Interesting exchange on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this morning, a program I generally do not watch because so many of its participants are suffering from “Beltway Fever” but am now watching occasionally as the presidential campaign moves forward.
I was encouraged and surprised by an admission from one among the group of inside-the-beltway pundits, that they have been wrong, and that it is no longer an impossibility that Donald Trump could actually turn out to be the Republican nominee. Still improbable? Yes? Impossible? No.
Wow. Always nice to see DC pundits admit that there’s a country out there beyond the Beltway, and that they may be out of touch with it. But there’s another problem with their punditry. Hahahaha. Hohoho. Guffaws, all around.
Within minutes of admitting their mistake about Donald Trump, they then turned on a political penny and raised the question of whether Joe Biden’s trip to meet with Elizabeth Warren is an indicator that Biden is getting serious about getting in the race against Hillary Clinton. Oh really? So you were wrong about Trump and now you continue to ignore Bernie Sanders?
Hopefully, within a few weeks they’ll be scratching their heads about the growing support for Sanders among younger Americans, and admitting they were wrong about him as well. This is what happens to pundits when their thread of common wisdom based upon politics as usual can no longer be depended upon.
Why is there absolutely no concern expressed about Trump’s tactic of using the politics of hate and fear to whip up his base? How would he deport 11-million Latinos? Would he follow Hitler’s example and load them onto boxcars, breaking up families in the process? What about Latinos who are politically connected? What about rioting in the streets? How would he repeal the 14th Amendment? By non-existent presidential decree? It’s insane.
And you might at least try and understand the groundswell of support for Sanders among young people facing crushing student loan debt as they are forced to live with their parents because the corporatocracy which has purchased the federal government has shipped millions of jobs overseas gutting middle America. Nothing much to discuss here, other than the abject failure of American Capitalism to support a majority of Americans.
If you want a younger audience for your programs, then try and speak to the issues that concern them, instead of ignoring the truth and carrying on with your ridiculous business as usual nonsense.
Are there still more than 400 days to the election? Yes. Will Trump probably not be the Republican nominee but nothing’s impossible? Yes. Should pundits and newscasters be allowing Bernie Sanders the same credibility they are now affording Trump? Yes. Will they, until they are forced to because they are making themselves look stupid? No. And not because they don’t want to. The problem is that they are beltway insiders, and Trump and Sanders are political outsiders challenging DC’s business as usual insider machine and the usual gang of suspects on the network shows don’t know how to handle it.
