• [OPINION] ‘We’re nuts!’ isn’t a great pitch for a Green New Deal
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MediaBiasFactCheck's justification for that rating is on their page: The Washington Post played a part with The New York Times in publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The original papers can be viewed Here. The Washington Post started reporting on Watergate in 1972, linking the DNC break-in to Nixon’s campaign and eventually brought down the administration of President Richard Nixon.  According to Pew Research, the Washington Post is more trusted by a liberal readers than conservatives. However, in 2016, The Washington Post published an anti-Bernie Sanders editorial “Bernie Sanders’s fiction-filled campaign” that the New Republic called an “embarrassment.” The Washington Post was involved in a scandal in 1980, when they published an article by Janet Cooke that won the Pulitzer Prize. Cooke later returned the Pulitzer Prize when it turned out the story was not true. In review, The Washington Post publishes stories with emotionally loaded headlines such as “Trump escalates China trade war, announces plan for tariffs on $200 billion in products” and in editorials “The Trump administration created this awful border policy. It doesn’t need Congress to fix it.” When it comes to sourcing they typically utilize credible sources such as Propublica.org, Associated Press, Slate, Princeton.edu, New York Times, wired.com and CNN. Story selection and editorials tend to favor the left with the Washington Post only endorsing Democratic candidatessince 1976, including Hillary Clinton in the last election.  Overall, we rate The Washington Post Left-Center biased due to story selection that favors the left and factually High due to the use of proper sources. (5/18/2016) Updated (M. Huitsing 6/19/2018) I don't know about socialist, but WaPo absolutely publishes op-eds favoring leftist positions. Here's an opinion piece calling for Democrats to embrace progressive policies, here's an opinion piece on how progressive policies are now mainstream, here's an opinion piece urging progressives to seize their advantage, how many more easily-found-through-Google op-eds do you need? Washington Post is pretty well-known in the US for being a generally liberal-leaning newspaper that is highly reliable in terms of accuracy, and publishes a wide variety of op-eds that don't always match with their general stances. Their right-wing equivalent is the Washington Times. You may argue that American leftism isn't 'really' leftism, but when the newspaper has published quite a few articles supporting leftist policies the point is moot. I don't really think you're speaking from any kind of informed position here when you're asking questions that can be answered with either thirty seconds of Google or a basic familiarity with the newspaper.
Ok well then France doesnt have conservatives. Unless your conservatives support what our republicans do, then the French political system is simply infighting between leftists. Holy fucking hell who ever said that they were are you blind or just illiterate?
The FN is pretty much in line with the GOP, values wise. Maybe a bit more isolationist and less liberal economic policies. Only difference is that they're considered to be the radical right here. No idea what this had to do with this thread. Are you trying to get away with flaming here or something? If you want to brag about your literacy, try and actually pay attention to my arguments. The original point is that a liberal stance is different from a social democratic one, the latter of which is the one behind propositions such as the GND. Hence why it makes sense that the WP would argue against it, since they're liberal oriented. Sorry that I can't break it down any more simply.
You're so ethnocentric it hurts. It seems like you hate foreigners far more than any actual right-wing posters on this forum.
American is an ethnicity now?
Could you at least google the words you don't know before you make responses in a debate forum?
I get you feel dogpiled right now, but please, stop and rejoin this conversation when you have something valid to add that isn't basically just shit posting.
The point I'm making is exactly the point you're making: Judging american politics by a european standard is euro-centric. I could just as easily judge european politics by a european standard, or by a North Korean standard, where anything that isn't total control of society by the a communist government is "conservative", or a Saudi standard, where anything left of publicly stoning gays and women to death is "liberal". It's simply eurocentrism to say that Americans are truly "left wing" because our left is more conservative than the french one. However, this is the point that @_Axel believes he is enlightened enough to posted in thread after thread like it's somehow relevant or original
American "liberalism" is just corporatism in a different name. There, someone who's not euro-centric said it.
This thread is going off the rails. Proboardslol's original point was that WaPo isn't an anti-progressive publication as Sableye's characterization made it sound, further adding that (by American standards) it's 'pretty liberal'. Axel made the point that American 'liberal' is different from European 'liberal', asserted that WaPo is 'firmly right of center' (according to a Western European perspective on left-vs-right), and brought up a couple of op-eds to support the claim that WaPo is actually anti-progressive. The argument here seems to be that WaPo might be liberal from an American POV, but isn't 'actually' liberal, because American politics are right-leaning compared to European politics to begin with. But whatever you want to label WaPo's political orientation, WaPo simply isn't a pro-tax-cut, anti-progressive-policy rag like Sableye was claiming, and yes, it does allow a wide variety of opinions in its op-eds such that this single piece is not representative of the publication as a whole, contrary to what Axel was claiming. The American idea of 'liberal' is very different from the French idea of 'liberal'. Fine. That's a valid observation. Democrat neoliberalism is corporate apologia, not progressivism. Fine. Neither of these change the fact that WaPo is more supportive of progressive policies than several of the posts in this thread are implying. There are basically two potential reasons to contest the characterization of WaPo as 'liberal': 1. To argue that a label of 'liberal' according to an American POV is misleading because the publication is actually anti-progressive, which is demonstrably incorrect as WaPo generally has a favorable outlook on progressive policy, and the OP is not representative of their actual reporting or typical op-eds. 2. To make a purely semantic argument over the definition of 'liberal', which is simply chauvinism, since left and right are always relative to their local political environment and there is no objective standard to compare to. Argument #1 could be avoided by taking five minutes to do basic research on the Washington Post before posting, and argument #2 is completely worthless, so both seem pretty low-effort to me.
If anti-progressive op-eds don't indicate that WP is anti-progressive, pro-progressive op-eds don't indicate the contrary either. MBFC's summary explains that while they typically support establishment Dems, they heavily opposed Bernie Sanders. Pro-dems, anti-social democrats. I don't see how that doesn't line up with the original claim.
No, but several decades of historically favoring progressive over anti-progressive views does. You wouldn't see that if all you're doing is looking at the front page, seeing op-eds on both sides, and declaring it a wash. Because the original claim was: talk tax cuts for 'everybody' and you'll find the WaPo enthusiastic, talk about a national plan for our energy future and suddenly we're nutters and that's nonsense, completely wrong on both counts. Washington Post has been overtly critical of Trump's tax policies, and a single op-ed against a progressive energy plan does not represent the publication's overall stance on progressive issues. They're pro-dems, anti-Sanders specifically (eg here's a pro-AOC piece), and pro-progressive policy in general.
Historically, they're mixed. As I demonstrated. I can pull other examples but it'd take time. Mondale was not the first which was a pretty 'not liberal' Democrat that the WaPo nonetheless endorsed. Even keeping all that in mind, them supporting a candidate who literally rejected the premise of the New Deal in favor of moving to the right (and still secured 45 million in his side of the vote versus 55 million) because that's the way he 'saw the party moving' demonstrates that WaPo is, at the very least, 'not staunchly progressive'. Or, in other words, not 'pretty progressive'. They favor establishment candidates. They have a full history of that. They do not have a full history of favoring progressive candidates - and even those who they did support did not always do much more than lip service to those progressive movements. I see their recent pro-AOC piece as yet another 'anti-Trump' sentiment as AOC is presently the banner-lady for that.
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