[dgfitz]

> ...to fuel the narrative that media is inherently left-leaning?

Right around this time 8 years ago, the election was over... in the media. Clinton won, trump didn't, in like September of 2016. Like, the world was collectively shocked. Because, according to the media, trump was cooked.

How does that square?

[sudosysgen]

A big part of why Clinton won in the media while her rivals didn't is because she was the least left-leaning Democrat president candidate since, well, Clinton. Clinton's' vast corporate support is because she would lean to the right of the average American on most economic issues and was business as usual, in vast opposition to her rival.

Compare for example media treatment of Sanders or even Warren when he opposed her and you can see that it's not her leftist tendencies that made her win in the media.

[dgfitz]

> Compare for example media treatment of Sanders or even Warren when he opposed her and you can see that it's not her leftist tendencies that made her win in the media.

Respectfully I don’t accept your premise here. You’re saying she was center of left? But still “left”, as it were? And you agree the media crowned her king months before the election?

So the media ordained her the winner. You do agree or you do not?

[sudosysgen]

I am saying that the media was enamored with her because she represented a shift rightwards compared to her predecessors, and that her campaign successfully shifted the leftmost acceptable economic policies to be to the right of the electorate.

In that the media vastly prefered her over Trump, it was because she was pro-establishment and better aligned with corporate interests, not because she was economically to his left. The case of Warren and Sanders (where famously the media was happy to compare Sanders to Trump, reinforcing the idea that their opposition to Trump is not due to his right-wing economic policies) as well as the comparison to previous Democratic candidates is evidence I think is much more compelling than the assumption of leftwing/rightwing partisanship.

[dgfitz]

> … her campaign successfully shifted the leftmost acceptable economic policies to be to the right of the electorate.

Huh. If that were true she would have won. So it can’t be true. Unless your claim is “the right was too far right” in which case your “right-of-the-electorate” cannot be mathematically true.

Were you trying to make a different point? The current one doesn’t hold water.

[mtalantikite]

> If that were true she would have won.

Not who you're discussing with, but Hillary did win the popular vote by about 3 million votes.

[dgfitz]

Fair point.

[sudosysgen]

70% of people who voted for Hillary Clinton said that they voted against Trump, not for her. And people don't vote for whatever candidate is closer to them on the left-right spectrum, they care about personality, about how the candidate makes them feel. In those terms Trump was extremely polarizing, many people whose policies were closer to Trump than Clinton voted for Clinton because Trump was, as a person, unacceptable.

Besides, there are people who just don't vote if your platform or personality is not engaging. That was a big phenomenon with Clinton and is generally what decided whether or not Democrats win: the higher the turnout, the higher their chances. If a Democrat runs to the right, they lose turnout from leftwing voters who stay home, they don't (just) win votes from the center.

Also, Clinton did win the popular vote, despite all of this.