Damage Done by the Right-Wing Media in 2016

[_Ceeboo]

CNN isn’t remotely “leftist.”

[_EAllusion]

...

Your reaction suggests you don't have passing familiarity with actual leftist outlets, or what leftist thought even is for that that matter, which is harder to forgive when you consistently preach about trying to understand opposing points of view.

I referenced Democracy Now! as a good example of what a leftist media outlet looks like in the US. Could you care to explain how that corresponds to CNN programming? Like, at all?

Leftist alt-media in the US is so obscure to the average person that it's actually hard to come up with examples that people are familiar with that aren't just websites or print media. There's a few, but if you try to find comparative examples to right-wing sources that are equivalent in terms of ideological slant you have a massive disparity in relative influence and recognition.

CNN is a mish-mash of biases with a tendency towards yellow journalism and preserving a "both sides" balance. It literally covers politics like ESPN covers sports. The various biases of various pundits and editors end up playing out in odd ways. In some important ways, it creates a very significant right-wing bias, which is an odd thing for a leftist propaganda outlet to do.

[_Ceeboo]

Your reaction suggests you don't have passing familiarity with actual leftist outlets

Ahhhhh - I have been a member of this discussion board since 2010.

or what leftist thought even is for that that matter

Ahhhhh - I have been a member of this discussion board since 2010.

[_EAllusion]

Your reaction suggests you don't have passing familiarity with actual leftist outlets

Ahhhhh - I have been a member of this discussion board since 2010.

Virtually no leftists post here and you don't have much of a record of interacting with them or their sources on a level that shows you are conversant with that they think as best I can tell. You got a lot of learned exchanges with Blixa that I'm not aware of?

Or is it that you think anything to the left of Fox News is ipso facto leftist?

What leftist outlets are you routinely consuming? The fact that you'd think CNN counts strongly implies you have no idea what you are talking about.

[_Ceeboo]

Virtually no leftists post here

[_huckelberry]

Virtually no leftists post here

ceeboo, sometimes your naïveté is charming. You might ask EAllusion if he is a leftist. I rather doubt it but he is about as close as anybody posting here these days.

[_Kevin Graham]

When you live your life with your nose shoved in the far right corner of the wall, virtually everyone else is a leftist by comparison. The problem is you Ceeboo.

[_EAllusion]

I'm no where near leftism. I profoundly dislike leftist thought, but on the plus side I consume enough to know what it is and can appreciate how the arguments work. I sometimes get confused for being a leftist here mainly because I write a lot of replies to very poorly thought out conservative attacks on center-left stuff. Especially on social issues there's some overlap between leftism and what I think which also gets confusing to some people.

How quickly some forget how often I was also pegged as a hardcore conservative for criticizing the Obama admin.

I'm actually a fairly stereotypical libertarian in more of the Reason mag mold. If you read figures like Julian Sanchez, Radley Balko, Kevin White (Popehat), Peter Suderman, etc. it'll sound a lot like me.

[_honorentheos]

It may have to do with the national focus on economic policy under Obama as his social agenda (minus the wars) trended somewhere center left on most things. But the last two years under Trump couldn't be less liberal in a classic sense anywhere one looks. From conservative crack downs on just about all social issues combined with protectionist economics it's difficult to imagine a place where Trump's actions wouldn't lead to a negative reaction in Reason. Since libertarian thought is often most evident when expressed by what it opposes, in the Trump era it probably seems like someone with libertarian views is the polar opposite of Trump's direction. The problem being he isn't really conservative so much as authoritarian. If one only thinks along one axis, it could be excusable to misunderstand.

[_huckelberry]

. Since libertarian thought is often most evident when expressed by what it opposes, in the Trump era it probably seems like someone with libertarian views is the polar opposite of Trump's direction. The problem being he isn't really conservative so much as authoritarian. If one only thinks along one axis, it could be excusable to misunderstand.

I had thought that EAllusion showed no sign of leftist thinking. His strong anti Trump views might create an appearance of some leftist sympathy. This chart clarifies the puzzle very well. It is a reaction to Trump's ridiculous authoritarian habits of thought and action which appears sort of leftist.

I remain doubtful anybody posting here is an actual leftist. Perhaps somebody could come out of the closet and fess up.