Accidental Honesty

I'm writing this just before the start of the Democratic primary debate in South Carolina and I hope to be able to catch it somewhere online. There are some important observations I'd like to share with you before I go watch that debate, as everything seems to be happening all at once..

After Sanders' crushing victory in Nevada, the reality is starting to sink in with the establishment politicians and media; Bernie is on his way to becoming the Democratic nominee. I've often said that MSNBC, the supposed left wing cable news network, has been the worst at reporting about the primary elections because they are so blatant in their smears against the Democratic front-runner. Even Fox News treated the Sanders campaign in a more "fair and balanced" manner than the corporate hacks at MSNBC. Chris Matthews, a household name and senior anchor at MSNBC, compared Bernie's landslide win in Nevada to the French being overrun by the Nazi's at the start of the Second World War. This analogy is an outright insult to a man who would be the first Jewish POTUS if he were to win the whole thing. The day after Matthews made a fool out of himself for the second time - a couple of days ago he also likened a Sanders victory to the communists winning the Cold War and described how people like himself would be executed in Central Park in that scenario - this article appeared in Vanity Fair magazine: WILL MSNBC’S PUNDITS BE FORCED TO SWALLOW THE BERNIE PILL?.

The alarmist warnings of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews after Bernie Sanders’s sweeping victory in Nevada became instant outrage fuel—so much so that Matthews’s own colleague chided him for it. “I think this is a wake-up moment for the American power establishment,” said MSNBC analyst and Time editor at large Anand Giridharadas on the network Sunday morning, presumably referring to Matthews likening Sanders’s win in Nevada to the Nazis taking over France. “Many in this establishment are behaving, in my view, as they face the prospect of a Bernie Sanders nomination, like out-of-touch aristocrats in a dying aristocracy. Just sort of ‘How do we stop this? How do we block this?’”
_{source: Vanity Fair}

And today we saw Matthews publicly apologize for the dumb WWII analogy he made. I want to give him some credit for that, but not too much. Why not too much? Well, that's because what's happening in the background, some of which you can read about in the Vanity Fair articles; yes, that's plural as there's one more to come. It's been reported by the New York Post that the Sanders campaign and Sanders himself approached executives from NBC and MSNBC right before the Nevada debate, complaining about how they treat him unfairly in their reporting:

Sanders approached an NBC and MSNBC executive before the debate in Las Vegas and said, “Your coverage of my campaign is not fair…Your questions tonight are not going to be fair to me.” Another source told Page Six he lodged the same complaint with MSNBC president Phil Griffin moments before the debate, saying, “Phil, your network has not been playing a fair role in this campaign. I am upset. Is anything going to change?”
_{source: Vanity Fair}

Sanders had a strong debate performance and was treated as the front runner for the first time by both the moderators and his opponents on stage. And then the Nevada caucuses resulted in a landslide victory for the Sanders campaign, with them getting more than twice the votes and delegates than the number two, Joe Biden. Now, follow what happens next; Vanity Fair publishes an article titled “PHIL IS DOING HIS BEST TO GIVE BERNIE HIS DUE”: AFTER A SANDERS SURGE AND A MATTHEWS GAFFE, MSNBC PREPARES TO PIVOT, with the subtitle "With Bernie rally coverage, Bernie-friendly guests, and a mandate to “seek out more smart, pro-Sanders voices,” the cable net confronts a new reality: “He’s winning,” says a source." MSNBC is going to "pivot" because management is starting to realize that Bernie might actually win and consequently have some real power; they're hedging their bets. They don't want to alienate their viewers further now that they see a possibility of a Sanders residency looming in the distance. The MSNBC pivot and the Chris Matthews apology aren't voluntary but calculated.

This is a real conundrum for the party and media elites; ultimately they don't want Sanders to win. Everything that's happened so far proves as much; allowing Bloomberg, who's just as racist, bigoted and authoritarian as Trump, to enter the race at the last moment sealed the case. They don't want to stop Trump, they want to stop Sanders. Here Chris Matthews enters this drama once again; watch the below linked video to hear from his mouth that the Democratic party elite would rather have four more years of Trump than allow a Sanders presidency to ever happen. With that I'll leave it for now so I can grab a bite to eat before watching tonight's South Carolina debate; it'll be interesting to see what happens if Sanders wins that state, how the cable news networks will react...

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