Eugene Robinson asks a scary question

[Hortensis]

99. Don't mistake the mix here for typical of Democrats.

DUers follow political news, of all qualities from excellent to trash, but we follow.

Most Democrats do not consistently or in any depth, and definitely aren't passionate about day-to-day details. Those who do follow the news a bit mostly don't read it but instead watch TV network news, and as you know there's very little information there between commercials.

Cable news is for the immersers, but as you can see from below very few Americans, 4.8M out of 200M registered voters, watch cable news. Good thing because, on testing of knowledge of their world, cable viewers test appallingly low.

Pew: 2016: In prime time, combined average viewership for the three major news channels (CNN, Fox News and MSNBC) increased by 55% to 4.8 million viewers.

And here's the other, BIG thing about DU: The number of passionate lefters who gather here, the type who tend to see the Democratic Party as too conservative/not left enough, too unprincipled, too "establishment," too corrupt, whatever, is far larger than "out there."

They go on social media to find people who share their feelings.

As for the current partisan firestorm you've brought up, let's touch base with the Democratic base for a moment: Most Dems remember Franken best from SNL and now have heard only that Sen. Franken's been accused of sexual misbehavior, has been asked to resign, and will resign. By far most do not know that over 2/3 of his 45 colleagues in the senate asked him to resign. They don't care enough about the details to know that.

So passionate lefties are really going to have a hard time trying to get the typical Democrats around them outraged at this "proof" that a majority of our Democratic senators are stupid and devoid of principle, much less gain sympathy for the idea of leaving the party over this "betrayal." Most typical Dems are just going to think his colleagues had their reasons for asking Franken to resign and move on to talking about Christmas shopping, if they're in the mood, Roy Moore.