The 'Liberal' Media

Great Debates
61

Well, he’s never conceded that liberal doesn’t equal Democratic, saying instead that the meaning of “liberal,” for all practical purposes, has changed because many people equate it with the Democratic party.

Anyway, Chaim, the OP wasn’t asking if the media was biased in favor of the Democrats. It may well be that the greater proportion of journalists vote Democratic, but the greater proportion of editors and CEOs surely vote Republican, so we’ll be chasing our tails trying to demonstrate “bias” in one direction or another–assuming we could even arrive at an agreed-upon definition of the term.

I’d still love to know how someone can reconcile any notion of a liberal media with the survey of Washington-based journalists that has been posted. Are you agreeing, Chaim, that the media is no more liberal than yer Average American ™? If so, where do you and I differ?

62

Gadarene:

I could have sworn that I did just this. Please see my earlier post concerning that particular survey.

63

Gadarene:

Given your sweeping definition of liberalism, I’d have to agree that the media doesn’t take liberal positions on many of the issues you have raised.

However, on certain issues associated in the public mind with a liberal-conservative split…abortion, school choice, taxes, social spending and whether or not its recipients should have some responsibility for it, racism, sexism, homosexual rights, police-based issues and the impeachment of President Clinton, just to name some…the major national media outlets, with the exception of talk radio, mostly take the position identified with liberalism.

By “major national media outlets” I mean the big three networks, Time, Newsweek (US News, I’ll admit, is slightly less knee-jerk on those issues), the editorial and op-ed pages of nationally-circulated newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the LA Times.

Ask yourself: no doubt you’ve heard anti-abortion-rights activists referred to in such outlets as “anti-choice.” Have you ever heard pro-abortion-rights activists referred to as “anti-life”?

During the impeachment, we’d constantly heard about how partisan the Republicans were behaving. Weren’t the Democrats being equally partisan…if not more so? Darned if I heard mention of that.

Those are just two solid examples. There are more, but I think these two illustrate my point quite well.

Chaim Mattis Keller

64

Oh, that’s right. You questioned the objectivity of the people conducting the survey, as well as questioning their identification of Bill Clinton as “centrist.” Your objection was that the surveyers were applying a normative standard which pushed Clinton’s policies to the center in order to claim absence of liberalism. To bolster this argument, you pointed out that to Pat Buchanan, “the Republican Party is leftwing.”

This, Izzy, is why we keep quibbling over semantics. Bill Clinton is the sine qua non centrist politician. He’s no more liberal than Arlen Specter. You seem to be hewing a pretty strict dichotomy here, my friend, where there’s no such thing as a centrist. I, on the other hand, believe centrism to be an ideology wholly separate from liberalism or conservatism–albeit an ideology that most of our current leaders tend to share. If you’re going to insist that because Bill Clinton is a Democrat he must be liberal, then our dialogue is going to break down right here. Yeah, I’d say that the leanings demonstrated by the journalists in that survey pretty well coincide with those of Bill Clinton, and of much of the rest of the country. And, as we’ve seen, those same leanings are actually more conservative than much of the rest of the country, too. So how–for the umpteenth time–does that make it a “liberal” media?

65

I, for one, have never heard the phrase “anti-choice” on any of the outlets you mention, except perhaps from the lips of an interview subject. I have always seen the two sides referred to as “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” (Which, of course, is the New American Way–All Winners and No Losers!) I’m in a position to be corrected, though, if you can find me an example.

66

Gadarene,

  1. Is it your position, then, that Bill Clinton and the Democratic Party that he represents are to the center of the country, on a liberal/conservative scale?

  2. If yes to 1., does it follow that the vast majority of the Republican Party is to right of the country on that same scale?

  3. If yes to 2., how does the Republican Party keep getting all these votes?

67

Pldennison,

I’ve never heard of anti-choice either. The term used is usually pro-life or anti-abortion.

68

Izzy, even the Republican Party itself isn’t claiming an overwhelming majority of support among citizens. Here’s an excerpt from the party’s official website:

This doesn’t tell us anything about the views of people who aren’t voting at all; but it does show that the Democratic party is not far to the left at least among registered voters.

69

**

While I’m not Gar… I’ll give my views. He is on the right, and has been able to shift the debate to the right. Reagan would have been skinned alive if he had even brought up touching Social Security. Clinton talks about the need to fix it.

**
Yes.

Influence via the conservative media. Also shear disgust at the behavior of the Democratic Party. This switches back and forth. People get disgusted with one party, then the next. Since no other viable choices appear to exist, they get trapped into voting for the Republocrats year after year. Of course the Republicans keep getting premepted by Clinton. That was one of Dole’s major complaints in the last election. Clinton kept stealing his major conservative issues.

70

First of all, political ideology is not evenly distributed. That is, you’re not going to find that half the country is liberal, and half conservative–likewise, just because a politician is “centrist” doesn’t mean that they’ve got 33 percent of the vote cornered. With respect to ideology, you’ve got a sliding scale in at least two respects: personal liberties, and economic liberties. It’s therefore difficult to quantify many issues in terms of “right” and “left.”

To answer your question, though, Bill Clinton is centrist. This means that some of his positions are fairly liberal (abortion), some are fairly conservative (welfare reform), and some are neither (globalization). He represents the prevailing politics in this country only insofar as he’s been elected and re-elected by a plurality of those choosing to express their preference. The Democratic Party is a different story. The party leadership has certainly shifted rightward on many key issues–again, check out the history of the “New Democrats” and the DLC sometime. The old-school economic liberals have been largely relegated to the fringes of the party. But the Democrats are still a disparate group–liberals like Paul Wellstone, moderates like Dick Gephart, conservatives like Robert Rubin. On the whole, though, if the prevailing tenor of the party had to be placed on a liberal/conservative sliding scale (1 equalling most liberal, 10 equalling most conservative), I’d say that they’d be about a 4.5.

…And the Republicans would be a 5.5. No more to the right of most of the country than the Democrats are to the left–again, except insofar as the public has elected a Democratic president the last two occasions, and will likely elect a Republican candidate come November. (Though the presidential election, increasingly, has less to do with ideology, and more with personality and packaging.)

Because in our two-party system, millions of people feel that the Republican Party is preferable to the Democratic Party, either because they feel their views well-represented by the Republicans, or poorly-represented by the Democrats.

Some questions of my own for you, Izzy: Do you believe that the Democratic Party, overall, has shifted rightward in recent years? Do you believe that Bill Clinton is a liberal?

71

Oldscratch,

On the one hand, you say that the Repubs are to the right of the country politically. On the other, you say the conservative media influences people to vote for them anyway. Strange, to accomplish this. I would think the media would have to shift the entire public opinion to the right in order to do this, which would make the Republican party no longer to right of the country policically. You are implying that people vote against what continues to be their beliefs.

72

Absolutely. It’s called lesser-evilism. People don’t like Clinton or what he stands for, yet vote for him because they believe that George Bush is worse.

73

Gadarene,

Didn’t see your last post before I posted.

I agree with your general discription of the Republican vs. Democratic Party. Though I would probably make it a 6 vs. 4 in aggregate. Maybe even 7 vs. 3. But there’s definitely some overlap. The battle is for the center which keeps shifting, primarily due to reasons outlined by oldscratch in his most recent post.

There seems to be a general consensus that this is true. I think it is hard to compare different eras with different issues. But if looked in context of how far removed the Democratic Partyy is to the left of the American people as a whole, I would say that they are closer to center than they were during the 80s

Again this gets us into a pointless debate over how to define the term liberal. I would say that Bill Clinton is somewhat to the left of the country as a whole. Possibly slightly to the right of the center of the Democratic Party.

74

Oldscratch,

Yeah, but if the Republicans are to right of the american people and the Democrats less so, why would people ever consider the Republicans the lesser evil. My belief, as per my previous post, is that the Republican are to the right, and the Democrats are to the left, on average. This way the pedulum can shift in different directions.

The media, to return to the OP, are to the left, in line with the mainstream Democrats.

75

This is an astonishing claim. Do you have anything at all to back up the assertion that the Democratic Party is “far to the left” of the American public?

On the question of Clinton’s liberalism:

I don’t see it as pointless at all; it’s the crux of the question, isn’t it? Bill Clinton, then, is “somewhat to the left of the country as a whole” in what respects?

What I’m trying to show is that the terms “liberal” and “Democratic” are most emphatically not equivalent, and that in claiming a liberal media it is not enough to say that a plurality of journalists are Democrats–especially since, as I’ve mentioned, a plurality of editors are Republicans. The media are corporatist, the media are centrist, the media are establishmentarian–all these things, I submit, supersede the voting preferences of some reporters.

76

And thus, I believe, endeth the debate.

I say that mainstream Democrats are not left-wing; you say they are.

77

Gadarene:

One of us has misunderstood the other. The Democratic Party is not significantly more or less removed from the center of American public opinion than the Republicans.

This is almost an evolutionary law of politics in a two party system. Each party will represent (loosely) the two ends of the political spectrum. There will be some room at the center, but the center of each party will be removed from the center of the overall public, in the direction of that party’s overall inclination. Any party that strays too far from the center will suffer at the polls. At this point, the party will move closer to the center. Of course, the center itself may shift. In this case, both party’s will move in the same direction of the general shift.

on most issues, such as affirmative action, abortion, separation of church and state, welfare, immigration, balanced budget gay rights, taxes, death penalty “civil rights” etc. etc. there are positions that are associated with left wing and right wing thought. Anyone whose positions tend to be the left wing a higher percentage of the time than the general public may be said to be to the left of the public.

I’ll bet they’re not. you probably have to go alot higher up the corporate ladder to get to the Republicans.

I thought you said they were a 4.5 on the scale. Maybe that was someone else.

78

Izzy: Are there, in your opinion, any positions which could coherently be called “centrist?” Given the problems that exist with a strict left/right polarity–not least that it fails to take into account libertarians, economic populists, etcetera–it’s facile to divide the Democrats and Republicans into left-wing and right-wing, respectively. One can be a Democrat without being part of the “left-wing”…a term traditionally used in a derogatory fashion along the lines of “pinko.” Similarly, one can be a Republican–Christine Todd Whitman, Arlen Specter, Dubya–without being part of the “right-wing.” See my argument against the two-party system in matt_mcl’s thread; one of the dangers of a duopoly is that the parties together purport to represent the entire political spectrum when such is clearly not the case. Most of the positions you ascribe to Clinton and the left that he putatively represents are held by a plurality of the American people:

Affirmative action: You’re thinking left-wing pro-, right-wing anti-, right? Life’s never quite that simple. Most liberals understand that affirmative action’s not a perfect system, and many are actively seeking alternatives. The usual ideological difference on this issue is that Republicans generally want to dismantle the system altogether, professing that it’s done its work, while Democrats generally look for viable reforms. As far as public opinion goes, this is one of those fascinating issues where sentiments change depending on the wording of the question–if a survey mentions “affirmative action,” most respondents are in favor of it. If the survey instead uses the word “quotas,” most respondents are opposed.

Abortion: Absolutely polar issue, and I’ll confess that I’m not up-to-date on current polls on the subject. I do find it interesting, though, that it seems you’re more likely to find a pro-choice Republican politician than a pro-life Democrat. Also, to me this is a secular/religious issue more than it is an ideological one.

Separation of Church and State: As in, the Republicans favor putting the Ten Commandments in our schools to temper moral relativism, while the Democrats feel the idea to be both pointless and unconstitutonal? Perhaps–but I’d wager that this dichotomy is due more to the influence of the religious right on party politics than any supposed anti-theism of the Democrats. Also, I’ve got no problem with the idea that ours is a secular news media, as I said in the OP.

Welfare: Another issue for which public opinion vacillates depending on the wording of the question. This issue is similar to affirmative action–no one really denies that the current system has problems; it’s just a choice between gutting the safety net entirely or attempting reforms. This really isn’t a good place for you to stake out the differences between the parties, by the way…not since Clinton signed the Welfare Reform Act.

Immigration: Hmmm…I think you’ll find this to be an issue about which the fringes of both parties agree with each other more than they do their party leadership. Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan both have greater problems with immigration, albeit for different reasons, than do Al Gore or George Bush. Again, the public opinion on this one varies regionally.

Balanced Budget: You’re kidding, right? Reagan runs up the largest budget deficit in U.S. history, while Clinton has been championing fiscal austerity for the past few years. The mainstream of both parties have seized on to the balanced budget as a buzzword to connect with “the people.” Never mind that the idea is largely impractical and likely undesirable. Yeah, you’ve got old school Democrats who believe that it’s okay to spend money on social programs in the expectation of a future return on your investment (a healthier, happier, better educated society), but these are mostly those “liberals” I was talking about–the ones who exert little or no clout in their party anymore.

Gay Rights: Again a mostly religious issue. And we sure did see Clinton act on the whole “gays in the military” campaign promise, didn’t we? Plus, while public opinion is currently against gay marriages, it’s in favor of most other anti-discriminatory legislation with regard to sexual orientation. (This is where your left/right dichotomy really breaks down, by the way–most libertarians are in favor of gay rights (live and let live), yet possess spectacularly illiberal ideas about taxation and fiscal policy.)

Taxes: Speaking of taxation…maybe one of the only secular issues that generally separates Republicans and Democrats. Of course, nowadays it’s usually just a difference between tax cuts and tax credits, both while claiming to be working towards a balanced budget. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

Death Penalty: You do realize that both Clinton and Gore are in favor of capital punishment, right? And that it was a Republican governor in Illinois who laid down the recent death penalty moratorium for that state? Where’s the party-line here, exactly?

"Civil Rights": Interesting how you put that in quotation marks. I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with your usage of this term, if you think that it demonstrates a significant difference between the two parties. Other than a small number of right-wing extremists, is there anyone anymore in either party who wants to roll back civil rights? Explain.

79

Gadarene,

I believe most people will recognize that on all the issues I’ve mentioned there are positions which are identified with either a right-wing or left-wing philosophy. You have conducted a sort of mini-defense of the leftwing viewpoint on all these issues. Great. But I don’t think it’s worthwile to debate whether there are indeed positions on these issues that are identifiable in the public eye as right or left wing. If you do, you’ve got to start a new thread. Or make that 10 new threads.

Any politician whose view on most of these and other such issues is mostly to the right side is a right leaning politician. Ditto for a left winger. Anyone who is split down the middle, or holds of some sort of middleground position on most issues is middle of the road.

By this criterion, Bill Clinton is a left winger. Most of the right wing positions that he has taken (balanced budget, welfare reform et al) have been forced on him by the Republican congress. It is a testament to his skill as a politician that he has been able to take credit for these.

80

What I’ve done is delineate the ostensible left- and right-wing positions on those issues. Most of them, in my estimation, cannot be divided like that. What part of my analyses did you not agree with? My position is that there is a centrist ideology which you are completely ignoring, in your zeal to classify everything as left or right. Not to mention that politics is far too complicated to be cleft that way…you still haven’t fit libertarians or economic populists into your neat binary.

Once more: What, to you, is a “centrist” position?

I just wanted to let you know that this is absolutely historically inaccurate.