When a politician says that the mainstream media favor the other side, he or she almost always is a conservative Republican. Therefore, it was noteworthy when, this past week, Bernie Sanders accused the MSM of propping up the GOP; his argument, however, was unconvincing even to a reporter for a lefty magazine.
On Thursday, Tim Murphy of Mother Jones noted Sanders’s remark that “if we had a media in this country that was really prepared to look at what the Republicans actually stood for,” the GOP would be “a fringe party. Maybe they get 5, 10 percent of the vote.” Murphy didn’t buy it: “A corporate media that obsesses over the issues Sanders obsesses over would certainly have some impact on the political landscape. But Sanders' dismissal of the Republican base seems to miss a far more obvious takeaway. People vote for Republicans not because they've been brainwashed, but because they actually like what Republicans…are proposing.”
From Murphy’s post (bolding added):
Rachel Maddow posed an interesting question to Sen. Bernie Sanders during their interview on Wednesday: Would he like to see the Republican Party just disappear? Sanders…offered an alternative theory—the GOP would disappear if corporate media simply told the truth about the party's agenda.
…By his estimate, the Republican Party would drop to single-digit support if it weren't for negligence by the press:
I think if we had a media in this country that was really prepared to look at what the Republicans actually stood for rather than quoting every absurd remark of Donald Trump…hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the top two tenths of 1 percent, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, a party which with few exceptions doesn't even acknowledge the reality of climate change…a party which is not prepared to stand with women in the fight for pay equity, a party that is not prepared to do anything about a broken criminal justice system or a corrupt campaign finance system…I just don't, you know, say this rhetorically, this is a fringe party…Maybe they get 5, 10 percent of the vote.
"The Republican Party today now is a joke," he continued, "maintained by a media which really does not force them to discuss their issues."
Sanders was returning to one of his driving issues…a fervent belief that corporate-owned media was steering democracy off a cliff…In his [1997] book, Outsider in the House, [Sanders claimed] that TV news coverage was dumbing down America by inundating viewers with superficial coverage of O.J. Simpson instead of "corporate disinvestment in the United States." Not surprisingly, when Maddow asked Sanders in an interview last fall what his dream job might be, he quickly blurted out, "president of CNN."
A corporate media that obsesses over the issues Sanders obsesses over would certainly have some impact on the political landscape. But Sanders' dismissal of the Republican base seems to miss a far more obvious takeaway. People vote for Republicans not because they've been brainwashed, but because they actually like what Republicans like Trump are proposing.
