Article on front of @nytimes this morning praises Republicans for “message discipline” in attacking Biden’s policy around inflation & Afghanistan, but offering no counter policies themselves. Good journalists would hold them accountable for policy. nytimes.com/2022/01/28/us/…
Most popular alternative to any current policy is “awesome policy to be named later”, so trashing Democratic policy w/o naming new policy is great strategy, but only works if mainstream media accepts “assume policy to be named later” rather than hounding Republicans for policy.
Republicans used this strategy w/ ObamaCare headlining *4* election cycles w/ “repeal & replace”, mainstream media inviting people to imagine “replace” would be “awesome policy to be named later” when it was actually *nothing*, this actual policy was *super dangerous & unpopular*
In short: mainstream media should not praise Republicans for message discipline of having no policy on Afghanistan & inflation, but instead drag the opposition to explain to US what they would do different if they were in power. That is how you hold power accountable.
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Basically every article about Biden's declining popular is absolute bullshit as mainstream media tries to find excuses that include something that Biden could have plausibly had control over.
Biden's popularity sucks because even though he presided over historic, job, market, wage, purchase growth, mainstream media has told all of US economy sucks with runaway inflation (actually transitory inflation due to *shockingly* rapid economic growth out of recession) ...
And, people are tired of COVID, but Omicron only caused so much hospitalization & death because Republicans convinced their supporters to be unvaccinated, then MSM/Republicans vilified Biden for vaccine mandates & other solutions to protect US from Republican anti-vax propaganda.
Lots of mainstream media have been posting jot-takes blasting Democrats for "wanting to close schools" without noting that schools are almost all open, have been open for over a year, Democrats don't want to close schools, closures that did happen correlated with issues on ground
.@nealkwatra notes beyond mainstream media getting facts wrong while pushing Republican propaganda: attacks on impact of school closing without providing any context of other policy such as Republicans ending child-tax-credit, crushing pre-k, etc., is really bad journalism ...
Missing from this article (1) this is a very honest question: what percentage of schools in US were still closed by fall 2020, spring 2021, fall 2021? I have not seen good data, on this, but I assume vast majority were back in person by spring 2021, if not earlier ...
(2) There are certainly no mass closing now, and no push for it (3) School closings were correlated with conditions on the ground, including demand from parents & staff shortages: it was not just a political decision (as @maggieNYT@NateSilver538@jonathanchait imply) ...
Cannot stress this enough: from first day of school closings in March 2020 it was evident to everyone that this was a huge cost on children & parents. This concept of Democrats running around country closing schools for political reasons completely strawman, devoid of reality ...
Many of the comments in this thread basically say Republicans are not antisemitic then go on to spew more antisemitism. It is this simple: American Jews are loyal to America, and accusations or insinuations of any other loyalty is built on antisemitism.
Fact that Trump has Jewish grandchildren, and there are some Jews left in his party, makes the hardcore antisemitism way more disturbing. These people assume they can promote hate, and even terror attacks, against Jews but due to their wealth & power it will not affect them ...
I am a skeptical Biden voter who thinks he is doing a *way better* job than I thought he would. I am not a representative voter, but there are probably 10's of millions in US who agree with this, and it is super weird they are never asked their thoughts by mainstream media.
No matter what Trump did to US, the mainstream media would seek out loyal Trump voters to publish their views. No matter what Biden does for US, the mainstream media seeks out loyal Trump voters to publish their views.
Biden helped spearhead critical recovery act then monumental infrastructure bill, with 3rd major piece of legislation close. I am stoked Biden pulled out military out of Afghanistan, and was able to coordinate a massive airlift when the Afghan military collapsed.