[dbingham]

No. That sentiment didn't "move toward the center".

What happened is that the far-right -- and, lets not use euphemisms like "the far right" here, we're talking about fascists and literal Nazis (ethno-fascism is Nazism) -- have successfully taken control of much of our mass media. They've also more or less captured the government of one of the world's super powers. Those two things put together have allowed them to make their views appear mainstream.

This is exactly what happened during the 1920s and 1930s prior to World War II. And similarly, you were finding Nazi views expressed openly and proudly and being given a veneer of respectability. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1939_Nazi_rally_at_Madison_Squ...)

But they are no less extreme now than they were then. They are still fascist and Nazi views. And they still ought to be abhorrent to anyone who considers themselves a decent human being.

[Auracle]

It's beyond incredible that anyone thinks that the far right has taken control of the mass media. It's clearly the left that has control of most of the media, which makes sense. People in cities tend to be on the left. Journalism majors tend to be on the left.

[agar]

Have you looked at media ownership recently?

The days of a scrappy newspaper or local market newscast are over. Reframe your statement from "People in cities tend to be on the left. Journalism majors tend to be on the left" to "People who own media firms tend to be on the right. People who set journalistic standards for their outlet tend to be on the right."

[plagiarist]

Which specific mass media are controlled by the left?

[Auracle]

NPR. NBC. ABC. CBS has decided to try being moderate, so we'll see how that goes. MS NOW or whatever they call themselves now. The New York Times. The Washington Post. Politico. USA Today. Vox. Slate. The New Yorker. Huffpost. The Atlantic. Much of the gaming media, weirdly. Reddit. Twitter was. Bluesky is. Wikipedia, if that counts as media.

Allsides even lists the AP as left leaning, though I don't ingest enough direct AP stuff to verify. I'd disagree with them listing the BBC as neutral on quite a few topics, nowadays, and put them towards left - but that's just me.

Sure, there are right-leaning places like The National Review, but apart from the opinion section of the WSJ and Fox News as a whole they're pretty small.

[NoGravitas]

Washington Post is owned by Bezos, so at best center-right. CBS (and its associated properties like Paramount) are owned by a family of far-right oligarchs, who will also soon own Warner Bros Discovery. Said oligarchs appointed a far-right political commentator as a political officer to control editorial content at CBS.

A lot of the rest you list are not left leaning, but centrist (derogatory).

[dbingham]

None of these are left.

You could make an argument that some of them are "classical liberal" or "neoliberal", but that was the center in the US and everywhere else it is center-right.

Definitions are helpful here.

"Classical liberal" is what the US was founded as. It was a liberal Republic. Classical liberals value political freedoms, civil rights, and free markets. They are anti-monarchy and anti-authoritarian. Most of the revolutions of the 1700s and 1800s were driven by Classical Liberals seeking political freedom

In the origination of "left" and "right", Classical Liberals were "center left". "Center right" were the moderate constitutional monarchists. In the US where we have zero interest in constitutional monarchy, Classical Liberalism was always the center.

Since World War II, that center became a settled question in much of the western world. The answers are "Yes, constitutions", "Yes, political freedoms", and "Yes, civil rights". Though in many places, civil rights were incompletely extended and so much of the argument has been about extending them fully.

The other side of the argument is "the social question" which got rebranded as "economics". It boils down to how much do we allow power and wealth to concentrate. This became more and more of an element of the revolutions starting in the 1850s -- the revolutions of 1848 were the first to really feature a true left as it is understood today: socialist, communist, and anarchist. (At the time, it was just socialist. Communism as a theory didn't exist yet and anarchism was nascent.). And just to be clear, the "left" refers to Classical Liberals as "Bourgeoisie liberals" -- capitalists and capitalist defenders -- and does not consider them to be part of the left.

The center in the US since the 70s has been a neoliberal consensus which argues for allowing the Capitalist markets to do their thing with minimal intervention. And most of the debate has been about how much that minimal invention should be -- with the two sides mostly arguing between "almost none" and "minimal".

Neoliberalism is more or less a form of libertarianism (US Libertarianism edges into Anarcho-capitalism).

For all of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, Neoliberalism was the center and was the entirety of both the Democratic and Republican parties. The "left" vs "right" argument was focused on things like foreign policy and whether we complete the extension of civil rights to everyone.

For most of those decades, all of those sources you just named arranged themselves squarely around that center. They were all Neoliberal. They all took rotating positions on foreign policy, aligning with each party based on the political winds of the moment. Many of them did include arguments in favor of the continued extension of civil rights, but many of them also included arguments against it. Few of them whole-heartedly endorsed that extension until after the fact.

We've never had much of a truly left mass media to speak of.

In the last decade and a half, authoritarianism, fascism, and neo-Nazism have seen a resurgence world wide. And in the US an explicitly fascist movement with Nazi elements captured the Republican party and then the government. Anyone with a political science background taking an honest, empirical look at the MAGA movement will identify it thus. That movement directly pulled from the Nazi playbook in their rise to power. Trump has often cribbed directly from Hitler's speeches, barely even paraphrasing them.

During that movements rise to power, we have seen large elements of the wealthy elite that controls much of the media align with that movement.

At this point, most social media sites are controlled by actors who either have explicitly aligned with the US fascist movement or have effectively acquiesced to it.

Meta has added fascist aligned members to its board and put fascist aligned people in executive positions through the company. They've also voluntarily acquiesced to the regime's requests to silence anti-regime activists.

Twitter is explicitly fascist. Elon Musk is a core member of that movement.

TikTok has been captured by that movement through an orchestrated buyout.

Most of our media is social media, and right there you now have the biggest source of news and information for the vast majority of people fully captured by the fascist movement.

As for traditional media, CBS has been captured. Bari Weiss is a part of the fascist movement and her elevation was part of their pressure campaign.

The Washington Post is owned by Bezos who has aligned with that movement and is explicitly exerting editorial control.

News Corp (Fox News and the WSJ) is aligned with the fascist movement and is arguably one of its originators. Sinclair group, which owns most local TV stations, is also aligned with that movement.

And to be clear, I watched this happen. I've long made a habit of subscribing to sources from across the spectrum and made a hobby study of political science and trying to identify source's biases by political taxonomy vs the frustratingly simplistic left / right spectrum. I used to subscribe to The National Review, Reason, The American Conservative, the Weekly Standard, and others. I've largely tried to avoid those that are blatant, ingenuine propaganda (which Fox News has always been) in favor of those making earnest well founded arguments. And one by one, I've watched them fall to the fascist movement over the last decade. Reason is the last hold out, truly committed to civil liberties and libertarianism -- though it hasn't yet recognized the fascist movement for what it is (or hadn't last I checked in on them -- I haven't had the time to read as much lately).

It's pretty clear that you're in the fascist propaganda bubble, based on your posts and where you put things, and that is badly skewing your perception of where the center is.

I would strongly encourage you to get out of that bubble.

[Auracle]

I'm not the one in the bubble. You are so far left that think that MS NOW, Huff Post, Vox, etc. aren't on the left in a No True Scotsman type manner, and in your comment you used the word 'fascist/fascism' over 10 times in reference to people that are simply right leaning or even very centrist.

I personally have individual beliefs that align with both of our two major political parties, which is something very few people can actually say, for what it's worth.

[dbingham]

No, I'm basing my analysis in history and political science and you are basing yours on your own gut biases. I'm referring to people who are part of an explicitly fascist movement (as identified by political scientists, historians, and experts in fascism) as fascist.