Propagating misleading claims about a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, on the front page of the premiere Democratic website, in an article written by the founder of the website, is a shame.
But here we are. Again.
The thesis of Markos’s latest misleading post is that Bernie Sanders doesn’t reach out and try to expand his support:
The problem is that he refuses to do anything to grow his support.
As we’ve seen before, Markos tells absolutist tales about Sanders. His argument isn’t that Sanders — like all of our candidates — could do more to grow his support. No, his argument is that Sanders “refuses” to do “anything” to grow his support.
This absurd notion that the Sanders campaign isn’t doing any outreach to grow support is a familiar canard of Markos’s, which ignores all evidence to the contrary. It is precisely, and obviously, because of improving his outreach in 2020 that Sanders had his first smashing victory in Nevada:
Then:
Mrs. Clinton’s victory was a serious setback for Mr. Sanders, who campaigned hard in Nevada in hopes that a surge of Latino and black voters would heed his call for a political revolution.
—New York Times, “Hillary Clinton Beats Bernie Sanders in Nevada Caucuses,” Feb 21, 2016
Now:
Unlike in the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire, roughly a third of the Nevada electorate is comprised of minorities, and Sanders won a majority (51 percent) of Latinos, who account for most of those nonwhite voters. The entrance polls show Sanders well ahead of Biden (17 percent), the second-place candidate, among Latinos.
Sanders also won white voters, with 29 percent, and he finished a strong second among black voters, with 27 percent to Biden’s 39 percent.
—Politico, “How Bernie built a big win in Nevada,” Feb 22, 2020
Here’s another example of ignoring clear evidence when it doesn’t serve his absolutist thesis: in his post, Markos contrasts Sanders surrogate and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s perfunctory gracious tweet reacting to fellow Minnesotan Amy Klobuchar’s decision to depart the race, with his more effusive tweet a week earlier reacting to Marianne Williamson’s decision to endorse Sanders. Markos criticizes this as both a missed opportunity by Ellison “to try and win some of Klobuchar’s support for his candidate” and symptomatic of what comes “straight from the top” of the campaign — from “Bernie himself.”
If Markos had taken all of 5 seconds to fact check his criticism, he would have found this:
And this:
Buzzfeed has an article up today about how much Sanders and Klobuchar like and respect each other. I encourage folks who are more interested in fact than in fiction to read it. Here’s a snippet:
On Monday night in St. Paul, hours after she left the race, Sanders spoke about his fondness for Klobuchar. “We came into the Senate together in 2006, and she is one of the hardest workers that I know. I like Amy.”
The personality match, aides to both senators said in recent interviews, is undergirded in mutual respect in spite of their sizable disagreements. Sanders frequently talks about Klobuchar’s work ethic. (“She is always working,” he’ll say.) The moderate and progressive have partnered on multiple bills in the Senate, including one recent effort to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. (The amendment failed, with 13 Democrats also voting against it.)
In 2017, when CNN asked Sanders to participate in a televised debate on health care policy against Sen. Ted Cruz and another Republican, it was Sanders’s idea to invite Klobuchar to appear as his co-debater at the event. The two presented a tag team–like effect, mostly banding together over a topic that would sharply divide them in the Democratic primary a year later.
Over and over in his articles about Sanders, Markos presents a caricature of an uncompromising zealot who is unwilling to work with his colleagues and therefore unable to accomplish anything. Markos doesn’t seem to give a whit about reporting what Sanders’s actual colleagues (such as Klobuchar, who spoke in the New Hampshire debate about collaborating with Sanders on legislation) have to say on the subject.
“[W]hen we had the scandal at the VA, he was incredibly effective, engaged in getting the legislation passed, in getting it funded. Frankly, without him, I don’t think we would have gotten it done because there was a lot of name-calling but there wasn’t a lot of constructive, ‘OK, here’s the resources. …’ And he did it,” [Senator Jack] Reed [D-RI] said. “And it was a great testament to his skill as a legislator. —National Journal
As I’ve said before, the crucial role of the progressive blogosphere — of which Daily Kos was a flagship when this medium emerged during George W. Bush’s first term — was to be a corrective to the mainstream media’s lazy and dishonest punditry and reporting.
Because honesty matters.
We need honest reporting of facts to help avoid disasters, to help elect better politicians, to help make our country and our world better.
Honesty should be in the mission statement of this website.
Even during Primary season.