Spin Shift on Bernie: The Escalating Media Assault [View all]
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/01/27/spin-shift-bernie-escalating-media-assault
For a long time, as he campaigned for president, a wide spectrum of establishment media insisted that Bernie Sanders couldnt win. Now theyre sounding the alarm that he might.
And, just in case you havent gotten the media message yet -- Sanders is angry, kind of like Donald Trump.
Elite media often blur distinctions between right-wing populism and progressive populismas though theres not all that much difference between appealing to xenophobia and racism on the one hand and appealing for social justice and humanistic solidarity on the other.
Many journalists cant resist lumping Trump and Sanders together as rabble-rousing outliers. But in the real world, the differences are vast.
Donald Trump is to Bernie Sanders as Archie Bunker is to Jon Stewart.
Among regular New York Times columnists, aversion to Bernie Sanders has become more pronounced in recent days at both ends of the newspapers ideological spectrum, such as it is. Republican Party aficionado David Brooks (whose idea of a good political time is Marco Rubio) has been freaking out in print, most recently with a Tuesday column headlined Stay Sane America, Please!