The Washington Post just dissed the single largest faction in the Democratic Party
by digby
I try not to write the "imagine if the other side did this" stuff too often but there are exceptions and this is one. Dave Weigel reported:
The Washington Post's longtime progressive columnist Harold Meyerson published his final weekly piece for the paper yesterday. Among the mourners: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
"It's extremely unfortunate," said Sanders in a statement to the Post, which he later adapted into a tweet. "There are very few progressive voices out there in the corporate media. Harold is one of the best. Harold's insights into the decline of the middle class and wealth and income inequality will be sorely missed by readers of The Washington Post."
On the campaign trail, Sanders has wound critiques of the media into many of his speeches and Q&As. His supporters have echoed that, asking editors and programmers why the surprisingly robust support for a self-avowed democratic socialist has received a fraction of the coverage granted to Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
Meyerson, whose column appeared in the Post for 13 years, took a pro-labor approach to politics that often mirrored that of Sanders. "I've still encountered just two avowed democratic socialists in my daily rounds through the nation's capital: Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders... and the guy I see in the mirror when I shave," wrote Meyerson in a 2009 piece.
So, here we are in a primary campaign just a month ahead of the first votes. Polls show that at least 30% of the Democratic Party are receptive to Bernie Sanders' democratic socialist message. Progressives are the single largest faction of the Democratic Party, roughly mirroring the Republican party's evangelical support. And yet, the Washington Post is firing the one columnist on their staff who writes about the issues that are energizing these millions of mainstream Americans.
I eagerly await their explanation as to why the incoherent Richard Cohen maintains his completely useless column. Or Robert Samuelson or Charles Lane all of whom can be assumed to only be talking to each other recycling the same ideas over and over again inside the beltway bubble. Would they have the nerve to fire Michael Gerson, who writes about politics from a social conservative perspective, in the middle of an election campaign? And what about Sally Quinn's sinecure as a fatuous religion columnist? I'm doubtful.
