The empire strikes back: The media-political elite’s campaign to destroy Bernie and restore order
by ANDREW O'HEHIR
Last week the New York Times deigned to notice that Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is running for president – have you heard about this? – and even by the Gray Lady’s usual standard of treating everyone to the left of the Obama-Clinton Democratic center as a two-headed, kazoo-playing talking dog, it was quite a piece of work. Times reporter Jason Horowitz’s dispatch from a recent Sanders rally in Dubuque, Iowa, barely even pretended to be a news article. It emanated tangible hostility from beginning to end – sometimes veering toward distaste, sometimes toward mockery — and was loaded with scare quotes and attack adjectives. Sanders was described as grumpy, angry, disengaged, uncharismatic, judgmental and suspicious “of all things ‘feel good,’” yet also, despite those unappealing qualities, as a cult figure surrounded by a “circle of believers.”
Sanders’ references to the “corporate media” were enclosed in ironical quotes – what a ridiculous thing to say about the New York Times! – and his refusal to engage with questions about Hillary Clinton’s perceived political liabilities was described, twice within two paragraphs, as disdainful. Toward the end of the article, Horowitz finally expends a single paragraph outlining Sanders’ proposals for single-payer health care, expanded Social Security, free college tuition and breaking up the banking cartel. Without quoting anyone or citing any sources, Horowitz then introduces “the critique that none of these proposals is remotely plausible given the political realities in Washington,” and describes the political future envisioned by the Sanders campaign as a “fantasy scenario.”
Now, there are valid reasons to be skeptical that Sanders will end up as the Democratic nominee, still less our next president. Hillary Clinton’s strategists seem well prepared for the likelihood that Iowa and New Hampshire will be close, and that Sanders could conceivably win one or both states. Clinton remains far ahead in national polls of likely Democratic voters, and is well positioned in many Southern and heartland states where Sanders is unlikely to compete effectively. She has huge amounts of conventional campaign funding plus super PAC zillions up her sleeve, and controls much of the local and state Democratic Party apparatus through her nationwide army of robot ninja assassins. (I exaggerate for effect: They aren’t technically robots.)
But that sneering Sanders character assassination in the Times, which sought not just to demean the candidate but his supporters and the entire American progressive tradition he represents, went far beyond that kind of conventional horse-race analysis. It felt less like an effort to report the news than an effort to shape the news. I’m not saying that Horowitz was sent to Dubuque with specific instructions to rip Sanders apart with his glittering aperçus — in the print edition, the article’s pull quote read “A call for an uprising comes with little belief that it will occur” (oh, SNAP) – because that wasn’t necessary. Those instructions were undetectably but unmistakably present in the oxygen of the Times newsroom.
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http://www.salon.com/2015/08/26/the_empire_strikes_back_the_media_political_elites_campaign_to_destroy_bernie_and_trump_and_restore_order/
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