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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's always the Dems' fault one way or another according to the corporate media
The latest example was their coverage of the inspiring opening of the Obama Presidential Center ceremony and the glimpse at what we once had and what we could have again. That seemed to trigger many inside the beltway talking heads to become almost parodies of themselves.
Here's one unbelievable example: after covering the ceremony on CNN, Jonah Goldberg gave his take. Are you ready? This is what it boiled down to as I recall it. Sure, sure, that Obama guy was cool and all that, but it's his fault that we ended up with trump,
I kid you not. And yes, Goldberg is anti trump. But he went on to say that Obama acted like he was the only moral one and was basically had a kind of holier than thou attitude even though more than half the country disagreed with him. That turned off people so badly that they went for trump according to Jonah who gets paid to say these things.
Okay, first of all Obama won the majority of the vote in both elections, so a majority agreed with him. Second, it is the republicans who gave and continue to give trump his power, willingly and slavishly, even now. It is their fault.
We can't let them rewrite history and try to shame Democrats in advance for being to daring and trying to do too much. That's what this rewriting of history is all about.
rampartd
(5,431 posts)this article explains the situation well enough,
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/the-paradoxical-limits-of-murcs-law
Murcs law is named after the insight of the eponymous LGM commenter that, in American politics, only Democrats are assumed to have agency. Republicans are like rocks rolling down hill or perhaps sharks eating seals: they do what they do because thats just what they are, so theres no point in holding them responsible for anything, since they could not do ottherwise.
This remains generally true. Still, the law contains within itself a kind of pragmatic limit, which is this: American politics operates within a frame in which the party of the government is the Democrats, while the Republicans are the party opposed to the government. This holds without regard to which party happens to be in power at any moment, because of the basic ideological commitments of the two parties in contemporary American life: The Democrats think the government should do things, and the Republicans think it shouldnt (The most frightening words in the English language are Im from the government and Im here to help, We want a government small enough to drown in a bathtub, etcetera etcicero ab aeterno).
senseandsensibility
(25,957 posts)"I'm from the government and I'm here to help". I was a teenager, but even I knew that was BS. How he convinced white working class voters to fear the government when most of them benefitted mightily from Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, etc. which are provided by the government, is the question. And as you link illustrates, it's because when Reagan said that it was not questioned by the media. He was never asked what he he meant by that or how the government was harming its own citizens.