We should pay more attention to the Democrats who pay attention to reality

[Mosby]

COMING OFF one of the least-edifying debates of the campaign season, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) agreed in an interview Friday that the format has not tended to promote voter understanding of the candidates’ positions. “It’s been really hard for the candidates who are not Bernie Sanders to express their policies and their ideas,” she said. The pattern: Mr. Sanders promises unlimited free stuff to everyone; other candidates propose smarter, more targeted approaches — and then get slammed for lack of boldness. Making their case has been even harder for the pragmatic and straight-talking candidates in the race because two billionaires — Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer — have saturated the airwaves with incessant television advertising.

In reality, Ms. Klobuchar’s agenda — like those of former vice president Joe Biden and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg — would be pathbreaking. Ms. Klobuchar wants to crack down on pharmaceutical companies, introduce a generous public health-care plan, scale up college affordability, invest in vocational training, pour money into infrastructure, enact public campaign financing and press states to shorten prison sentences. Tackling climate change by getting the country to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 would be her “number-one priority.”

So Ms. Klobuchar and others in her lane set ambitious goals. But they do not entertain the fantasy, sold by Mr. Sanders and, to a lesser degree, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), that bold change can be achieved with few-to-no hard choices or little care for the risks. On climate change, for example, Ms. Klobuchar wants to tax greenhouse gas emissions, among other proposals. A price on carbon would spur the transition to clean energy far more efficiently than having politicians arrogantly take it upon themselves to design a green economy in minute detail from Washington. She would help poor and middle-class children go to college but let the wealthy pay tuition. She recognizes limits on how much debt the government can take on.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-should-pay-more-attention-to-the-democrats-who-pay-attention-to-reality/2020/02/28/8864bd86-5a6f-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html

[DanTex]

1. LOL. Shocked that the WP editorial board is smearing Bernie!

[KPN]

7. Gee, me too!

[ehrnst]

12. "Firehose of Falsehood" strategy

That’s the phrase Monika Bauerlein, CEO of Mother Jones, uses to describe the attacks on media itself. She points out it used to be politicians would attack a particular story as being false, but now they attack all media as being “fake news”.

https://www.wbanewsroom.org/the-firehose-falsehood/

A couple of weeks after the 2016 election, Nic Dawes, the former editor of South Africa’s Mail & Guardian, penned one of the best pieces on journalism in the age of Trump that I’ve read to date. Cast in the form of an open letter to U.S. journalists, it offered advice “from those of us who have worked in places where the institutional fabric is thinner, the legal protections less absolute, and the social license to operate less secure. Not outright dictatorships, but majoritarian democracies where big men — and they are usually men — polish their image in the mirror of state media or social media, while slowly squeezing the life out of independent institutions.”

One of Dawes’ core pieces of advice was: “Get used to being stigmatized as the opposition…The basic idea is simple: to delegitimize accountability journalism by framing it as partisan. Why should anyone care about your investigation of the president’s conflicts of interest, or his tax bills, if they emanate from the political opposition? The scariest thing about ‘fake news’ is that all news becomes fake. Yours too.”

Chilling, right? As prognostication goes, it doesn’t get much more accurate than this. Just weeks after Dawes’ piece published, Steve Bannon — in an interview with the Times, to add insult to injury — declared that “the media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country.” As for dismissing investigations of the president’s conflicts of interest, or his tax bills, as “fake news:” Yep, and yep.

None of this is brand new; politicians have always sought to smear journalism they didn’t like. What’s new is that the attack is no longer about this or that story, but about journalism itself. It’s a challenge to the very notion of an independent accounting of facts. And in 2018, as tension builds on a host of stories from the Russia investigation to dozens of contested Congressional elections, we’ll see this challenge mount.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2017/12/the-firehose-of-falsehood/

[ehrnst]

13. Crickets....

[LisaM]

2. This is spot-on analysis.

Of course, I see Warren is left out of the conversation, every candidate except her is mentioned in this excerpt!

[Mosby]

4. Fixed that. Nt

[True Blue American]

6. I have not fully watched

One debate. They are nothing but gotchas for the media to chew over for days.

I do enjoy the Town Halls where they are allowed to discuss what they plan to do.

Amy is one smart, level headed candidate. The attacks and insults do not impress me. We have heard enough of that for 4 years.

[highplainsdem]

3. K&R

[Sloumeau]

8. Bernie Sanders and his empty promises, or a candidate who live on planet earth.

You decide.

[KPN]

9. Baloney -- not reality. Reality is the record the past 45 years. And blaming Rs

is not a sound defense, justification or mitigating in the least. Continuing to promote the means that created that past record is ignoring reality. Winning just for the sake of winning is not a solution. The mindset that we must win to keep the Rs and, yes, worse tRump in check (well, out of office and preferably, in jail) doesn’t generate the sufficient trust among the diversity and breadth of voters needed to guarantee victory in my opinion. Every candidate carries risk. I’m inclined to go with those who are most popular.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. MSM has driven that narrative on both sides in the past 2 elections

'newness' trumps policy, excitement is more important than practicality, stability is boring. McCain2008 and Romney2012 might well recognize this to a lesser extent.

Electing a president is not important. Ratings for media companies is what motivates media. Money for corporations and their shareholders, which is mostly Republicans.

[BComplex]

11. I think Amy would make a great president.

So would Elizabeth. The democratic party seems to have decided that they aren't going to go with a female this go around.

That's a real pity, because they're both wicked smart and have a good head on their shoulders, as well as the ability to get things done.