For the Democratic Party, a pliant and friendly news media is both a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, the corporate press’s eagerness to rehabilitate Democratic officials after even the most shameful and despicable acts has made it possible for some of the party’s worst actors to maintain political power with relative ease. Then again, the news media’s reflexively and reliably soft coverage of left-wing lawmakers has made the chief benefactors of this cozy relationship both soft and complacent. Democratic officials and candidates have been lulled into a false sense of security, ignoring or forgetting the benefits that come with being tempered by a thorough, brutal vetting.
The downside to the corporate media’s mostly hands-off approach to covering Democratically aligned lawmakers was never clearer than it was during the Feb. 19 primary debate in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who spent much of the evening having his entrails ripped out by his 2020 opponents and paraded around the stage, managed to get in one good blow against Sen. Bernie Sanders, going after the Vermont lawmaker for his conspicuous wealth.
“What a wonderful country we have,” said the former mayor. “The best-known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses. What did I miss here?”
“Well,” an irate Sanders said, “You’ll miss that I work in Washington, house one. ”
Bloomberg interjected, “That’s the first problem.”
“Live in Burlington, house two,” the senator continued.
The former mayor interrupted again, “That’s good.”
“And like thousands of other Vermonters, I do have a summer camp. Forgive me for that. Where is your home? Which tax haven do you have your home?” Sanders demanded, hopelessly losing the exchange.
“New York City, thank you very much,” Bloomberg said to applause, “and I pay all my taxes.”
The most remarkable thing about the exchange is not that Sanders was so easily baited by Bloomberg into making a sloppy, blindly angry defense but that it marked the first time in the 2020 campaign season that anyone, Democrat, reporter, or debate moderator, pressed the 2020 Democratic primary front-runner to reconcile his own considerable fortune with his core message of confiscating wealth from business owners.
How did Sanders make it through nine debates without a fellow Democrat or debate moderator asking him to respond to the most obvious criticism he will face should he go up against Trump? The 2016 election was a “takers versus makers” election. It is astonishing, then, that it took for a 2020 Democratic primary candidate who is not even on the ballot in Nevada or South Carolina to ask the millionaire socialist senator about his three houses. I guess that is what happens when you schedule all your primary debates with only friendly news networks.
This gets to the precise problem of the too-friendly relationship between the Democratic Party and the corporate media. It is a double-edged sword that allows terrible men to weather what should be career-ending scandals and missteps but also leads to their entire party getting lazy and soft. Not having to worry about a tough, combative press is how you get incidents such as the 2020 Democratic front-runner being totally unprepared to answer the most obvious criticism of his campaign.
If Sanders’s disastrous handling of Bloomberg’s no-brainer broadside is a portent of things to come, the general election meat grinder will be a straight-up bloodbath for Democrats.
