As the prospect of people actually beginning to vote in the 2020 election process approached, corporate media began to panic.
“Running Bernie Sanders Against Trump Would Be an Act of Insanity,” insisted
Jonathan Chait in New York magazine (1/28/20). The New York Times’ Paul Krugman (1/20/20)—among many others (FAIR .org, 1/24/20)—revived the 2016 media trend of tarring Sanders as “Trumpian.”
The Never Trumper holdouts—an increasingly endangered species—were as scared as the establishment Democrats. “Bernie Can’t Win,” David “Axis of Evil” Frum wrote pleadingly in the Atlantic (1/27/20). “Bernie Sanders’s Trump-Like Campaign Is a Disaster for Democrats,” cried the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin (1/27/20).
The Wall Street–funded Democratic think tank Third Way also pulled out all the stops against Sanders’ rise—with media’s help. The group put out “A Warning” to Iowa Democrats (1/28/20), advising them that,
because of media negligence and the strategic calculation of his rivals, you have not seen much real exploration of the politically toxic background and ideas of the current polling leader in Iowa and a national co-frontrunner.
The memo offered a lengthy list of ways Trump could attack Sanders—some of which, like the idea that he’ll be called a socialist and that Medicare for All is unpopular, Third Way itself has used to attack Sanders.
Media have been happy to platform this message. The Washington Post recently gave Third Way an op-ed column (1/15/20) to make its case that “Bernie Sanders’ Agenda Makes Him the Definition of Unelectable.” USA Today (1/29/20) likewise gave Third Way leaders space to charge, “Democrats Court Doom by Backing Bernie Sanders. His Ideas Are Toxic Outside Blue America.” And the group has been popping up in the latest round of centrist-source articles (among other usual suspects, like Rahm Emanuel and James Carville), in which establishment sources make unsubstantiated claims that reporters pass on without comment.
One of these claims is that Sanders has flown under the radar, evading attacks or scrutiny from both his opponents and the media. “It’s past time for other Democrats to come off the sidelines and for the media to start doing its job to vet a serious contender for the nomination,” Third Way’s Matt Bennett told NBCNews.com (1/25/20) in an article headlined, “‘Oh My God, Sanders Can Win’: Democrats Grapple With Bernie Surge in Iowa.” In Politico (1/27/20), he ratcheted up the rhetoric: “[The media] let him get away with murder. They let him bluster past hard questions.”
To set the record straight: Sanders has gotten a great deal of media scrutiny and pushback, as FAIR noted back in 2016 (5/25/16) and David Sessions (New Republic, 1/28/20) has usefully updated.
Another line of attack is the revival of the 2016 “Bernie Bro” trope. Based on anecdotal evidence and repeated endlessly by Clinton supporters and journalists, the idea that Sanders supporters are predominantly white, male and viciously offensive on social media lingers on.
As all journalists and most of the rest of the world know, the internet is awash in vile rhetoric coming from all directions, not just from a small subset of Sanders supporters. In fact, a March 2016 study found that, among voters, his supporters were perceived as much less “aggressive and/or threatening online” (16%) than were Clinton supporters (30%), who in turn were perceived as much less so than Trump supporters (57%).
And yet the media persist with the trope. In the Daily Beast (1/22/20), the headline was “Bernie Bros Are Loud, Proud and Toxic to Sanders’ Campaign.” In the New York Times ( 1/27/20), a lengthy front-page article scolded: “The Vermont Senator Told His Supporters That He Condemned Bullying. Is It His Problem if Many Don’t Seem to Listen?”
And the headline of an NBCNews.com (1/19/20) column announced, “Trump’s MAGA Supporters and Twitter Bernie Bros Have This Ugly Tactic in Common: Bernie Twitter Operates Under the Self-Righteous Guise of Being the True Progressives of the Internet. But Their Harassing Tactics Are Anything but Progressive.”
This from a media culture where Chris Matthews (MSNBC, 2/7/20) can suggest that Sanders’ election might bring “executions in Central Park,” and Chuck Todd (MSNBC, 2/10/20) can refer to his supporters as “the digital brownshirts.”
Corporate media should take a deep breath —and focus on reporting candidates’ proposals and how they’ll affect voters’ lives.
