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thomhartmann

(3,978 posts)
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 01:14 PM Mar 2019

Why is Corporate Media Asking Democrats to Move to the Center ?

The corporate media is telling the Democratic party to "Move to the center" as well as telling the American public that progressives have gone "too far left"

But these so called far left policies, are actually the center of America.

You can't turn on a cable TV news channel these days without seeing some TV pundit or panelist saying that Democrats need to "move to the middle."

What the heck do they mean? Do they mean that Democrats should say it's just fine that over 30 million Americans have no health care?

Does "moving to the middle" mean that we love that the big banks make hundreds of billions in profits by ripping us off and putting our economy at risk? That fossil fuel and chemical industries should continue to poison us and our planet?

That it's just fine if drug companies and for-profit colleges and Charter Schools keep ripping us off? That it's just fine that the American Dream is dead and there's no need to bring back unions and union jobs?

What is "the center" beyond the status quo?

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iscooterliberally

(2,847 posts)
2. I'm guessing the corporate media is so far to the right, that the center seems on the left to them?
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 01:31 PM
Mar 2019

The way things get framed on TV and what they choose to report on belies the fact that they wouldn't know the center if it came up and bit them on their rear ends.

jalan48

(13,785 posts)
5. Bernie, AOC and other progressives want to raise corporate taxes. Why would corporations
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 01:44 PM
Mar 2019

want this? Of course they want a center, status quo administration.

TheRealNorth

(9,425 posts)
8. Pretty much this is my guess
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 02:16 PM
Mar 2019

Protecting their bottom line against Democrats that would make a serious attempt to tax the rich at higher rates and/Or cut tax loopholes.

They probably don't like net neutrality either.

 

pdsimdars

(6,007 posts)
7. I know, I keep seeing this . . . they keep saying Democrats need centrist candidate to peel off GOP
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 02:05 PM
Mar 2019

They are living in the past. AOC is a good example. She is a proud liberal who beat one of the topmost Democrats and is now inspiring the base. This is where the energy is. This is where the votes are.

RVN VET71

(2,686 posts)
9. Bernie and Octavio make a wonderful team, don't they?
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 02:47 PM
Mar 2019

And I have some terse Anglo-Saxon words for the corporate stooges in media who insist on calling Progressives -- and Bernie and AOC - radical leftists. Of course, by characterizing them and their movement as extreme, these stooges who pretend at journalism are actually working to prevent anyone on the right from switching to the Dems and, perhaps, scaring some Dems to either join the Corporate Fascists of the GOP or simply retire from the fray and just not vote for anyone -- but then isn't that the whole point of their propaganda?

Question for the table: has Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow ever characterized the Progressive movement as "radical" or "extremist" or, for that matter, even "Leftist?"

Progressives, of course, are the Party of the People, the real American people, the educated, compassionate, intelligent, giving American people. They represent and support something that is not only NOT extreme or radical, but is the very heart of what America likes to think of itself as being about.

LiberalLovinLug

(14,144 posts)
10. So sick of this. The MSM defining what is "moderate" and what is "left"
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 03:12 PM
Mar 2019

Lord help us if we ever had a Sanders, or a Warren winning. Right up to the next election you'd have daily headlines "CAN THE DEMOCRATS WIN WITH A FAR-LEFT CANDIDATE?" "HAS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LOST ITS WAY?"

"Stay tuned!....coming up.....Republican strategist Kelly Anne Conway gives her take on it"

dugog55

(296 posts)
12. The Conservatives
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 05:49 PM
Mar 2019

have been pushing this issue for decades. Int he 1980's they complained to the media that they were being too liberal, but they were not. At the time, mass media was fairly balanced. But they responded to the criticism and pressure by presenting more conservative points of view. As time passed, more media was being bought up by Right-wingers that kept up the pretense of the media being to far left, and presenting more more conservative views. By the mid-2000's, almost everything being presented was conservative. They had drowned out the left completely, and made even moderate Dems seem like radicals. All but a handful of today's Democrats are center to center right. They have to be not to stand out as radicals.

AOC, Bernie, E. Warren, and others are left-center. I do not think anyone of them qualifies as far-left. They are preaching the same platform Dems have had for six decades. Hell, even Nixon saw the faults with our health care system and proposed changes because it was too expensive. And back in the 1970's, health care was dirt cheap.

Now there are too many billionaires with money to burn for lobbying and campaign financing to have a fair fight, without looking like a nut job leftie. I hope our side keeps it together and continues to fight for progressive values that most of the Western Democracies enjoy.

Honeycombe8

(37,648 posts)
13. Because Independents won't vote for the extreme of either party....
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 05:52 PM
Mar 2019

either far left or far right, usually.

The Democrats need moderates and Independents to win. Maybe the Republicans do, too, but I'm not sure.

They've rarely even gotten the nomination from the Democrats themselves.

But you can give it a shot and see (again).

burrowowl

(17,593 posts)
14. The real center of America is
Thu Mar 7, 2019, 11:47 PM
Mar 2019

the newly elected Democratic house of progressives.
FDR, HST and DDE are what should be considered the center not Raygun, Bushes, etc.

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