http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/the-facts-have-a-well-known-center-left-bias/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs%AEion=Body
Of course, campaigns can’t be held responsible for everything their supporters say, although it’s a bit worse when some of those supporters are actual campaign surrogates.
Still, we can ask whether Sanders himself is inclined to dismiss inconvenient facts. Well, as you know, I think the answer is yes, on issues ranging from economic projections to the sources of Clinton primary victories.
I was therefore primed to notice when
Sanders declared that Democrats need their own version of Fox News. What does he mean, exactly? Should the proposed network engage in similar factual distortions and outright falsehoods, except this time in the service of progressive goals?
By the way, it wouldn’t work. Fox caters to an audience of angry old white men; the angry young white guys who would want a left-wing version of this message are fewer in number, have less purchasing power, and anyway don’t get their news from TV. But that’s a side point.
The main point, instead, is that what we’re seeing is that the sort of people who really care about getting facts right – who see facing up to inconvenient truths as an important value – are largely on the center-left. Care with evidence appears to matter if you are, say, the 11th most liberal senator; this is in contrast not just with the right, but also with some of the left.
The good news is that this general election will be a contest between the center-left and the ignorant right, so political values and intellectual values will be in perfect accord.
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