Polar Expressions

With the 2018 midterm elections looming, WaPo's headline this morning in a piece by Mike DeBonis plays to balance of those "two sides". So the big political news becomes "Pelosi is the star of GOP attack ads, worrying Democrats upbeat about midterms" which leads with:

"While Democrats grow optimistic about their chances of taking control of the House in November, they are increasingly anxious that the presence of their longtime and polarizing leader, Nancy Pelosi, is making it harder for many of their candidates to compete in crucial swing districts."

You could be forgiven for thinking that the description "polarizing leader" is an apt beginning to any accurate description of Trump. And anyone can see that the Republican talking points in campaigns play to a somewhat visceral reaction of the Republican base to certain prominent Democratic politicians who - not coincidentally - happen to be powerful women, or minorities, or both.

But our popular press gives themselves a pass in news reporting on politics and government - if one "side" does it - Trump in this case, then the other side can safely be assumed to "do it" - meaning Pelosi. If Trump polarizes, all day, every day, then reporting that Pelosi is a "polarizing figure" is deemed to pass the objectivity test. This approach in political news reporting may seem harmless enough, but this flaw in objective reporting, in its many forms, creates a loophole that is exploited by  Republican party campaign (and governing) tactics, as frequently discussed on this blog. And actual assymetry between the two leading parties that dominate U.S. politics is, as a matter of "objective" journalistic practice, explained away. And if you provide counterexamples, then you are presumed biased and your examples are safely ignored. At least that is the position of WaPo much of the time, and the NYTimes editors virtually all the time.

Source: bostonglobe.com

Late today, without reference to the above news article about "polarizing" Pelosi, WaPo opinion writer Paul Waldman in "What Republican attacks on Nancy Pelosi are really about" lays bare the flaws in WaPo's news reporting. The accompanying picture of Pelosi from the DeBonis piece is used again in Waldman's piece, which seems intentional as a call-out on the original article. Waldman explains in detail why Republican campaigns target Pelosi, stating:

"And it’s partly the us-versus-them conflict that has animated every Republican campaign for a half century. Democrats, they tell voters, aren’t like us. They don’t share our values; they’re elitist and alien and threatening. Those ideas can be expressed through issues, but what they’re about is cultural affinity: The Republican candidate is one of us, and the Democratic candidate is one of them."

So it is not about policy. And it is not about anything Pelosi herself actually does. It is all about Republican tactics to demonize the opposition - tactics that Trump was able to employ better than any other Republican candidate in the 2016 primaries.

The term "polarizing" thus applies best to Republican tactics in campaigns. It is something Republicans do - not something our country is, no something that both sides do, or leading Dems do. Only laziness of reporters and their editors, or even bias, can explain why a WaPo news article refers to Pelosi as "polarizing" and it takes a WaPo opinion piece to call out the flaw in WaPo's own reporting.