2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWhat really bothers me about the post-debate coverage
is that it's all about the war of words between Hillary and Trump, and Trump saying yet another stupid thing -the bathroom comment.
No. That's not what media should be talking about, and that's not what we should be talking about.
Post-debate coverage should be about policy differences between the candidates who were on the stage.
What are they even doing? Did Hillary have a debate with Trump? No. She debated Bernie and O'Malley.
Hillary's not running in general election. She's running in the democratic primary. And yet, the coverage is all about Hillary vs Trump war of words about ISIS and Islamophobia.
Real discussion should be about the GLARING differences between Bernie and Hillary on foreign policy, more specifically, the idea of regime change, which makes all the difference in the world (quite literally).
This type of discussion would be tolerable to me, although I don't agree with Hersh's assumptions about democratic nomination.
But, the corporate media? It's not that they are just dumb. They are actively trying to dumb all of us down.
Frankly, I'm not upset about what Trump says. I simply cannot get upset about all the stupid things he spews out of his disgusting mouth every 5 seconds on corporate media. How could I? It's almost physically impossible. I just really don't care. I'm not interested.
I'm interested in real discussion on policy ideas.
Again, media should be talking about the differences on policy ideas between leading democratic candidates, which are their ideas on regime change, and single-payer health care system, among others.
Blue_Adept
(6,439 posts)Bernie's been tackling Trump as well with various comments about him.
Both of them are doing what Obama did back in '12 very early on by defining the other side. Republicans really went on about that post-election in that their problem was that the protracted primary contest allowed Obama to define them instead of their message getting out.
So both Bernie and Hillary are sticking to that while also sticking to their own stump speeches.
Good politics.
Chemisse
(31,016 posts)even knowing there was no evidence to back it up, just to get and keep newspeople talking about it for several days.
She's taking a page from Trump's playbook on how to get and keep the media's attention.
It's all a big game and the media are the puppets.
Nyan
(1,192 posts)And I know for a fact that Bernie's not in it for a game. He's not playing any game. And neither are we.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)If you can't win the game, you can't change anything.
Matariki
(18,775 posts)You are absolutely right. The media wants "Housewives of D.C." - not important discussion about the direction of the country.
Uncle Joe
(60,331 posts)Bernie does better than Hillary against Trump in the G.E. exposing his faux populism, Trump has major trust issues so does Hillary so he doesn't have to worry about that issue, they cancel each other out.
Trump knows more women vote than men especially in the Democratic Party, so he plays the gender card.
He knows African Americans and Latinos are large portions of the Democratic Party so he plays the race and xenophobe card.
Trump is trying to convert the Presidential Race into all the sincerity of a professional wrestling match where the only suckers are the paying fans or in this case the voters.
Thanks for the thread, Nyan.
Nyan
(1,192 posts)Intereating point there.
Yeah Trump has no leg to stand on against Bernie. If Bernie and Trump were to stand on the debate stage together, I bet there will be folks who were leaning towards Trump having a moment of realization like, "What was I thinking? We can't send that to the G8 meeting!"
BTW, I would really love to see Bernie debating republican nominee. That's actually one of the reasons I want him to win -to see him laying the smack down on a republican.
Bernie has been and will be civil with Hillary, but I suspect he will be brutal with a republican.
leftofcool
(19,460 posts)grossproffit
(5,591 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)while her network works the GOTV for the primaries. Most truly believe the primary on our side is over. I'm not saying that is fair. I am saying it is reality. The party has unified around Clinton. One group does not recognize that. I'm very happy Clinton hasn't fully gone to a general campaign. It was a huge part of what sunk her in '08. Not that it's that bad of a thing, we got Obama. She isn't making that same mistake but is presenting the optics that she is the democrat running. Seems to be working very well.
thesquanderer
(12,408 posts)But she is assuming she will win the nomination, and already playing to the general. There was post-debate analysis to this effect, and it's been pretty self-evident from some of her statements in the debates and elsewhere. (Including her presumptuous comment discussed at http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141295010 )