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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumTom Toles: What Bernie Sanders’ newfound money has just bought him, and us
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2015/10/04/what-bernie-sanders-newfound-money-has-just-bought-him-and-us/Coverage. What ever-growing crowds and poll numbers failed to deliver, money has: coverage. Bernie Sanders nearly matched Hillarys fundraising in the third quarter and all of a sudden the media takes notice that hes out there. We are supposed to keep up the pretense that a campaign is about ideas, but we dont practice it. What we practice is poll-driven coverage, fake-controversy coverage, and worst of all, strategy coverage. Everyone is an armchair general pushing little plastic candidates around a tabletop map of the US. Great fun, no meaning.
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And so now its Heeeeeres Bernie! Im not sure whether the intent of this story was to play to the expected narrative that Bernie is a wild-eyed radical crank, but the lead paragraphs certainly suggest that. But I suspect the result will be different. It appears readers have been waiting for some bigger Bernie coverage, judging by the number of responses in the comments thread.
But heres what coverage of Bernie is going to yield. Finally, the range of acceptable political discourse is going to broaden, to the left. Its about time, you say? Id say. What have long been considered taboo topics about income redistribution are in fact no more extreme than positions taken by EVERY SINGLE GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. They are ALL proposing vastly MORE tax cuts to the already obscenely wealthy, and MORE regulation-cuts of the sort that led to our recent economic collapse, all tied up in a ribbon of gigantic deficits. (Deficits are only reported as crazed when proposed by the left). Oh, and lest we forget, a continuation of the extravagantly irresponsible anti-science anti-planet climate position that they are STILL taking, thanks in part to the decades of respectful reporting theyve received on the subject.
Bernie Sanders is an implausible candidate, with a very modest chance of success: in being nominated, being elected, or being an effective president. But thank heavens he has finally broadened the debate that has so long been strangled, chained and locked away in a vault of silence, ever since the Reagans Morning in America led to todays Fright Night of Failed Ideology.
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Tom Toles: What Bernie Sanders’ newfound money has just bought him, and us (Original Post)
mhatrw
Oct 2015
OP
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)1. Bernie - More Similar To FDR Than Clinton Will Ever Be
eom
Demeter
(85,373 posts)2. Implausible? Only if you go by Third Way Rules
Implausible, my foot!
If by implausible, you mean it's unlikely that this nation would get this high-caliber a candidate to run successfully, well, THAT I'd agree with, based on the historical record.
But the nation has grown up a bit in the interim. And the Press (Internet) is finally free, for each of us has access to it. That makes a difference. The Internet and Edward Snowden may be the only forces for Democracy in the world right now.