The media's eagerness to discount the 'blue wave' feeds a dangerous problem

[mcar]

The media’s eagerness to discount the ‘blue wave’ feeds a dangerous problem

By Margaret Sullivan
Media columnist
November 12 at 1:34 PM

...Nearly a week later, as votes continue to be counted — and sometimes recounted — the president is pining for the way things looked on election night....

On a stage Friday night in Manhattan, forecasting that Democrats would ultimately gain 37 House seats (not 29, as some early results had it), the data-oriented journalist Nate Silver said what happened certainly looked like a wave to him....

Tom Pepinsky of Cornell University, an expert on authoritarian politics, wrote with alarm Monday about what he saw happening — and what the president is encouraging with his rhetoric about ballots being “massively infected.”

“In a month of harrowing news, this development is still almost incalculably bad for American democracy,” Pepinsky said. “I now assume that a substantial minority of Americans believe that the results of the elections in Florida, Georgia, Arizona, and California are democratically illegitimate unless the Republican candidate wins.”...

Hard as it is to do — or even consider — in our crazily speeded-up news environment, there’s only one lesson for the media from the past week:

Slow the hell down.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-medias-eagerness-to-discount-the-blue-wave-feeds-a-dangerous-problem/2018/11/12/3f3d03cc-e697-11e8-bbdb-72fdbf9d4fed_story.html?utm_term=.cd791902c10c

[niyad]

1. the local fishwrap is already proclaiming that Dems cannot hold onto their seats and power even

to the next election.

[Scurrilous]

2. Late results reveal Democrats 'blue wave' as party secures best election performance since 1974

<snip>

"The consensus on election night seemed clear: although Democrats regained the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years, no blue wave had materialised.

A week later, the steady trickle of further gains in late results appear to reveal a far more positive picture for the party,

The Democrats have now picked up at least 32 seats in the House and are on course for four more, in addition to flipping seven governorships and eight state legislative chambers.

Though the Republicans are on track to increase their Senate by two seats, they had expected more.

On Monday night, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won Arizona’s Senate race, beating Martha McSally in a landmark victory to take the seat held by retiring Republican senator Jeff Flake.

It means the overall results in the first nationwide election of Donald Trump’s presidency represent the Democrats’ best midterm performance since 1974, a vote which came in the wake of Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/midterms-2018/midterms-results-democrats-blue-wave-late-vote-counts-us-election-trump-republican-a8631176.html

[UniteFightBack]

3. I'm hearing huge gains for Dems with more to possibly come and I hear a blue wave....shit just

look at the map. rump can't look at a sea of red anymore heh? Lots of blue blobs around the landscape...blue blobs that need to spread and meet.