It’s simply taken for granted in US legacy media that “left-wing/progressive” electeds are driven by rigid ideology while centrists are motivated by cold, calculated, and semi-scientific concern with How To Defeat Republicans. This is a premise basically no one in our media challenges. It is asserted as pure dogma that “centrist” or “moderate” Democrats are only “centrist” or “moderate” because they are forced to be by electoral realities, and thus every position they advance is not the end result of donor pressure or class interest, but a good-faith, totally organic demand from purple-area voters they must channel if they want to “take back Congress.” 

Never is this dynamic more evident in media coverage than after the left-wing flank of the party has the kind of electoral success they saw this past Tuesday, when self-identified Democratic Socialist candidates scored major victories in New York City and state office. Immediately, before the votes were even counted, corporate media rushed to take the predictable angle, “Does electing far left-ideologues undermine Democrats’ ability to win in November,” because it’s simply taken for granted that left-wing policy perspectives are mutually exclusive with “electability.” 

Leading the charge was, as always, the New York Times. “Democrats find themselves squeezed by competing forces,” the paper lamented. “The party’s leaders in Washington are pushing for moderate candidates who they hope will be competitive in states and areas that have been inhospitable to Democrats in recent years. But primary voters in New York and other recent contests are moving in the opposite direction, increasingly turning to progressives and even socialists who excite the base.”

Note how the NYT presents a completely false dichotomy: taking back Congress from Republicans vs. progressives and socialists winning primaries. These are the two options and they are, we are told, in tension. There’s no data cited to support this, no studies linked to; the article just asserts casual dogma, then moves on to debate how Democrats will manage this supposed conflict between its base and the desire to be “competitive in states and areas that have been inhospitable to Democrats in recent years.” To do this they turn to alleged “party leaders” who are presented not as ideologues in their own right, or conflicted, corporate-funded mouthpieces, but entirely good-faith strategists simply concerned with winning. The “moderate” sources are: