I’m not in the habit of incessantly complaining about the news coverage of the New York Times, but I have to say something about the latest article from Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Astead W. Herndon because it’s egregiously bad and annoying. The premise is obvious from the start:
When Rashida Tlaib, a newly elected Democrat from Michigan and favorite of the liberal left, met privately last week with Representative Nancy Pelosi, who was seeking her vote for speaker, she pointedly demanded an end to “the old culture of waiting your turn.”
Taking aim at the seniority system that Ms. Pelosi used to climb the ranks of the House, Ms. Tlaib pressed the would-be speaker from California to give progressive newcomers coveted seats on powerful committees like Appropriations and Ways and Means — spots usually reserved for veterans. Ms. Tlaib, who once said she would “probably not” vote for Ms. Pelosi, appears headed to do so when Democrats elect their leaders on Wednesday, one member of a crew of boisterous young liberals who have become shock troops in Ms. Pelosi’s leadership battle.
But by empowering newcomers like Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Jahana Hayes of Connecticut, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Pelosi risks creating a headache for herself down the road: a Democratic version of the House Freedom Caucus, the far-right group that consistently defies Republican leadership, making life difficult for Speaker Paul D. Ryan.
To begin with, every one of the members mentioned here is a woman of color. For another, they’re not the people that were giving Nancy Pelosi a headache as she sought to firm up her standing with the party in her bid for a second speakership. And the examples that Stolberg and Herndon go on to provide are not indications that these members will give Pelosi heartburn in the future, or that they behave in a way even faintly similar to the way the Tea Party or Freedom Caucus operates on the other side of the aisle.
Ms. Tlaib requested a position on the Appropriations Committee, which is a request not normally granted to freshman lawmakers. She received no commitment on that. Ms. Pressley asked for and was granted a commitment to have an early vote on background checks for all gun purchases. Ms. Hayes won a vague promise to commit to bringing younger members onto the leadership team. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez pressed for and was granted a revival of the global warming committee, which is something Pelosi created voluntarily the first time she became Speaker. Ms. Underwood apparently bargained for nothing.
So far, none of these women have been empowered in any meaningful way. None of their demands are unreasonable or likely to create political liabilities for more moderate members. There’s simply no indication that they will vote as a bloc to defy the wishes of the leadership, hold up spending bills, or make Pelosi go looking for votes from the Republicans.
Some of the things (some of them) have called for, including Medicare-for-All and the abolition of ICE would divide the Democratic caucus if they came up for a vote, but there are ideological and policy differences within every party in every Congress, and that doesn’t mean that every Congress has to deal with a Tea Party revolt.
This article is not informative at all. It is basically an exercise in dishonestly concern-trolling the Democrats, and it’s a particularly glaring example of the New York Times at its worst.
It’s another variation on the age-old concern trolling. Democrats MUST move to the center. I expect a lot more of this in the next six weeks. And months. Sure, the president wants to be a fascist dictator, but look over here!
Exactly. You and Booman have it exactly right.
I read the article this morning and I was thoroughly disgusted.
You write:
Well…maybe you should be.
It is…and has been at least since the JFK assassination if not before…simply a gussied-up mouthpiece for the Deep State, aimed squarely at the mostly white, suburban, college town and major urban-dwelling middle class, upper middle class and upper middle class wannabes that were…at one time, anyway…the “base” of the Democratic Party. Its infiltration by U.S. intelligence services is legendary, as has been its support of all opponents of those intelligence services and their PermaWar policies.
I read that article with disgust, too.
But not with any amount of surprise!!!
I hold out no hope for change there. Too much powerful money involved. I read its articles solely in search of the nominally Democratic/truly neocentrist line…and the occasional good recipe, for which it has recently put up a paywall beyond the regular one.
Which paywall I will not climb.
Let them eat Amazon.
You also write:
It is indeed “informative”.
It informs us of the current media tack being taken by the mainstream DNC in its effort to remain in control.
Nothing more and nothing less.
Later…
AG
My question has to do not only with this particular story or this particular paper, but about who really pulls the strings in service of bad journalism. I doubt that the reporters in question huddled together to come up with a slant for the story (I could always be wrong, of course). Likewise, I don’t think Chuckles Todd is the one who personally books Santorum on to talk about climate change, although Todd is certainly sufficiently egregious in his own way.
I’m assuming (and again, I could be wrong) that some assignment editor is told, “we need a story about the Mystery Trump Voter, go get me such a story” or in Chuckles’ case, his producer is being pummeled with phone calls and faxes from AEI (or whatever RWNJ hack shop has a spokes nut available) and decides, “We gotta have Santorum on, I owe this AEI guy for that steak dinner the other night, might as well have Santorum on today.”
I would love to be a fly on the wall at some of these editorial meetings. Who the hell do they think their audience is? How the hell do they arrive at what their audience needs to know?
Just venting, I’m afraid. But I think the newsroom power structure above the ‘reporter’ level (broadcast AND print) needs some sort of come-to-Jesus moment with regard to their responsibility to tell the public the truth. And the rot (I think) starts at the top. So: how do we get to THESE people??
I’m assuming (and again, I could be wrong) that some assignment editor is told, “we need a story about the Mystery Trump Voter, go get me such a story” or in Chuckles’ case, his producer is being pummeled with phone calls and faxes from AEI (or whatever RWNJ hack shop has a spokes nut available) and decides, “We gotta have Santorum on, I owe this AEI guy for that steak dinner the other night, might as well have Santorum on today.”
Jonathan Martin writes for the NYT. His wife used to be the executive producer of Meet the Press when Fluffyhead(aka David Gregory) hosted. It’s an incestious club and you’ll never be admitted into it. TV political shows have always been horrible. Go back and watch how MLK was treated on them many moons ago. They’re owned by big corporations, don’t forget. And corporate America would chose fascism over social democracy.
All this means is “Democrats must appeal to rural Turnip voters by moving to the right and attacking the base of their own party to please Wall Street! Because that has worked so well in the past. And it’s a “center-right country of course! Which was proved by GOP Senators winning by 6 or 8 points in states Trump carried by 15% in 2016!”
We will see endless amounts of this crapola over the next 2 years.
You took the words right out of my keypad.
Agree x 100.
What would the Times be if it wasn’t concern trolling dems and writing normalizing screeds of Trump voters in diners?
Makes you wonder who the Times audience really is. Its certainly not “liberal.”
This shit really gets tiresome.
Eh? Who is the Times “appealing” to?
I posit that it IS liberals. Truly.
I have FAR too many friends, who are honestly progressive politically – and often reasonably well-informed – but who LOVE the frickin NYT.
So my thesis is this: it’s all about corraling those liberals and pushing them/the Overton window further to the right.
I can’t tell you how many times I GAG when friends of mine EXTOL the faaaabulousness of the NYT.
When I say it’s horrible, they get quite defensive, shut down and refuse to listen any further.
I can only draw the conclusion that they must love reading about Trump’s racist assholes eating breakfast in diners across the “heartland”… or something.
Gag me with a spoon…
DailyKos is highlighting another NY Times differential tone in reporting:
Some of the things (some of them) have called for, including Medicare-for-All and the abolition of ICE would divide the Democratic caucus if they came up for a vote, ..
Which given how well Medicare for All polls with the Democratic base … means we still have a fair amount of idiots(like Moulton) in the Democratic caucus.
It would be an insult to the women to compare them to the Tea Party and/or Freedom Caucus anyway. The Tea Party and Freedom Caucus held a lot of power, but they didn’t know how to wield it, how Congress operates, how to govern, or even pass an agenda that they supported. They only know how to take hostages, extort ostensible allies, and threaten to shoot the hostages they take. This is good for short term spurts I guess, but it’s not going to give lasting impact or achieve a lasting policy agenda. As we saw with the elections, it just got a lot of their friends and vulnerable like-minded compadres booted to the curb in a wave election.
Luckily, these women understand how to wield power, and are pursuing a strategy that achieves left wing hegemony combined with incremental power expansion that recruits people to the strategy over time through ideological persuasion.
Seth Moulton, Kathleen Rice, and Tim Ryan should be taking notes.
BooMan, I’m very late to this party and this question couldn’t be more off topic, but I thought you might know – I thought I read yesterday that the guilty plea Manafort accepted from Mueller included “unspecified” state charges. Since Trump can’t issue a pardon for state charges, that means he actually can’t let Manafort off the hook with a pardon because Manafort could still face consequences for the state charges. (He’s already effectively plead guilty to them by accepting Mueller’s deal.) It was an incidental part of another article and when I tried to go back and find the original piece I couldn’t, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t make it up. Do you know anything about that?
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/presidential-pardon-cure-paul-manaforts-legal-troubles-experts/story
?id=59477834
Working link.
This form of defective reasoning is a serious tic journalists and pundits. The false leap in logic that there is an equal and opposite doppelganger-like parody of every political entity. There is nothing in nature to justify this thinking. It’s just lazy.
I read that Pelosi had revived that committee a week before AOC asked for it. Saying it was revived at AOC’s request doesn’t appear to be accurate.
Commenting late, but it is timely because let’s be honest… this same story will be written dozens of times in the next 2 years. Perry Bacon Jr. wrote another today, for someone with so many open channels with both parties he writes extremely naive articles. Even if the term draws to a close and the caucus was successful both in sticking together and advancing the progressive agenda.
The reason I can be reasonably confident that both of those things will happen is A) Pelosi and her experience remain at the helm B) however, the caucus has finally moved leftward towards where the country ALREADY IS!
Most issues poll way to the left for the public vs. what comes out of Congress, my guess is it will remain this way (and would even with a Dem Senate) but at least more closely resemble the country as a whole.