Dana Bash asked Doug Jones about whether coastal progressives are driving the party's agenda, which is nothing more than classic Beltway bias. Jones dodged elegantly, but it's time for the media to stop doing this.
During an interview with Jones on CNN Wednesday, Bash actually asked this question: "Are you worried that the party is too focused on the coast, too focused on the big cities, and are being driven -- is the party being driven, too much, by progressives?"
Ah, the "coastal elite" framing, as if people who live on the West Coast and see their states being consumed in fire or the people who live on the East Coast who are witnessing a record number of hurricanes in one year are somehow pushing the Democratic party in a bad direction. What the hell?
Jones lobbed that loaded question right back at her skillfully, noting that Democrats are a big-tent party with people on either end of the spectrum who tangle.
"But, at the end of the day, we all want the same things," he said. "We all want good health care for the American people. We all want good jobs and good-paying jobs, and try to -- try to lower, you know, to narrow the income gap that we got out there. We want to keep America secure, both in our elections, as well as our nation secure. How you get there is, I think, is -- is the issue."
"And I believe that we can do that, and I -- I'm really hopeful for the Democratic party," he continued. "They see the problems that we've got in some of the rural areas. They understand that. And I believe as we go forward, they are going to see the messages because it was -- it was the Democratic party that brought Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, all of those issues that those rural areas need and that they want."
Yes, indeed. There is broad agreement on the goals. It's the road to get there, with progressives pushing for the most direct and effective one. And what is wrong with that? Seriously, media must stop framing these questions as though there is some sort of liability for wanting to do good things for people. ALL PEOPLE.
Bash's question is especially bad right now, when we have the so-called "President" and his legal minions pulling out all of the stops to push over 70 million people into believing that Joe Biden did not win this election by delegitimizing mail-in ballots because Democrats cast them.
On Tuesday, disgraced-and-yet-pardoned Mike Flynn tweeted support for Trump to declare martial law, throw out the election results and hold another election overseen by the military. Seriously.
#WeThePeople @SidneyPowell1 @LLinWood @DanScavino @LouDobbs @MariaBartiromo @marklevinshow @lofly727
Freedom never kneels except for God 🙏🇺🇸https://t.co/Vrn3UeyDoF— General Flynn (@GenFlynn) December 1, 2020
As Josh Marshall noted in a thread about that tweet, it is sedition.
Where are the questions to Republicans about that? Where are the interviews with outgoing Republican Senator Lamar Alexander about Flynn? Where are the expressed concerns about Flynn endorsing the same behavior that brought on the Nazi era?
Instead we get concern trolling about progressives driving the Democratic Party.
Here's another question for Bash and others just like her (looking at YOU, Andrea Mitchell):
Does she ever ask Republicans if they're pushed too hard by QAnon?
— Sybill “ByeDon” Trelawney (@SybilT2) December 2, 2020
That's right, why is it that we're not hearing more about how the GOP is being driven hard right by the QAnon freaks and their delusional side show?
We can't get Beltway media to focus on Biden's 80 million votes while they obsess on the minority who voted for Trump. That's bad enough, but asking these kinds of questions of the one party who is trying to govern responsibly is media malpractice.
