NPR’s political analysts love to tell their leftist listeners that the Republican Party is in horrible shape, roiled by internal disputes, and they’ll locate the appropriate Experts to underline it.
When the Democrats are evaluated, it’s a cozy inside job. On Thursday's All Things Considered, Mara Liasson only considered speaking to party regulars, no outside experts. She channeled hope in a segment titled "What 2026 might look like for Democrats."
Liasson began: “For a party out of power in Washington, D.C., Democrats are on a roll outside the Beltway. They're winning races, and President Trump's poll numbers are dropping -- always good signs for the opposition party in a midterm election year. But there are still a lot of obstacles ahead for the out party.” She noted Trump’s approval rating was low, but former Harry Reid aide Adam Jentleson acknowledged voters still trust Republicans more on crime, immigration, and the economy.
Liasson touted party unity: “This year, all the Democratic candidates were singing from the same page, whether they were democratic socialists, like Zohran Mamdani in New York City, or moderate centrists, like Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey.”
Fact check! The New York City mayor's race began with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo being the Democrat establishment's choice for mayor, until Anti-Zionist Zohran won the primary, and then Cuomo ran as an independent. (NPR nudged the DNC to get behind Zohran.)
Then there's Mikie and Abby: these women are liberals, not moderates. Their American Conservative Union lifetime ratings are single-digits: 6 percent for Sherrill, 8.5 percent for Spanberger. But their resumes in the military or intelligence agencies are routinely used to paint them into the middle. Liasson’s party-unity talk continued:
LIASSON: It's unusual for the normally fractious Democrats to agree on much. But this year, in addition to a unified, across-the-board focus on affordability, Democrats also seem to be forming a rare consensus on culture war issues -- immigration, crime, transgender rights.
NEERA TANDEN: People get that we're in an existential threat and there just aren't these kinds of litmus tests.
LIASSON: Liberal litmus tests like defunding the police or decriminalizing illegal border crossings or the infamous litmus test over transgender rights that came back to haunt Kamala Harris in an attack ad that blanketed airwaves in the weeks before the election. In an effort to gain a liberal group's endorsement, Harris agreed to support taxpayer-funded transgender surgery for prison inmates. Rahm Emanuel, former White House chief of staff, congressman and mayor of Chicago, says Democrats have learned a lesson.
RAHM EMANUEL: Don't focus on the bathroom access or locker rooms. Focus on classroom excellence. I happen to think defunding the police was dumb, but I have a proactive public safety argument, not a legal brief that you're 22% safer this year than last year.
Does anyone believe NPR when it’s implied that the Democrats are unified in backing away from the transgender lobby’s demands? The liberal media may try to avoid the bathroom and locker-room access, unless they can lament a Republican “rollback” in “transgender rights.”
Last year, NPR's senior political editor Domenico Montanaro posted a petulant "fact check" claiming Trump couldn't claim Harris or Walz were radical on gender issues.
Liasson did end on a sour note, that news won’t get better for Democrats as the 2020s end. “After the 2030 census, more than 15 electoral votes could move south away from the so-called blue wall states Democrats currently rely on to win the White House -- Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania -- and to red states like Texas, Georgia and Florida.”
One could argue Georgia's purplish at this point. But no one can argue that NPR isn't firmly located on the Mamdani Left.
