It's been very sad to me over the last few years to watch Chris growing more and more into an inside the beltway pundit (edit to add I used to find him capable of insightful analysis, with a razor-sharp eye for seeing what was wrong with something, now I see him more as a useful tool to provide a safe tokenized leftish viewpoint that gives undue credibility to the general media dreck without being allowed to challenge it). Then later in the interview (5:45 into it), Chris talks about the forces that act on him in exactly that direction. Chris says he discovered there are all kinds of institutional incentives that pull him as a journalist, basically away from his lefty roots.
This was a wonderful exchange between him and Bernie, and yet another example of how, when an honest candidate makes a run, it changes what gets talked about, and people look at other things, not directly related to that candidate, in different ways.
A feeling I often have about how much we lose when we just give in to centrist cynicism as "the best we can do", or "even if he gets elected, what can he accomplish with this congressional context". You can change a lot, just by showing up and being real about things, by fighting on the right side of issues, it really makes a difference. When giving in to centrist cynism, what happens is the other side (the corporate side or the RW side, depending on the context, and sometimes they are the same) gets validated when it should instead be ridiculed and fought on principle. Because, in so many ways, seen and unseen, it makes a difference.
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