Thank you! This is the simple explanation, but holy forking shirt balls try telling that to the media. Mission accomplished I guess though, Warren is now likely toast (she may have been anyway, I don’t know.)
If I had to guess, the nomination will likely end up being between Harris and Biden if he runs, or Beto.
Edit: A Dave Roberts rant, he’s had a few on the topic of right wing media; the one behind the spoiler (for length) is the one I could find goggling.
Preview:
We saw it play out recently with the “Pocahontas” thing. Yeah, yeah, Warren botched it, but why did she have to address it at all? Why did it get anywhere? Why didn’t every adult human being simply laugh dismissively when it came up? Because reporters indulge the RW. Endlessly. There is no conservative media. It’s the conservative movement - in media, politics, & think tanks, lobbyists & businesspeople - it’s all the same
Summary
This wasn’t one of the biggest episodes of the campaign, but it was one of the most revealing. Right-wing scumbags made something up out of whole cloth, the media indulged it, and it made a real difference in public perception.
It happens over & over again: right-wing scumbags make something up, the media indulges it, it turns out to be BS, but the damage is already done. Again & again & again & again, since the '90s, at least. It’s become the dominant dynamic in political media. I’ve ranted & raved about it for over a decade now, to no effect. It’s beyond clear what’s happening, but reporters still line up for it - to be played, spun, deceived, used as tools in a reactionary anti-democratic effort designed, in part, to destroy the institution they serve. I just feel helpless at this point. What would penetrate, say, the politics desk at NYT? They keep fucking up in the same ways, getting the same critiques, & rejecting the critiques – getting angrier at the left for critiquing them than at the right for playing them repeatedly. What would it take? Democracy is being hurt by this. Media’s being hurt by it. Our ability to act as a coherent polity on the basis of shared facts is being hurt. All because the mainstream political press is terrified of being scolded by the right for bias.
We saw it play out recently with the “Pocahontas” thing. Yeah, yeah, Warren botched it, but why did she have to address it at all? Why did it get anywhere? Why didn’t every adult human being simply laugh dismissively when it came up? Because reporters indulge the RW. Endlessly. There is no conservative media. It’s the conservative movement - in media, politics, & think tanks, lobbyists & businesspeople - it’s all the same, an ethnonationalist movement that sees itself in a zero-sum struggle for dominance. It has abandoned shared standards of accuracy. Just glance over here at this thread, as a conservative “reporter” pulls something out of her ass & the entire movement immediately begins spreading it. It’s just one little example - happens a dozen times a day.
What an irresponsible thing to tweet with no evidence. The reporter who was there, @davidgshortell, said on CNN that the crew was staked out at Stone’s house this morning after CNN reporters noticed unusual grand jury activity in DC on Thursday & thought something could happen.
Greta Van Susteren ✔ @greta
CNN cameras were at the raid of Roger Stone…so FBI obviously tipped off CNN…even if you don’t like Stone, it is curious why Mueller’s office tipped off CNN instead of trying to quietly arrest Stone;quiet arrests are more likely to be safe to the FBI and the person arrested
I don’t even know why I’m tweeting all this. Beats pounding my head on the table I guess. I’d just say, to political reporters who still have some aspirations at journalism: the RW is full of liars & fantasists. They’ve been lying to you for years. They’re going to lie more. We’re heading into the most important election of our lives. They’re going to be lying to you constantly , about everything, with the sole goal of winning a news cycle. You know this because they’ve lied to you hundreds of times in the recent past. When a movement and its representatives lie to you repeatedly, the reasonable thing to do is to start treating them like liars . Quit extending the presumption of credibility. Quit assuming good faith. ASSUME THEY ARE LYING until you have overwhelming proof otherwise.
Of course they will bitch & moan & accuse you of bias. Their only goal is winning & they’ve learned that bitching about bias serves that goal. Playing the refs is just another part of the scam, just another way to spin & manipulate you. Quit f’ing falling for it! Have some pride. Have some dignity. They hate you, they hate the values you stand for, they view you as an object to be manipulated for political gain. They crap all over you & your institutions, publicly, constantly! Yet you keep simpering for their approval. It’s gross. And that concludes today’s episode of Old Man Shouts at Clouds. </fin>