Media Demands Democrats Always Be The Adults In The Room

I have to say the media response to the government shutdown was particularly disheartening, but it is reflective of a dynamic that must change if we are to restore some sense of sanity to our political processes. As an example, the (since-amended) Saturday morning headline on Bloomberg read "U.S. Shutdown Starts as Senate Democrats Block GOP Funding Plan". But, as the subsequent days showed, the reality was that Senate Democrats joined with (so-called) Republican moderates in blocking the GOP funding plan. Republicans themselves, who control the Senate, could not even produce 50 votes to keep the government open. And as soon as those Republican moderates caved to the February 8th deal with McConnell, so did the Democrats. But the default assumption among most of the media is that Democrats must always be the responsible party and therefore must be blamed.

Moreover, by downplaying the actually decisive role that the remaining, but shrinking, numbers of Republican moderates played, the media adds to the impression of the monolithic nature of the Republican party. In both the House and the Senate, there was probably majority support for both funding CHIP and protecting the Dreamers. But the filibuster may prevent DACA passage in the Senate and the Hastert rule may prevent it from even coming up for a vote in the House. The Democrats' position actually represents the true majority, a combination of Republicans and Democrats, in both houses of Congress. To place blame for the shutdown primarily on the Democrats relegated their position to one in the minority when it actually represented the majority.

We can see a similar dynamic already playing out in certain quarters of the media in anticipation of Democrats regaining some degree of power after the 2018 election. In a conversation between basically two conservative never-Trumpers, David Frum and Andrew Sullivan, Frum says, "The most tactically sensible Democratic strategy for 2018 and 2020 is to become as radical as possible to build mobilization in key Democratic constituencies, and that's the worst possible answer to governing in a stable way thereafter. The conflict between the tactical and strategic for that party will become a moral and constitutional problem for the rest of the country." 

Similarly, in an op-ed in the NY Times, Michael Tomasky writes, "At the same time, there are longer-term concerns that citizens should keep in the back of their minds — not about the Democratic Party, but about the republic. I believe the Democrats are still several years away from becoming a movement party in the way the Republicans are...But if it were to happen — if we were to have two movement-subsumed parties — we would be in for some pretty big changes. We would move inexorably toward a more parliamentary system. New parties would pop up in the center — at least one, and I think probably two. Eventually the Constitution would get a revisit. It’s a potentially ominous road."

On the same day as Tomasky's editorial, David Leonhardt wrote, "The smart move now for Democrats is to accept a short-term funding bill that ends the shutdown and defuses the tension. Republican leaders are open to that solution, because they have their own vulnerabilities. Their party is the majority party, which is often blamed for dysfunction."

Don't get me wrong - all three of these people recognize the clear dysfunction of the Republican party. Frum has written about that topic for a number of years now. Tomasky clearly states in his piece that "the Republicans have been playing this way for years. If Democrats won’t, they’ll just lose. You can’t bring a squirt gun to the O.K. Corral." And he ends his piece by saying that potentially ominous road mentioned above is one that "for now, the Democrats have no choice but to walk it." Leonhardt is also scathing in his placing blame squarely on the GOP for the shutdown while opposing the shutdown on tactical grounds, writing, "The government shutdown is overwhelmingly the fault of Republican leaders. They, not Democrats, are the ones trying to make sharp changes in federal policy, like reduced legal immigration and a border wall. Democrats are largely trying to preserve programs — children’s health insurance and Dreamer protections — that many Republicans say they, too, support."

But, even as all three of these pundits acknowledge the destructive dysfunction of the Republican party, the underlying message is that it is up to Democrats to continue to be the adults in the room and that our system of government will be threatened if they don't. The obvious response is that saving our system of government requires a far greater focus on reforming the Republican party today than on worrying about what Democrats might do in the future. That Republican party is represented by a President who has arguably done more in one year to challenge the fundamentals of our constitution and our democracy than anyone since the Civil War. That party enables that President's lawlessness every single day.

Last night on Fox News, Senator Ron Johnson declared that he had an informant who told him there is a "secret society" inside the FBI that is working to overthrow Donald Trump. I guarantee this will hardly be blip in the news cycle. Similarly, as Daniel Dale has repeatedly pointed out, "One of the questions most central to Trump's Mueller fate is what he knew about Flynn's legal vulnerability when he pressured and then fired Comey - and he keeps not being asked about that, ever, even in long interviews." This question has been hanging for months now, yet the press still has not really confronted the President on the issue.

Allowing Johnson's comment to slide and not pressing the President on the most critical point in a potential obstruction of justice, are just two more examples of how the media refuses to make Republicans accountable for their actions. In doing so, the media shifts the burden for any agency for action or change onto the Democratic party (or, in the Russian investigation, onto Mueller). That is not fair to the Democrats or to the country. Nor is it fair to ask Democrats to continually cover for or make up for the failures of the Republican party. But that is what much of the media continues to do.