June 3, 2015

The Bernie Sanders Effect: Fawning media coverage normalizes socialism

There’s yet another trend in the trendy news media, identified by more than one concerned critic. Consider a new Investor’s Business Daily editorial titled “The soft-soaping of socialism in the U.S.” The publication focuses on the happy-go-lucky press coverage of a certain Vermont independent making a vigorous run for the White House as a Democrat.

Bernie Sanders is coming on as a presidential contender, while polls show surprisingly large parts of the public look favorably on the socialism he espouses. The public apparently has forgotten socialism’s record. For years, Sanders, an avowed, unapologetic socialist, was viewed as an anomaly of U.S. political life, an eccentric whose atypical ideology reflected the supposed quirkiness of his home state of Vermont,” the editorial says.

“Now that’s changed, and with Democrats worried about the scandals surrounding their top candidate, Hillary Clinton, Sanders is attracting ever-bigger audiences on the campaign trail. Polls show him at 15 percent of the Democratic tally. Maybe that’s because Sanders is portrayed in the media as ‘a normal guy’ — as a Washington Post headline put it — while liberal media doyen Bill Moyer headlined ‘despite what corporate media tells you, Bernie Sanders‘ positions are mainstream.’ In the Huffington Post, distinguished professor Peter Dreier of Occidental College, one of Barack Obama’s alma maters, declared, ‘Bernie Sanders‘ socialism is as American as apple pie.’ “

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