I have seen alot of the mainstream media do thins like criticise wars, criticise money in politics, side with social democrats sometimes, talk about corruption in certain businesses, promote certain reforms etc
now obviously I know that social democracy is not the establishnment and i know that the mainstream media does criticise social democrats quite alot like CNN and MSNBC. but its still confusing. I know social democracy is just welfare and reform and not the actual socialism that i want. But it is still confusing why so much pro worker and anti corporation stuff is in the liberal media. Can someone explain why sections of the ruling class would work against their own profit making interests like this?
This is going to be a bit of a hot take but they probably just do it because social democracy isn't a threat to capitalism and only makes capitalism better for the workers which causes the workers to not fight against capitalism.
Jacob Johnson
It's channeling support away from revolutionary thought. You might even notice that there is a psyop pushed by faux news that kamala harris is "far left" and supports "socialist programs". They're turning the socialist enemy into a neoliberal strawman on purpose, so that socialism doesn't even get negative media recognition.
Jaxon Perry
thats what i originally thought but this does still very much hurt corporate profits and power
i have seen michael parenti talks where he talks about how the social democrat side is never brought up in corporate media and that social democracy and social democratic options arent even shown as an option. obviously Parenti isnt a social democrat but he was pointing out how right wing the "liberal media"was
but now its ten years later since he did those talks on the media and the liberal media is getting more and more like that
Angel Price
I get that but idk why they would even want to do it in the first place when theyve been supporting the exact opposite for so long. I understand making the workers happy with healthcare but i dont understand getting money out of politics or tighter regulations or more corporate accountability
Nicholas Perry
Capital is more and more willing to compromise as it feels its institutions are being threatened by the course of history.
Nathaniel Davis
That’s how you know they really are starting to feel threatened. But, let’s also not exaggerate, the whole point of the embrace of identity politics by establishment democrats is to use nominally left-wing cultural elements to sell far-right and center-right economic ideas.
The energy that dem shills are putting into Kamala Harris’s candidacy shows that this trend is going to die hard. Either a social democrat like Bernie will pull the upset unlikely given the anti-democratic party structure of the dems or they will run another mediocre candidate that will hand another term to Trump.
As much of the criticism of the suc dems like Bernie and AOC must be made. We must always keep in mind that the Democratic Party is not a social Democratic Party—it isn’t based in the labor movement like the Labour Movement is in Britain. Shitty European social democracy at least has some basis in the shitty trade union leadership that workers there elect. The Democrats are *literally* the left-wing of Capital in the sense that they are a capitalist party funded and lead by capitalists who are merely somewhat more “progressive” on certain issues than the Republicans on certain issues and not even all of them
Joshua Mitchell
You're setting a pretty low bar here. If they didn't talk about corruption in corporations it would be suspect.
The thing about propaganda in American media is that it has to be subtle. They rely on actually good journalism most of the time, or at least enough of the time to attain public trust. It's genuinely less heavyhanded than, say, Pravda circa '00s or something like that. So most of the time, there's some effort to appear unbiased but within the framework of mainstream politics - to represent public grievances to the extent necessary to avoid any accusations. It's not purely beholden to the state on everyday issues.
Mostly they operate independently, until there's an Iraq and someone above decides they shouldn't.
Jeremiah Green
Because it sells and it gets people's attention and it even feels a bit good to be the reporter writing the notionally pro-worker story (with appropriate balance to the case for financial interests of course!) even if it will change nothing.
Gavin Edwards
Except it is and that's why capitalist medias support social-democracy.
