Perhaps the biggest unanswered question in my blogging career is why liberal pundits and “Democratic strategists” do such a stunningly poor job on Fox News. These are intelligent, well-educated and experienced people who, presumably, are aware of Fox’s propaganda and spin. Yet, they almost never seem to find a way to derail it. A new book by Thomas Frank, gives a good clue.
Frank, you may recall, is the author of the well-known “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” that came out several years ago. His latest book, “Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?” could have been called, “What’s The Matter With Liberals?”
Frank’s main mission is to explain how and why Democrats have played an active role in devastating the middle class and producing the income inequality and populist rage that we liberals tend to blame on Republicans.
Here’s what Beverly Gage, who teaches American history at Yale, wrote in her book review in The New York Times:
In his new book, the social critic Thomas Frank poses another possibility: that liberals in general — and the Democratic Party in particular — should look inward to understand the sorry state of American politics. Too busy attending TED talks and vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard, Frank argues, the Democratic elite has abandoned the party’s traditional commitments to the working class. In the process, they have helped to create the political despair and anger at the heart of today’s right-wing insurgencies. They may also have sown the seeds of their own demise.
Frank suggests that professionalism and meritocracy is the heart of the problem:
[T]oday the Democrats are the party of the professional class.
[…]
Professionals dominate liberalism and the Democratic Party in the same way that Ivy Leaguers dominate the Obama cabinet. In fact, it is not going too far to say that the views of the modern-day Democratic Party reflect, in virtually every detail, the ideological idiosyncrasies of the professional-managerial class.
[…]
For successful professionals, meritocracy is a beautifully self-serving doctrine, entitling them to all manner of rewards and status, because they are smarter than other people.
A light went off in my head as I read those paragraphs and others like it in Frank’s book. Yes, the liberal pundits may fail to fight on Fox because they want to pander and/or because they want to get invited back and/or a possible contributors’ contract. Yes, some are outright fake liberals. But most of the awful ones seem genuine. Proud professionals that they are, I’ll bet they see Fox’s low-brow tactics as beneath them.
In a terrific recent guest post by Kevin Koster, he described how Democrat Jessica Tarlov played the patsy as the only Democrat in a segment with Jesse Watters and Andrea Tantaros, obviously bent on harming Hillary Clinton.
Tantaros and Watters essentially tag-teamed Tarlov. First, they threw the mud about “selling the Lincoln Bedroom” and, in the next breath, added in the Clinton Foundation and accused both Bill and Hillary Clinton of “pay-for-play.” When Tarlov tried to answer, she, unfortunately, accepted part of their premise.
TARLOV: I’m not at all going to say that there isn’t a murkiness, there certainly is and I think this is one of the things that drives her problem with the honesty and trustworthiness ratings and also for Donald Trump as well and I think that it doesn’t benefit any Hillary supporter to say, you know, she is squeaky clean. She is not. But there isn’t evidence...
There were lots of ways that Tarlov could have gone on offense and reframed the debate to go in her favor. She could have, as Koster suggested, pointed out that those were the same tired allegations the right-wing has been flinging at the Clintons since the 90s and accused Watters and Tantaros of trying to distract attention away from America’s current problems because of their way-more-flawed GOP candidates.
Instead, Tarlov went along with the Fox fiction that she was there for debate, not in-the-mud political theater. The result was that her honest (and, I think, sincere) answer gave legitimacy to the attacks and they escalated.
Tarlov is no dummy. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the London School of Economics. She’s also a Hillary Clinton supporter. So how on earth could she be so clueless? Especially since she had appeared on Fox News several times before?
One very plausible answer is that she refuses to see herself as anything but a professional and is, therefore, unwilling and/or unable to operate in a political arena that isn’t.
When I was asked to review this book, I agreed to do so with an eye toward the failings of liberals on Fox. But the role of professionalism and meritocracy in Democratic mindsets explains much more than that. Gage finds some significant flaws in Frank's analysis. But if you're interested in the larger failings of modern-day liberals, this provocative book is definitely worth reading.
Answer:
.
Discussing the problems of Democrats and the working class is it’s own rant.
Let me simply rant on liberals on FOX here. And, no, I won’t re-litigate my usual criticisms of folks like Kirsten Powers, Bob Beckel (no longer a Foxie), or Pat Caddell being faux and/or ineffective by design though there always is that.
I don’t know how many here watch HBO’s “Real Time” hosted by liberal Bill Maher. I’m a huge fan and rarely miss it. Typically he has a panel of 3 guests to discuss politics. Sometimes conservatives outnumber libs on the panel to make it a fairer 2 on 2 but typically it’s 2 libs versus a single conservative. To Bill’s credit, the conservative typically is very articulate and sometimes is a familiar headliner like Ann Coulter and conservatives are given more leeway than libs on FOX to express their views. However, it gets worse because midway through the panel portion he brings in yet another lib who he interviews over an upcoming movie, book, or whatever and they typically join in the general discussion.
Unsurprisingly, conservatives typically get their asses kicked on “Real Time” and with rare exception – like Coulter – are cautious in making their points. If they aren’t they know quick-witted host Maher with a spread of facts on the topics he sees fit to discuss spread out before him will pounce. Not to mention any conservative guest will have 2-3 other libs picking their argument to shreds. There’s the added bonus (the show’s live) of liberal audience participation and conservatives are routinely booed which can rattle them.
Sound like an inverse version of “Outnumbered”, Bret Baier’s all-star panel, “The Five”, any of the Saturday biz block panels, etc.?
Yet, when sharp, articulate Bill Maher appears on “The Factor” he never comes off strong – at least the times I’ve witnessed his appearances. And there’s no panel of cons to contend with. Just O’Reilly and Maher going one on one. So is Maher wrong on the issues or a weak lib? Hardly. O’Reilly controls all the cards: The topics, the questions, the producers whispering help into his ear, he has notes and facts in front of him, Maher’s reactions to topics/questions are researched so Bill is prepared to address them, plus “The Factor” (always taped) has an editor to chop out the embarrassing bits.
If a news program has an agenda and has no interest in fairly presenting one side – say “hello” to FOX News – it’s nearly impossible to beat them. I learned that lesson many years ago from a local conservative radio opinion show who explained it all to me.
LBJ looked at Hubert and Hubert was looking at Reuther, grinning. LBJ thought, Hubert is trying to think of a way to go over there and get that hand out of that pocket so he could shake it. LBJ said he was trying to think of a way he could get that hand out of that pocket so he could cut Reuther’s nuts off. From Joe Califanos book on LBJ.
Hubert probably would have been a regular on Faux.