Thread by @julianzelizer

The difference between how much the news media has been covering liberal “extremism” in the Democratic Party versus conservative “extremism” in the Republican Party is a problem. Here are a few thoughts.

Especially problematic is the fact that social scientists have demonstrated the “asymmetric” nature of partisan polarization—the GOP has moved much more to the right and is more ideologically driven than Democrats. See @MattGrossmann amazon.com/Asymmetric-Pol…

Here is the great @NormOrnstein explaining the reality to @voxdotcom
vox.com/2018/10/29/180…

The stories are having an impact. 64 percent of registered voters, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, think the Democrats are headed to socialism.
thehill.com/homenews/campa…

One of the problems is that much of the news coverage blows the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party way out of proportion.

At the most basic level, it is worth remembering that most of the new House Democrats are moderate.
vox.com/policy-and-pol…

Many on the left voted to elect @SpeakerPelosi —a coalition builder—as their leader. The predicted coup never happened.

Side note--Even the "socialism" of @BernieSanders looks very much like traditional New Deal/Great Society liberalism.

Thus far, the other Democratic presidential candidates are not socialists. The candidates champion policies that have broad support. See, for example, theatlantic.com/science/archiv…

On the other hand, the right-wing controls the GOP—climate change denialism, hard-line anti-immigration views, staunch opposition to gun control, and America First-ism. @realDonaldTrump, a Republican, has attacked traditional international alliances and courted dictators.

The place where the GOP is in 2019 compared to 1980 is remarkable.

No need for Reagan nostalgia, but seriously, can anyone imagine this kind of speech being ok today? nytimes.com/2019/01/10/opi…

@NormOrnstein and Thomas Mann have shown that there is no comparison in terms of how far Republicans are willing to go in subverting basic procedures and norms compared to Democrats. The Tea Party set the stage for Trump.
amazon.com/Even-Worse-Tha…

The coordination we see (should we say collusion?) between @FoxNews and the administration is stunning. As @JaneMayerNYer has written in @NewYorker, this relationship might even reach into basic anti-trust decisions. Now that’s radical.
newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…

In a tweet, @pastpunditry reminds us what makes this party-media relationship different than before.

https://twitter.com/pastpunditry/status/1103313854325497856

Yet, if you watch very many news outlets (on tv, online, and in print), there seems to be far more discussion about @AOC and the dangers of the Democrats drifting into socialism than there is of Republican extremism which starts all the way up top.

@brianstelter had an interesting discussion of this on @ReliableSources cnn.com/videos/media/2…

@foxnews is loving this coverage. @seanhannity who by the way campaigned with President Trump during the midterms, explains these developments.
video.foxnews.com/v/601045979200…

So too is @realDonaldTrump, who is making the extremism argument a centerpiece of his emerging 2020 campaign.

As @paulwaldman1 argued in the @washingtonpost: “'Are Democrats socialist?' is precisely the question Trump wants us all to keep asking (as long as we don’t go any deeper), because it means we won’t be exploring what Democrats actually want to do.” washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/…

Time to get the coverage right.