We have to stop looking to the president for some mythical unification that will occur. It won't occur with anyone who looks at the press, Democrats, Liberals, feminists, BLM, etc, as terrorists and "enemies of the 'people'" (because this narrow slice of delusion gets to say who "the people" are?). It's hard to not admire the battle strategy of Trump and other GOP leaders, proclaiming themselves the "pro-life" party while committing countless acts that are the opposite of "pro-life." Married to the evangelical mob and joined by Catholic crusaders, the GOP now has a ready-made army formed to fight not only against abortion rights, but any mythical evil that has now been attributed to Democrats. If we kill innocent babies, why wouldn't we be also sacrificing them and running pedophile rings? And why WOULDN'T we have stolen the election to continue our nefarious crimes?
(Has there ever been a good expose of pro-life Republicans who have had abortions or asked their partners to get one?... Of course, any of those "crimes" would have happened in the past, before they were "born again" like Trump...)
No, Biden's role isn't to reach the unreachable. His goal should be to make the "unreachable" a narrower and narrower slice of the country, continuing to do whatever he can to help as many Americans as he can, and to do the right thing as a world citizen.
The press confuses unifying the country with unifying or more accurately, appeasing the Republican Party. Fact - The Republicans lost the House, the Senate, and the Presidency therefore I believe Biden does have a mandate. More importantly as you point out, Biden's economic bill has the approval of over 70 percent of the country. Biden himself has an approval rating of 61 percent, a percentage Trump never saw in four years of being in office let alone even reaching 50 percent. The Democrats need to press forward and pass progressive agendas that the country largely supports. Due to voter suppression and gerrymandering it only appears that the Republicans are a powerful party. They are not and folks are dropping from the party in droves. The way forward and the way the Democrats keep power is to forge ahead regardless of the Republican Party's claims of non bipartisanship. The real hero, in my opinion, so far in the Biden administration is Jen Psaki who goes out there every day and squares up every fastball the DC press fires at her. How she does that without throwing something at them is a testament to her professionalism and her ability to clearly articulate what the Biden administration is attempting to do. What an amazing difference from the nightmare over the last four years.
Can't say that I'm shocked by how the press literally is missing the point once again. Everything is always the Democrats fault. At no point have they called out the Republicans and asked why they object to helping out the people. It just comes back Jen Psaki having to explain this is what unity looks like. Helping out people in need regardless of political party affiliation. Write about that jerk offs. I'm just so annoyed with the press. I do hope that the Democrats DO NOT FOLD and remember that the Republicans certainly didn't care about you when they had the majority. And guess what? They still don't care and their in the minority yet acting like they still have the majority. Thanks Eric. You looked good on MSNBC. Keep this up we need you.
For years Democrats, but not Republicans, have had to answer to the the civility police, the optics police/appearance of corruption police, the charisma/coolness police and now the bipartisan/unity police? This is a perfect example of how the media allows those frames to dictate the emphasis of their stories which distorts the way the public perceives what Democrats are doing.
To be fair Biden himself talked a lot about bipartisanship in terms of legislation but the media is now insisting that that be the case on every piece of legislation. They obsessing over than rather than putting the emphasis on the more important fact that the Covid relief plan is desperately needed and has strong bipartisan support where it counts most, not in DC with the American public shows how skewed the media’s priorities are. In this case they are putting bipartisan legislation over the needs of the American people and of our democracy.
Eric, I have read Press Run since the beginning and recently saw you
on MSNBC, which is always nice, because we are communicating with people we never see. Here is my view about the Republicans that is not being given credence. They have abdicated the positions and the people they were elected to serve. Their embrace of treason and sedition is , in my view, a form of mental illness. We embrace tv shows like the Walking Dead but fail to point to the walking dead in big positions of power. Until this is processed and dealt with, we will continue to have displays of sedition like Ron DeSantis and the grotesque Super Bowl. Citizens of this country, doing the right things with covid, have money and are trapped in a prison, of quarantine and getting everything delivered, while we let the poor die. Denial of truth is a massive cultural mental illness. That is where this conversation begins. Thank you for your epic writing. It sustains me here in prison.
Thanks Eric. Especially for the data supporting Biden's policies.
I write that because the WaPo Opinion Editors write this: "Biden should exhaust the possibilities for compromise for covid relief."
Here's a thought. Let's have a vote on things that are as you say wildly popular, allow the Rs to vote against them, and let the chips fall where they may. The days of McConnell preventing votes on the floor are over.
I saw the stories about the retirement of Richard Shelby, including how great he has been for the people of Alabama because his programs have been designed to help his state, and I thought two things:
1. Has anybody looked into what he got and what the money does?
2. He must be a great source or very friendly on the rope line to get what we might call the equivalent of what Ms. Lewinsky did to Mr. Clinton.
It's not the president's job to unify the country. That may be blasphemy to some people. But unity is mostly a pipedream. You can't achieve unity with people who believe in authoritarianism. Or whose values, such as racism, are morally repugnant to the other side. Nor can Democratic lawmakers be unified with their Republican counterparts when the latter demonstrate no interest in working together in a substantive way. Sure, Biden is correct to discuss the idea and set it as a goal, especially at a time of great division. But unifying disparate groups with divergent ideas has to happen organically.
Maybe journalists should spend more time covering what will emerge as one of the dominant stories of this year and beyond: ramped up, extreme voter suppression. It's the only way Republicans can regain power.
A part of the absurdity of the "unity" push on by the press is the measure of "unity" or "bipartisanship" that they always use, namely whether any Republican in Congress will support something, and then how many. The press is obsessed with polls in their horserace coverage of races, but when it comes to Congressional action it's polls? What polls? Just changing this bogus measure of "bipartisanship" would go a long way towards more honest, let alone useful, coverage.
The Unity Pony is exactly why Chuck Todd’s very first question to-then newly elected President Obama was if he would veto the Affordable Care Act in the name of being bipartisan.
If that doesn’t prove how looney the press behaves towards Democratic administration, I don’t know what does.
Our political press needs to quit talking only to each other (and only to Republican voters in diners while on anthropology expeditions west of the Beltway) and look at the rest of the country. No one cares nor will remember if a bill was supported, but we do know if we are being helped or not. And we might know which party helped us.
We have to stop looking to the president for some mythical unification that will occur. It won't occur with anyone who looks at the press, Democrats, Liberals, feminists, BLM, etc, as terrorists and "enemies of the 'people'" (because this narrow slice of delusion gets to say who "the people" are?). It's hard to not admire the battle strategy of Trump and other GOP leaders, proclaiming themselves the "pro-life" party while committing countless acts that are the opposite of "pro-life." Married to the evangelical mob and joined by Catholic crusaders, the GOP now has a ready-made army formed to fight not only against abortion rights, but any mythical evil that has now been attributed to Democrats. If we kill innocent babies, why wouldn't we be also sacrificing them and running pedophile rings? And why WOULDN'T we have stolen the election to continue our nefarious crimes?
(Has there ever been a good expose of pro-life Republicans who have had abortions or asked their partners to get one?... Of course, any of those "crimes" would have happened in the past, before they were "born again" like Trump...)
No, Biden's role isn't to reach the unreachable. His goal should be to make the "unreachable" a narrower and narrower slice of the country, continuing to do whatever he can to help as many Americans as he can, and to do the right thing as a world citizen.
The press confuses unifying the country with unifying or more accurately, appeasing the Republican Party. Fact - The Republicans lost the House, the Senate, and the Presidency therefore I believe Biden does have a mandate. More importantly as you point out, Biden's economic bill has the approval of over 70 percent of the country. Biden himself has an approval rating of 61 percent, a percentage Trump never saw in four years of being in office let alone even reaching 50 percent. The Democrats need to press forward and pass progressive agendas that the country largely supports. Due to voter suppression and gerrymandering it only appears that the Republicans are a powerful party. They are not and folks are dropping from the party in droves. The way forward and the way the Democrats keep power is to forge ahead regardless of the Republican Party's claims of non bipartisanship. The real hero, in my opinion, so far in the Biden administration is Jen Psaki who goes out there every day and squares up every fastball the DC press fires at her. How she does that without throwing something at them is a testament to her professionalism and her ability to clearly articulate what the Biden administration is attempting to do. What an amazing difference from the nightmare over the last four years.
Can't say that I'm shocked by how the press literally is missing the point once again. Everything is always the Democrats fault. At no point have they called out the Republicans and asked why they object to helping out the people. It just comes back Jen Psaki having to explain this is what unity looks like. Helping out people in need regardless of political party affiliation. Write about that jerk offs. I'm just so annoyed with the press. I do hope that the Democrats DO NOT FOLD and remember that the Republicans certainly didn't care about you when they had the majority. And guess what? They still don't care and their in the minority yet acting like they still have the majority. Thanks Eric. You looked good on MSNBC. Keep this up we need you.
For years Democrats, but not Republicans, have had to answer to the the civility police, the optics police/appearance of corruption police, the charisma/coolness police and now the bipartisan/unity police? This is a perfect example of how the media allows those frames to dictate the emphasis of their stories which distorts the way the public perceives what Democrats are doing.
To be fair Biden himself talked a lot about bipartisanship in terms of legislation but the media is now insisting that that be the case on every piece of legislation. They obsessing over than rather than putting the emphasis on the more important fact that the Covid relief plan is desperately needed and has strong bipartisan support where it counts most, not in DC with the American public shows how skewed the media’s priorities are. In this case they are putting bipartisan legislation over the needs of the American people and of our democracy.
Eric, I have read Press Run since the beginning and recently saw you
on MSNBC, which is always nice, because we are communicating with people we never see. Here is my view about the Republicans that is not being given credence. They have abdicated the positions and the people they were elected to serve. Their embrace of treason and sedition is , in my view, a form of mental illness. We embrace tv shows like the Walking Dead but fail to point to the walking dead in big positions of power. Until this is processed and dealt with, we will continue to have displays of sedition like Ron DeSantis and the grotesque Super Bowl. Citizens of this country, doing the right things with covid, have money and are trapped in a prison, of quarantine and getting everything delivered, while we let the poor die. Denial of truth is a massive cultural mental illness. That is where this conversation begins. Thank you for your epic writing. It sustains me here in prison.
Thanks Eric. Especially for the data supporting Biden's policies.
I write that because the WaPo Opinion Editors write this: "Biden should exhaust the possibilities for compromise for covid relief."
Here's a thought. Let's have a vote on things that are as you say wildly popular, allow the Rs to vote against them, and let the chips fall where they may. The days of McConnell preventing votes on the floor are over.
Seems the "fake news" has Stockholm Syndrome.
I saw the stories about the retirement of Richard Shelby, including how great he has been for the people of Alabama because his programs have been designed to help his state, and I thought two things:
1. Has anybody looked into what he got and what the money does?
2. He must be a great source or very friendly on the rope line to get what we might call the equivalent of what Ms. Lewinsky did to Mr. Clinton.
I agree, I wrote that just last week! Let them do their thing. Not quite how I put in my article, but...
It's not the president's job to unify the country. That may be blasphemy to some people. But unity is mostly a pipedream. You can't achieve unity with people who believe in authoritarianism. Or whose values, such as racism, are morally repugnant to the other side. Nor can Democratic lawmakers be unified with their Republican counterparts when the latter demonstrate no interest in working together in a substantive way. Sure, Biden is correct to discuss the idea and set it as a goal, especially at a time of great division. But unifying disparate groups with divergent ideas has to happen organically.
Maybe journalists should spend more time covering what will emerge as one of the dominant stories of this year and beyond: ramped up, extreme voter suppression. It's the only way Republicans can regain power.
I think Biden was referring to unifying Moderates and Progressives.
Lets make that the point
A part of the absurdity of the "unity" push on by the press is the measure of "unity" or "bipartisanship" that they always use, namely whether any Republican in Congress will support something, and then how many. The press is obsessed with polls in their horserace coverage of races, but when it comes to Congressional action it's polls? What polls? Just changing this bogus measure of "bipartisanship" would go a long way towards more honest, let alone useful, coverage.
The Unity Pony is exactly why Chuck Todd’s very first question to-then newly elected President Obama was if he would veto the Affordable Care Act in the name of being bipartisan.
If that doesn’t prove how looney the press behaves towards Democratic administration, I don’t know what does.
Our political press needs to quit talking only to each other (and only to Republican voters in diners while on anthropology expeditions west of the Beltway) and look at the rest of the country. No one cares nor will remember if a bill was supported, but we do know if we are being helped or not. And we might know which party helped us.