Yes. Yes it do. As Nick Walker Hirsch fumes,
This article treats [Hillary] Clinton as the protagonist in some kind of political drama in which progressive (white) liberal supporters of [Bernie] Sanders are framed as either an obstacle, a nuisance, or a fifth column within the rank and file, while Clinton is lauded for having tied up the money before the race even began...
"She has won the so-called invisible primary, the behind-the-scenes competition for elite support that helps decide the nomination. She has more endorsements and cash than just about any candidate in American history."
...If Clinton and Jeb! Bush are really so powerfully entrenched with the moneyed elites in this country that we can just treat their candidacies as inevitable, why do we bother having elections? We could all save ourselves a lot of time, money and pretense and just let the rich people sort it out without all of those bothersome plebs mucking up the works.Just so. The question is whether the data or the conclusion came first. Nate Cohn is NYT's knockoff Nate Silver, whom they lost to data journalism stardom, whatever the fuck that is. (It's clear and worth chuckling over that NYT was hoping people wouldn't notice the Nate2Nate swap—like turning on Bewitched in 1969 without being bothered or bewildered by the new Dick on the block.)
It's entirely likely, in my view, that NYT editorial owns this brand up to and including dictating the outcome which Mr. Cohn's analysis must prop up. As Nick points out, the whole piece comes from a Clinton-as-a-historical-inevitability POV. Mr. Cohn's tenor—frequent recourse to "Democratic elites", greater discussion of party than of voters—suggests that NYT has already accepted, and expects its readership to accept, that the Age of the Electorate is over. The American people don't elect their officials: they rehearse some tepid cheers over the Candidates (2) that Capital Built, while the media, like Briar Rose's godmethren, amusingly bicker over the color of their outfits.
Oh, sure, throw in lots of drama in the public square for window dressing. The "issues", those enterprises of great pitch and meme-ment don't worry The Money one bit. They serve only as a welcome distraction for the ideological. Besides, more often than not, they aren't even issues to begin with; they're gossip. My FB page has decayed into 10 percent issues and 90 policing of how people react to and discuss the issues. Which fuck that methodically to fine powder.
Of course, Mr. Silcohn and NYT are not wrong. We folks who espouse Sanders are the crazy people. We are "the overwhelmingly white, progressive left"—and in a refreshingly novel turn of events, that image sells like Wal*Mart China-made clothing to downtrodden Black America as well as it sells to white centrists and conservatives. That is what happens, I warrant, when you devote three decades to sabotaging public education, criminalizing communities of color, traducing science, and stigmatizing intelligence. The vast horde of under-educated, shit-fed hinterland masses already accept the new federal figurehead selection model. That is why they have thrown their support behind a professional wrestling superstar called Donald Trump.
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