Media Bias Against Progressives-- The Story Of Politico

Politico reporters, Sarah Ferris and Andrew Desiderio, presented a webinar Friday in how to please corporate media ownership and upper management by hammering how conservative talking points. The name of their Republican Party message lesson-- which was (seriously) sent out by the NRCC communications department-- is Swing-district Dems face blowback from progressive voters. The first and easiest lesson-- and the most common-place one among Beltway journalists is to refer to conservative Democrats as "moderates," making it seem like mainstream Democrats with widely and overwhelmingly popular ideas are extremists or radicals. That id always a must at Politico, but also used by most Washington Post and NY Times reporters and editors as well.

There was a time when conservative media would always refer to Social Security, the minimum wage, Medicare, the right of workers to organize into union, emancipation of the slaves, the right of women to vote, consumer protection, etc as extreme and radical, socialist and communist. A third of the population of the American colonies in the late 1770s opposed the Revolution and preferred the British monarchy. Many fought on the side of the British and many left the U.S. after the Revolution, skipping out to Canada, the West Indies and the motherland. Unfortunately, they didn't all leave and, worse yet, some of them returned. You'll have to ask Sarah and Andrew-- who referred to opposing Medicare-for-All (i.e., original Medicare) and the Green New Deal (which could be called saving the planet and humanity) as "dodging his party’s leftward drift-- what their antecedents were doing at the time.

They were upset that conservative Democrat Conor Lamb (PA) was approached by constituents asking him to back original Medicare (which includes revolutionary ideas like dental care and hearing aids) and saving the planet and humanity. They called the bills "some of the most liberal legislation the House has ever seen," which didn't include the attribution of the NRCC or RNC or NRSC, which use the phrase daily. "Liberal suburban voters, wrote Ferris and Desiderio, "including in swing districts like Lamb’s, are turning out in droves at town halls to complain about Congress’s inaction on their progressive wish list-- even as their representatives remain firmly in the centrist column. It highlights the quandary the vulnerable Democrats find themselves in: Remain moderate enough to appeal to the middle but risk the ire of the invigorated progressives." (At least they only implied "socialists" and didn't say it)-- though when the NRCC sent their handiwork out within 3 seconds of publication, the subject line was "socialists come for vulnerable Democrats."

Look at all these commies ruing the Politico owners' day: "At public events this week, freshmen in battleground districts in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California heard from voters clamoring for Medicare for All, drastic climate action, gun control and the impeachment of President Donald Trump, among other priorities. And it’s not just sign-holding, T-shirt clad activists coming to the mics: It’s white-haired men in golf polos, and moms in work dresses and heels."

Heels no less! Gun control. There's a radical idea-- one that around 90% of non-Politico employees back! "But the freshman centrist also rejected calls to back Medicare for All from at least a half-dozen constituents-- a move that’s been repeated by many other moderates, though it frustrates some in their own base who are growing restless on the bigger issues. 'We have a lot of work to do on health care, there’s no doubt about it,' Lamb told a middle-aged nurse this week who urged him to support the bill. 'I happen to think the issue of prescription drug prices is the alligator closest to the boat, the one we absolutely have to deal with in this Congress.' Lamb, instead, said most people in the district are 'pretty happy' with their current insurance plans. Later in the night, he took another swipe at the ever-growing scope of the bill, and at 2020 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'It seems like each time Sen. Sanders introduces it, he adds another thing.' True, Bernie added mental health care-- obviously important for Lamb's moron constituents who believe they are "pretty happy" being ripped off by the current insurance system.

New Jersey Blue Dog Mikie Sherrill, they wrote "also faced an intense push for Medicare for All, impeachment and robust climate action, with many people in the room applauding loudly each time a progressive issue was raised. When Democrats voted for her in 2018, they had idea of what a bag of Republican-lite garbage they were getting. She sure didn't tell them. And all the Republicans said about her is that she's a socialist. Unfortunately, she wasn't. At her town hall, she "turned down multiple requests to co-sponsor the Medicare for All bill, to visible disappointment in the crowd. 'Right now, I think it's critical that we bring down health care costs and get everybody covered. That is my goal,' Sherrill said, who made it clear she understood the pain of rising drug prices and insurance bills with stories about her own families’ costly treatments." She doesn't understand anything. She's a hack who deserves to lose her seat. Unfortunately she has no primary opponent yet.

Even swing-district Democrats who have embraced the progressive agenda, like Rep. Mike Levin of California, are coming home to voters who are irked by the stalled progress. Many are pivoting to McConnell, turning him into the boogeyman in 2020 for his so-called “legislative graveyard.”

That must confused every single Politico employee. I mean what sense does that make?!?!

“[Voters] say, why isn’t the House doing more? Well, we are. We are moving forward. It’s the Senate, and it’s Mitch McConnell specifically that’s unwilling to do his job,” he added. “They didn’t run for positions as a United States senator so that they could watch Mitch McConnell block all of the legislation that we send them.”

With control of just one chamber, Democrats have also struggled to make progress on even on the least contentious of their campaign promises, like drug pricing and infrastructure. That puts a strain on the dozens of freshmen like Levin and Lamb who clawed back their seats from the GOP last fall, largely campaigning on local and pocketbook issues.

But key parts of the base are also keen to show Democrats they’re more interested in fighting Trump than simply trying to fix potholes.

Democratic Party bosses, they say, are still playing it safe on the more divisive issues that are reenergizing voters on the left — an attempt to hold onto a “big tent” base in 2020 and protect vulnerable members like Lamb and Levin without alienating increasingly vocal progressives.

That’s a tough task, especially as trademark ideas, like Medicare for All, have gained prominence with help from a more-liberal-than-ever field of 2020 presidential candidates.

The tone of the town halls is far from the scathing public showdowns of the post-2010 Obamacare era. Still, the events this week drew standing room-only crowds in some cases, with dozens of people looking to take the mic and occasionally prompting outbursts of “impeach now!” or “Moscow Mitch.”

Levin has embraced many of the agenda items progressive voters are pushing. Still, the California freshman was confronted over his support for a Senate-passed humanitarian aid package for migrants at the southern border, which most Democrats opposed over concerns it didn’t go far enough.

Politico is careful to never refer to the concentration camps as concentration camps. And, yes, voters are angry that Democrats like Pelosi and Levin voted to fund the concentration camps which plenty of grassroots Democrats were horrified by. Levin, who is Jewish, noted that he has criticized members of both parties for anti-Semitic remarks... Like when Trump said their were very fine people on both sides in Charlottesville, the anti-racists and the Nazis. Both sides.

Balls by Nancy Ohanian