While the conservative media have long been engaged in a disreputable campaign to bring down Hillary Clinton, it’s surprising to see the lengths that many in the so-called liberal media are going to take down Bernie Sanders.
This column by Francis Wilkinson in Bloomberg view appears to be typical of that latter effort. It uses some extremely convoluted logic to try to compare Sanders to extreme right-wing Republican candidates like Ted Cruz.
Wilkinson maintains that in saying that the American economy is “rigged,” Sanders is posing a “grave threat to the Democratic Party,” and is exhibiting the same “paranoid style” of politics that is the stock-in-trade of Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump. Not only that, “Sanders’s robust campaign for president is consequently a threat to the U.S. as well,” Wilkinson states. What rubbish.
I will certainly vote for Hillary Clinton if she is the Democratic nominee — in fact, I haven’t fully ruled out supporting her in the primary. But the more takedown efforts I come across in the mainstream media against Sanders, the more I’m inclined to support him.
For the record, I think Sanders is right in saying the economy is “rigged.” I don’t think there is anything paranoid or even really debatable about that proposition anymore. The economy is rigged — from the increasingly unaffordable cost of a college education to the growing income gap between the rich and the disappearing middle class.
Sanders is not posing a grave threat to the Democratic Party, much less the U.S., in talking directly to the economic concerns of middle class voters. If nothing else, he’s started a needed conversation about economic inequality. Even if that were the only thing he was talking about, which it isn’t, saving the vanishing middle class would be a valid reason to run for president.
Wilkinson is dead wrong to accuse Sanders of practicing “paranoid” politics in raising economic concerns, and to then compare him to the Republican candidates. I think Wilkinson and many others in the establishment media are scared of Bernie and they’re scared of his message.
this is just the first inning. He and his record will be put under the microscope for everyone to see. I hope he has a thick skin because he’s going to need it before this race is over.
We on Team Hillary have survived 25 years of vetting and brutal attacks. It goes with the territory. And we have all adopted Harry Truman’s sage advice : “If you can’t stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.”
Friends, this is just the primary. Kind of like a dress rehearsal or pre-season. If you think this is bad wait til we get to the general in the fall. Then the fun really begins. The corporate masters, their con puke puppets and their media whores will unleash a barrage of fire on our nominee the likes of which no has ever seen before. Trust me. I know these weasel, rat bastards. I’ve been fighting them all my life.
I’ve never seen Bernie in a national brawl before but I have seen Hillary. She has a spine of steel. As the boxing son of a champion boxer Dad I can tell you this. What I admire most about her is that SHE FIGHTS. She will take a punch. She will get knocked down. But she gets back up and she fights. She never retreats. She never surrenders.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Then why has Hillary accomplished almost zero of importance to the 99%, other than convincing her husband not to be a sociopath by vetoing SCHIP? You’re saying that her track record is what she wants, rather than than it being limited by externalities?
Wow.
to HRC’s actual record of an entire career of advocacy for those not rich and powerful.
Not advocacy.
For example during her years in the Senate did she originate, sponsor, or have signed into law any significant legislation? That is accomplishment.
Advocacy is, by and large, speechifying.
I say that as person who does it as part of my job.
…is too long to list here without going back to several sources, and certainly too long to memorize:)
Not asking for comprehensive, just an example.
A vague response encourages doubt.
I’m planning to get a separate diary up later today.
8 million poor kids have health care today because Hillary Clinton stood up and fought to make CHIP ( Children Health Insurance Program) happen after the conservatives killed healthcare reform 25 years ago. Clintoncare was the precursor template to Obamacare.
And you call that ‘zero importance to the 99%’, Manny ? How cynical you are.
If the most admired woman in the WORLD had accomplished nothing else in her life than that she would still have earned the respect of a grateful nation for literally saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of the poorest among us.
And shame on you and your ‘externalities’ BS.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Or I suck at writing
than curse the darkness.” ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
I’ll take Hillary Clinton’s action results pragmatic progressive approach to governing over lofty rhetorical words any day of the week.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Many pundits occupying establishment perches love the story of radicals on the left and right. With Cruz and Trump obviously radical, they require a balancing radical on the Left and who do you think they’ll find? Why, Senator Sanders!
Of course, this is not fair. While there are countries where the sort of democratic socialism of Mr Sanders does very well, thank you very much, there is no country on earth which has embarked on the conservative fantasies of Mr Cruz. Nonetheless, Mr Sanders will be the “On the Other Hand” Guy for much of this election cycle; I doubt there’s much escaping it.
*
Should Mr Sanders be the Democratic nominee, his past will be retold by Republican opposition researchers and painted with the same lurid hues with which Obama’s days as a community organizer were rendered. There will be lots of innuendo, guilt by association, and suggestions of anti-Americanism. That’s what those guys do. They do it pretty well too.
that it’s likely become clear to many more Americans that our press has become captured by the predator class, and shills for said class’ servants in DC. Nobody of moderate or greater intelligence can watch Chris Matthews these days without noticing that he’s wholly owned by the Clinton ThirdWayDNC.
different from you and me. They take a half-assed idea and tease it into a publishable article. It takes a serious amount of willful ignorance to compare Bernie to Ted Cruz. He had more in common with Donald Trump, which was in fact nothing of substance.
Complaining about the media, while immensely self satisfying, is a loser’s lament. And, it is never a persuasive argument. Just think about how you react whenever conservatives whine about the “lame stream media”.
Tell me. Is this a New Rule that by labeling something l”establishment” then it is automatically incorrect, bad and not worthy of discussion? Because, if so, this would be good to know. We can just shout “establishment” from here on and win any debate.
And, isn’t applying labels (like debating who’s the more “progressive” or “establishment”) an intellectually lazy exercise? Personally, I’ve found that whenever one engages in labeling exercises, they’d really rather not debate issues is directly.
The other morning, I watched as a talking head on NBC announced that Donald Trump has a “double digit lead over the field” and “Senator Sanders is 16 points ahead of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire”.
Yeah, corporate media is doing all they can to keep things as they want them.
Would you have preferred a more specific number for Trump’s lead? Of course 16 is a double digit number – like the GEICO ads say, everyone knows that. Now I think you’re looking too hard for a reason to play victim.