You’re much, much, much worse at capturing “the leftward half of the country.” https://twitter.com/nytdavidbrooks/status/1324030657593511937

2016 election:
- Trump squeaks out electoral college win
- GOP lose seats in the House
- GOP lose seats in the Senate

Potential 2020 election:
- Biden wins EC by larger margin than Trump in ‘16
- Dems lose seats in the House
- Dems GAIN seats in the Senate

After 2016 there was all this handwringing about the need to reach out to Republicans. Media companies shifted rightward (Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss were both hired at NYT specifically to skew their opinion section to the right after ‘16), MSNBC loaded up on conservatives, etc.

If the scenario I laid out (which looks to be the most likely one at this point) comes true, media organizations HAVE AN OBLIGATION to shift to the left. The fact that you’ve got people like Brooks and others already moping about the need to move EVEN MORE to the right? Fuck no.

The answer is ALWAYS “move to the right.” Every time. “Move to the right, move to the right, move to the right.” Dems win? Move to the right. Dems lose? Move to the right.

Every. Time. No matter what. That’s what “experts” suggest. Know why? BECAUSE THEY ARE RIGHT OF CENTER.

Like look at this. @brianstelter is already buying into the “move to the right/understand the right” narrative Brooks is putting out there.

Embarrassing. Utterly embarrassing. This is what’s wrong with media. These guys are absolutely oblivious to the left.

Look at how state-level ballot initiatives worked out! Progressive causes had a pretty good night (with a few exceptions).

But people in elite positions in media don’t care about that. They have no interest in understanding people on the left. They have no interest whatsoever.

Where’s this idea that people rejected Democrats for being too far to the left even coming from? Who were the big name far-left Dems who lost their seats last night? Huh? Who?

Mainstream outlets sure did enough to *TRY* to promote challenges to AOC/Omar/Tlaib/Pressley/etc.

Because mainstream media outlets love nothing more than trying to undercut actual progressives. You saw this play out during the Dem primary as they ran story after story after story that was basically “Let’s talk to a billionaire about why he thinks Bernie/Warren are bad”

It was constant. But now these same people in media have the gall to do this “We must make more outreach to coal country”/“Everyone go out and buy a copy of ‘Hillbilly Elegy’”/“Please welcome CNN contributor Salena Zito” stuff again?

Are you kidding me?

Here's how unbelievably out of touch mainstream media is when it comes to understanding the left.

In the recent 60 Minutes interview, Norah O'Donnell asked, with a straight face, if Kamala Harris was providing Biden's campaign with a "socialist perspective."

Wut?

Anyone who looks at Biden or Harris or really any mainstream politician and says "are you providing a socialist perspective?" should not be working in political media. Even people who embrace the term, like Bernie Sanders, are much more New Deal Dems than full on socialists.

We sat through 4 years of wealthy legacy media companies flying reporters into random towns in Appalachia so they could right the same "In this Trump town, they never stopped saying Merry Christmas" article for the 50th time.

You need to be done with that. You needed to be done with it before you wrote the first extremely patronizing piece, if we're being honest. But seeing Brooks and others basically saying "do that, but even more" shows how clueless mainstream media outlets are.

This is the kind of shit Brooks writes. Patronizing garbage about how those of us not making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year get confused by sandwiches. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/11/opinion/how-we-are-ruining-america.html

And as journalists have been losing their jobs left and right for a decade now, Brooks is the guy who got the New York Times to pay to send him on a $120,000 vacation in exchange for writing an article about his experience. $120,000! https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/t-magazine/vacation-four-seasons-around-the-world.html

So no. No, no, no, we are not going to do this anymore. We are not going to listen to condescending, out of touch people like Brooks who sit around more worried about college debate clubs than whether or not the average American can afford to pay their rent.

You are NOT going to spend the next four years doing that same absurd garbage.

It's time to clean house. I've long supported columnists having the equivalent of term limits because too much time in that job just turns all your brains into soup, apparently.

Five years as a columnist and then a year on an actual beat talking to ACTUAL PEOPLE instead of gazing into the middle distance while telling the story of a fancy sandwich and cheating on your wife with your researcher (imagine having a researcher in the first place! Luxury!)

Sure, it's much safer for the people working in media making high six figures (or more) to continue the "just move to the right. move to the right." bit they've been doing all this time. As I said in an earlier thread, there's a reason I don't get invited on cable TV shows.

And it's not that I'm lacking in writing ability or public speaking skills. It's because if there's one thing mainstream media organizations don't want to do, it's to think about where they may have actually gone wrong or question their purpose as an industry.

When mainstream outlets respond to the polar opposite thing that happened when Trump won by doing the same exact thing they did last time (move to the right), just know that deep down they know they're full of it. They'll just never say as much.