Kingmaking II: Confidence Games

Obviously, the best thing about analyzing a horse race is the fact that you have to wade through quite a lot of horse sh*t  to figure anything out - oh, wait, that's not awesome at all actually. Sadly however, manufactured narratives, smears and propaganda in the mainstream media rarely sort themselves out in a timely manner, so here we are again.

In my previous Media Madness article, we talked a little bit about how a neoliberal, anti-Bernie unity ticket under Biden might begin to coalesce under the right conditions and why the Congressional Black Caucus was trying to negotiate a VP slot for Kamala Harris before the first primary even fired. I also briefly touched on the fact that corporate media outlets were hyping-up any sketchy poll with terrible methodology that showed Joe Biden with a big lead over Bernie Sanders; stuff like focusing entirely on landline polling, drawing sweeping conclusions from self-selecting internet surveys or using samples that feature a statistically insignificant number of voters under fifty years of age, and so on.

Even with clear evidence that the mainstream political and media establishments in America are certainly working to inflate the size of Biden's apparent lead over Sanders however, it's important to note that Palooka Joe is in fact still leading over Bernie Sanders in the polls - at least for the moment. Furthermore, this is despite the fact that both the burgeoning US left, and many establishment "center-left" liberals, are fully aware that Joe Biden is objectively hot vomit in a cup as a candidate.

Which then just leaves us with the horrifying but otherwise fairly simple question of... why? To begin to answer that, let's take a look at this May 13th, 2019 post from Nate Silver's vanity "statistical analysis" website, Five-Thirty-Eight:

Biden Is (Still) Leading Cable News Coverage

First and foremost we should note that this article itself is objectively terrible horse racing garbage; most of it focuses on pumping tires for 538's pet project candidate (Liz Warren) and excusing the excessive cable news media coverage of Biden by noting that some of it was negative - a fact that in many ways, is largely meaningless. Let's ignore all that nonsense and look at the important part of the article, the data chart:

Yes indeed, you've read that correctly - last week Joe Biden got almost as much cable news coverage as all of the other nineteen "major" Democratic Party 2020 nomination candidates combined; including well over three times as much coverage as his closest rival in the polls, Bernie Sanders. Furthermore, this is hardly a "new" phenomenon - these numbers have remained pretty constant since Biden announced his candidacy in April, as author Dhrumil Mehta noted in his previous installment of this feature.

Look we can argue until we're blue in the face about age splits, focus group polling and the vastly overstated "anti-Sanders" movement among affluent, mainstream liberals, the reality is that early polling metrics are going to be heavily swayed by familiarity/name recognition and that in turn, is going to be overwhelmingly influenced by the sheer volume of media mentions. This phenomenon will of course be intimately familiar to Bernie Sanders supporters who likely remember the total media blackout the Senator's campaign endured well into the middle portions of the Democratic Party nomination race in 2015 and 2016. In other words, Biden is clearly getting a significantly early boost in the polls, because of corporate cable news coverage.

Okay well, so what right? Biden only officially announced his candidacy at the end of April and he's recently be embroiled in a couple of serious scandals involving inappropriate touching of women and conflict of interest in the Ukraine (the latter of which may not even be true.) To some degree, it's natural that Biden is driving coverage right now, isn't it? In a vacuum, one would have to think that eventually the combination of "bad coverage" and the news cycle moving beyond Biden's entrance into the race, should cause a leveling out of media attention and a corresponding drop in the polls - at least, in theory.

The problem of course is that politics are not conducted in a vacuum and as with all things involving the corporate, for-profit media in America, class interests generate a tremendous amount of gravity when it comes to the media's behavior, both in terms of which candidates they choose to cover, and how they're going to be portrayed in this nomination contest. When you combine Biden's staggeringly disproportionate amount of (often defensive) cable news coverage, constant efforts to disparage Bernie's chances of winning the nomination in the mainstream press and absurdly premature corporate media declarations about the perceived inevitability of Joe Biden, a different and far less innocent picture quickly emerges - a picture that will seem eerily familiar to anyone who wasn't living under a rock during the 2016 Democratic Party nomination contest.

Hey, speaking of gravity; do you think there's any chance the amount of fawning cable news coverage awarded to Biden might have anything to do with the fact that Palooka Joe kicked off his campaign with a "a $2,800 per person fundraiser at the home of David L. Cohen, the executive vice president and chief of lobbying for Comcast" - which owns MSNBC, the country's premier "liberal" cable news network?

Comcast-Owned MSNBC in the Tank for Joe Biden’s Presidential Run

Well then, there's certainly nothing fishy going on here right? Run along citizen, nothing to see behind the yellow tape..

Look, it's no secret that the wealthy owners of large media companies do not like Sanders, and you'd have to be a complete goddamn idiot to believe that didn't affect how the democratic socialist Senator from Vermont is portrayed in the mainstream corporate media. Furthermore, this animus towards Bernie is only matched by the intense, white-hot hatred of Clintonite apparatchiks who have already openly declared their desire to see a mainstream media war against Sanders during this primary process; a wish that seems considerably more ominous when you remember the *cough* "close" relationship between the Clinton campaign and mainstream liberal media in 2016. Throw in "sekret" establishment Democrat meetings about how to stop Sanders and open declarations from the oligarchy that his nomination would be considered unacceptable, and you have more than the makings of a ruling class plot to ratf*ck Bernie Sanders - can you really even call it a conspiracy if all this is being done out in the open?

It is abundantly clear that the elite establishment in America is doing, and will continue to do, everything in their power to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the 2020 Dem Party nomination. As the only candidate in the polls leading or even coming close to matching Bernie's level of support, Joe Biden is the obvious early beneficiary of these machinations - particularly now, long before the debates and while the primary source of information on how the race is going is the same mainstream corporate media that wishes Sanders would f*ck off and die. That Biden is in the lead and received a polling bump from announcing his campaign is hardly novel, or even remotely surprising - the question for Palooka Joe has always been whether or not his lead will "survive contact with an actual campaign."
 
After a whooping three weeks on the hustings, with every possible advantage the elite mainstream establishment could grant him, things are "so far, so good" for Joe Biden - but would-be kingmakers and concerned democratic socialists would be advised to remember that Bernie Sanders has already demonstrated that he can make up a vast amount of ground on the corporate media's anointed candidate, in a very short period of time.

This contest is far from over; frankly, we've only just begun. 


- Nina Illingworth


Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog.

Updates available on Twitter and Facebook.

Kingmaking

As those of you who've read my writing on other sites and follow me on Twitter are no doubt already aware, I've spent a great deal of time examining not only the candidates, but the contours of the unfolding Democratic Party 2020 Nomination contest. Although I myself am personally loathe to engage in the sort of discussions I describe derisively as "horse race analysis" and thus I confine most of these conversations to Twitter, there's no question that they're extremely popular conversations. People want to know who is going to win and more importantly, they want to know if or rather how the Democratic Party establishment is going to find a way to screw over Bernie Sanders again.

For essentially the past three years, I've maintain the position that the Democratic Party no longer has the power over its own politicians and internal mandarins to present a united "neoliberal" front against Bernie Sanders. As such, I have been inclined to believe that although it's not going to be a cakewalk, eventually Sanders will emerge from a tough primary battle with Joe Biden as the Dem Party nominee to take on Downmarket Mussolini and the wholly corrupted GOP. Furthermore, despite numerous sketchy polls declaring Biden in the lead by well over 30 points, I'm still fairly comfortable with that prediction - and I'm not particularly concerned about a complicated, Rube Goldberg machine-esque, second ballot Superdelegate coup at the convention either.

Throughout this entire process however, I have always noted that there was indeed one seemingly unlikely scenario by which I thought the Democratic Party establishment and its rich donors could stop Sanders in his tracks. Namely, Tom Perez's DNC, the donors and elite liberal thought leaders would have to come together to pressure more than a dozen declared candidates to drop out early and rally the party's mainstream behind an anti-Bernie "unity ticket" - a ticket that would almost certainly have to be headed by current front-runner and former Obama Vice President, Joe Biden. Of course, in order to do that, internal Democratic Party leadership would have to be strong enough to force multiple, high-profile politicians with their own backers, donors and in-pocket media to "take one for the team" and stop Bernie. This is quite frankly an almost absurd scenario when you realize that there are at least 18 identical mainstream Dem candidates in the field already - if Tom Perez had the power to limit the field like Debbie Wasserman Schultz (with a little help from then-President Obama) did in 2016, why would there be so many mainstream contenders battling for the same anti-Sanders votes in the first place?

Well, despite my scoffing, it would appear that at least some people inside the Democratic Party power structure are seeing the same things I am, at least if this May 12, 2019 Politico piece by Heather Caygle and John Bresnahan is anything more that pure fantasy:

‘A dream ticket’: Black lawmakers pitch Biden-Harris to beat Trump 

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, it should be noted that this entire piece might just be fluff designed to promote cracker-assed Joe Biden as the choice of the Congressional Black Caucus and thus somehow "the choice of African American voters" in the Democratic Primary contest - indeed, some of these quotes genuinely have to be read, to be believed:

"Yet there is no question that Biden — thanks in part to his close relationship with Obama — is popular with African-American voters, according to several polls since he entered the race. That support from within the black community translates into backing from black lawmakers as well.

“But for the fact that we have two of our own who are both quite capable of being president, I’d say probably a lot of the members would’ve already announced for Biden,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.)."

 -----

"Biden has a deep well of support within the influential group of 55 black lawmakers, having served alongside many of them in his 36 years as a senator and eight years as vice president under the first African American president. Biden has already racked up some key endorsements within the caucus, including from former CBC Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.).

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the highest-ranking African American in Congress, often speaks fondly of Biden, a longtime friend, though Clyburn has said he won’t endorse anyone before his home state’s primary.

“I said a few weeks ago that if [Biden] were to get in, everybody else would be running for second place. I said that over a month ago. And he got in, and the polls said everyone else is running for second place,” Clyburn said in an interview.
It should also be of no surprise that Biden is polling well among black Democratic primary voters, he noted.

“The data are clear that he has strong support among African Americans,” Clyburn said. “It’s just that simple. He’s had that for a long, long time, and he’s kept it steady so far.”

 -----

"Biden is a creature of Capitol Hill, with relationships that go back decades with some of the most senior members of the caucus. He happily refers to his former boss, the first black president, as “my buddy Barack” on the campaign trail.
 
“I don’t think people should underestimate the significance of this older white guy playing the role of second, a supportive second, to a younger man who is African American,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.). “And people felt this was real and authentic, [Biden] wasn't faking it. There was a real friendship there.”

Biden also has a natural ease in the black community in a way that other white Democratic candidates don’t, according to some caucus members.

“Biden is very comfortable in African American circles. Sometimes a white politician in an all-black setting, you can feel the seed of nervousness,” Cleaver said. “With Biden, he’s just right at home. You can see it and feel it.”

Whew; reading all of that you'd be half inclined to think Palooka Joe was the second coming of John Brown, and not a pro-segregationist meathead who once "praised" his future (and African American) President as "clean and articulate."As absurd as the idea might be to anyone who knows anything about Biden's voting record and public positions, it's safe to say that significant portions of the mainstream media have already received marching orders to play up Joe Biden's purported "blackness-by-osmosis from Obama" credentials - and this article is undoubtedly part of that portrayal.

Still, there are reasons to pause and wonder if perhaps this might not be a larger signal of the Democratic establishment's thinking here.

Truthfully, Lock Em Up Kamala Harris's nomination campaign is already finished; after repeated polling showed that she was not performing well with black voters because of her record as a prosecutor and Attorney General, she's reset her campaign by pivoting towards attacking Donald Trump. Overall, Harris is polling third in her own state, and far worse elsewhere in the country; which means that if Lock Em Up Kamala is going to stay in the national picture after the first few primaries, she's probably going to have to accept a VP spot on a stronger candidate's ticket. Logically, since there are literally no strong mainstream neoliberal politicians in this race except Palooka Joe, that would mean joining forces with Biden. Furthermore, Biden himself would likely be receptive to this plan, as it's clear that Palooka Joe's campaign team is actively scouting for an African American woman to "balance the ticket" already. In short, this strategy actually makes sense for both candidates on a purely realpolitik level.

Even more concerning to me however, is the involvement of the Congressional Black Caucus in an article that is all but negotiating Harris's surrender terms months and months before the first debates. This is after all the same political body whose support was not only instrumental in establishing Barrack Obama as a serious presidential contender, but also arranged for Hillary Clinton's belated capitulation in the contentious 2008 Democratic Primary. Although many African American left wing activists are quick to deride the CBC as out of touch sellouts and minions, the truth is that they have demonstrated palpable influence on Dem Primary contests in the recent past - and it certainly wouldn't take much for them to muscle Tom Perez out of the way and seize the role of kingmaker inside the Party this time around.

Is this the beginning of a united neo-liberal front? In my opinion, it's still too early to say - Harris and the Congressional Black Caucus by themselves, do not an anti-Bernie unity ticket make. It is however clear to me that the vast majority of Democratic Party strategists are starting to come around to the realization that their choices are Biden, or Bernie, and I think we all know that means Biden. The beginnings of a coalition are starting to appear in the media, and if they turn into actual bonds on the campaign trail, Bernie Sanders might once again find himself facing down an enemy who won't fight fair and has all the cards in its pockets.


- Nina Illingworth


Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog.

Updates available on Twitter and Facebook.

What's Really Troubling Larry Tribe?

Yesterday afternoon, as I found myself engaging in my normal routine of objectively unhealthy sh*tposting on Twitter, the following tweet made its way across my feed and immediately reminded me of two incontrovertible truths - there are still too many people out there who take Laurence Tribe seriously and goddamnit, nobody is doing anything to help them recover from this terrible affliction!

Naturally, the poor intern The Hill keeps chained to Twitter and on the lookout for sizzling hot beef, transcribed the occasion for her "news" agency - if for some reason you wanted to subject yourself to a news story, about the dumbest post on Twitter yesterday, you can check it out here:  

Harvard's Laurence Tribe calls Bernie Sanders a 'phony'

For those of you who are somehow blessed enough not to know who Laurence Tribe is, we turn to Buzzfeed for the impressive part of his resume:

"Tribe is one of the country’s foremost constitutional lawyers, the Carl M. Loeb university professor at Harvard Law School. He has argued dozens of cases in front of the Supreme Court. He’s a major figure in American public life, and in recent months Tribe has devoted much of his activity on Twitter to outraged extrapolation about the Trump administration."

This in and of itself is quite amusing because Buzzfeed has intentionally left out most of the reasons why Tribe is such a "major figure in American life" - namely that in addition to his distinguished role at Harvard and his impressive legal record, he's one of former President Barack Obama's friends and mentors. Tribe also served in Obama's Department of Justice and the rock star legal scholar has long acted as a reliably pro-Democratic Party, pro-liberal establishment law expert for cable news networks. 

Of course it's not all gumdrops and lollipops as Tribe is also well known in "conservative" circles for numerous incidents of scholarly misconduct and at least one ghost written book that featured a little outright plagiarism. Furthermore, it must be noted that Tribe is an unhinged, Russophobic conspiracy theorist who spends most of his time trying to start a New Cold War and retweeting other, even less credible Russophobic conspiracy theorists to his roughly 500K Twitter followers; many of  whom are themselves influential figures in what passes for corporate "liberal" media in America. If you were to make a #Resistance mad wall of online neoliberal hacks still pushing an absurd Cold War spy novel in the media, Larry would almost certainly be right near the center of your poster-board. 

In Tribe's defense, I should also mention that he has recently become a vocal proponent of impeaching Downmarket Mussolini but I'm personally of the opinion that this is essentially a "blind squirrels sometimes find a nut too" situation and it should be noted that Larry only came to this conclusion after publishing a book that cautioned against impeaching Trump.

While all of this should certainly give the reader pause before they take Tribe's "expert and distinguished" opinions as fact, it still doesn't explain Larry's open animosity towards Vermont's Democratic Socialist Senator (and my pick to win the 2020 Dem Party nomination) Bernie Sanders. Tribe's hostility towards Sanders is hardly just a recent phenomenon either; in August, 2017 for example Tribe falsely accused Sanders of sexist attacks against fellow 2020 Dem Party nomination candidates Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren - before being forced to essentially walk the whole thing back when asked to prove Sanders had mentioned either candidate at all.

So why exactly is Larry campaigning as hard against Bernie Sanders as he is against our reality TV show fascist in chief? Class tensions? Typical rich-guy animus? Well, as it turns out the distinguished professor has been doing a little night work for America's largest coal company on the side, a corporation called Peabody Energy Corp - destroying both his professional reputation and numerous friendships in the process. Naturally, Peabody isn't super thrilled about Bernie's aggressive environmental protection platform or his longstanding open support for the New Green Deal and they've already given Larry at least 435,000 reasons to share their disdain for Sanders. Furthermore, in light of the fact that Tribe recently left the company's litigation team during the middle of its challenge against the Clean Power Plan, it was probably time for Larry to start showing his coal baron masters a little more return on their investment again.

As for Tribe's laughable assertion that Sander is somehow a phony, all one has to do is examine Bernie's long-known positions in government, his track record of being on the right side of history and his tireless efforts while fighting for the labor class in America, to expose Larry's pithy commentary for the fraudulent, elitist bullsh*t it is. If phony is fighting for the poor, marginalized people and working class stiffs, while "authentic" is taking $75,000 a month from a coal company to spout lies that protect monsters who're putting all our futures in jeopardy - then the choice is clear; sign me up for "phony" and f*ck Larry Tribe.

- nina illingworth