of that previous era and the repudiation of an approach to politics that had grown stale and unresponsive. [snip]
Today’s challenges — climate change, unsustainable economic disparity, technological disruption, the rationalization of a dysfunctional health-care system, the restraint and redirection of nationalist passions, the growing despair and addiction in those parts of America left behind by change — these are the troubles that must now be addressed. Voters will want and deserve fresh voices and insight into tackling them.We're willing to let the year play out a bit more before we start crossing people off the list. (Speaking of lists, Vox has one on who's running, or expected to run, for President here.)
Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog writes about the media's propensity for taking discrete troubles of various Democrats and blowing them up into a larger meme, and contrasts it with their treatment of the news that universe- class hypocrite Donald "Rump" Trump has been employing undocumented immigrants at his Bedminster, NJ, golf club for decades:
After every bad story involving a Democrat, the media stokes the expectation of a second-order effect: Not only is Elizabeth Warren expected to be embarrassed about a decades-old form on which she called herself a Native American, she now should expect to lose credibility when talking about the disproportionate power of the wealthy, which is a completely unrelated subject. Not only is a racist photo of Ralph Northam a mark of shame for the governor, it's expected to be toxic for everyone in the Democratic Party for the next 21 months, until Election Day 2020.
But Trump? As far as I can determine, not even Ann Coulter has called him on the hiring at Bedminster. Hey, he's a hypocrite -- ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. It's okay if you're a Republican.It's the media's broader, updated version of "but her emails!" Steve has another piece on this general topic here that's also worth a read.
Paul Waldman picks up on the theme of the media focusing on building narratives ("stories") that distract from what's really important to know about a candidate's campaign:
...[W]e get consumed with "issues" like that one that seem to exist only within the four corners of the campaign, not because we think they're actually meaningful or revealing but because we assume they'll have an effect on voters. Meanwhile we completely forget that we're trying to figure out who would be the best president. [snip]
... Once these "issues" take hold with reporters, they use them to frame what that candidate does from that point forward. "Still reeling from controversy over her racial identity, Elizabeth Warren announced today." "Trying to refocus attention away from the allegation that she mistreated her staff, Amy Klobuchar traveled to Iowa." Nothing they say or do can change it, yet everything they say or do is described as an attempt to distract from it.
The project of figuring out who candidates "really" are (as opposed to who they'd like us to think they are) is a perfectly worthy one, and if there's one lesson we should have learned it's that as president they're the same people they were before. Bill Clinton cheated on his wife before he was president, and while he was president. George W. Bush lied a lot about policy while he was a candidate, and did the same as president. Donald Trump was a corrupt liar his whole life, and still is.
The key, though, is exploring the connection: Here's who the candidate has been and is now, and this is why it would be important to their presidency. That's the part so many reporters seem to forget about once politicians start trudging through Iowa. But if there's good news, it's this: It's not too late for coverage of the campaign to get better. Those of us in the media just have to decide to do something different.We keep seeing this movie over and over, to the detriment of our democracy. The media seems incapable of self- correction. Sustained, assertive push back from us is the main weapon in our arsenal.
Keeping with the media, Newscorpse reports the prime time shitshows on Fox "News" are continuing to shed audience and advertisers, with implications for further, future revenue decline:
... With MSNBC taking the number one spot in most of the primetime cable news market, Fox News would have to lower their ad rates because advertisers aren’t going pay a premium for a number two network. And with that change in leadership comes an even bigger problem for Fox. Like every cable channel, Fox News makes most of its profits through licensing fees from cable system operators. They currently have a very lucrative contract that was negotiated at the height of their ratings success. Now that they are no longer the leader, those contracts will decline in value when they are up for renewal.
All of this is due to Fox’s determination to advance a radical right-wing agenda and to serve as the State TV mouthpiece for Donald Trump. It’s an unsustainable business model as the nation wakes up from its temporary lapse in judgement and rejects Trump and the sycophantic, cult-like GOP that he commandeered.That story was found over at Infidel 753's link round- up, one of many he regularly collects so the rest of us don't have to do the work of plumbing the internet for interesting items. Go take a look at what else he's discovered!
