There’s no getting around it: Tuesday’s election results were discouraging. A Democratic candidate for governor lost in Virginia and nearly lost in New Jersey, two states Joe Biden carried handily just a year ago. Beltway pundits, especially in The New York Times, were quick to assign blame to progressives and to Biden’s ambitious agenda, which they say needs to be scaled down and moved towards the “center”, wherever that is.
This week’s featured post examines those elections and that conclusion, and proposes a way forward. “How Ominous Were Tuesday’s Elections?” (which includes an aside on the history and usage of the word woke) should be out a little after 9 EST.
The weekly summary will discuss the bipartisan infrastructure bill Congress passed Friday night, Amy Klobuchar’s new book on antitrust, the Aaron Rodgers fiasco, some good economic news, and a few other things, before closing with a touching leonine love story. (Who knew elderly lions could look so cute together?) That should be out around noon.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
These predictions of doom for the election results in Virginia are wildly out of context. If I, as an average citizen paying attention to politics is aware of this, I would certainly expect a political reporter to have a better grasp. This de facto cheering on Republicans is disgusting. If you can’t do better as a media representative, maybe you have a future as a garbage collector.
Angela – You might reserve your comment until Doug posts his commentary. I infer Doug disagrees with the NYT &c.
I hope you did (or still do) go on to read the article, which I think makes some of the same points you’re thinking of.
Not everyone sees doom and gloom in the election results. The media tend to be much harder on Democrats than Republicans. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/06/democrats-election-victory-loss-media-republicans
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I’m reminded of Bush the Second’s line about the “soft bigotry of low expectations”. Pundits are annoyed when Democrats don’t make sense, but few of them expect Republicans to make sense, so they just shake their heads.