It is amusing how often I’ve come across self-proclaimed “independents” or “centrists” who, in reality, wholeheartedly align with the far-left liberal agenda. They consistently echo the Democratic Party’s positions or even venture further left on some matters, all while proudly proclaiming their independence. Yet they are quick to label anyone on the right as a puppet or a shill.
Is it delusions of grandeur that make these leftists, in denial of their own leftist tendencies, insist they are beacons of objectivity? Do they really expect us to believe that while everyone besides them is just a party shill, they are the ones who objectively assess all the issues and coincidentally land on the fringes of the left? Do they actually expect us to call them centrists just because they identify as one and their preferred pronouns are moderate/independent?
I’ve thought that for some time, but now I’m not so sure. I think the media is to blame.
Think about it.
On Friday, The Washington Post published an obituary for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, describing her in its headline as a “centrist stalwart of the Senate.” In what universe was Dianne Feinstein a centrist? She wasn’t in this one — in fact, according to the American Conservative Union, which ranks members of Congress based on their voting record, Feinstein was one of the most left-wing members of the U.S. Senate. She scored a lifetime conservative rating of 8.06% and hit 0% in 2022. No sane person would call her a centrist.
And yet, we’ve seen this kind of thing before.
In 2008, the media similarly described Barack Obama as a centrist while he was running for president. Politico published an article on his “steady centrism,” and ABC News reported on the alleged backlash Obama got for his “centrist views.” Articles describing him as a centrist continued throughout his tenure at the White House, and even after.
When Joe Biden ran for president in 2020, we similarly got barraged with stories about Joe Biden’s “centrism” and how his approach to governing could unite our country after big, bad Trump’s divisive presidency. Salon even described Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden as centrists. Because, apparently we’re supposed to believe we’ve never actually had a liberal or a “progressive” president ever. Even the Los Angeles Times claimed that Biden’s pick of Kamala Harris put a “centrist stamp” on the Democrats’ future.
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We experience the same thing with judicial appointments. Barack Obama’s Supreme Court picks were all dubbed as centrists and judicial moderates, despite their liberal records — including Merrick Garland.
Flash forward to Joe Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, we were once again told by the media that she was a moderate despite her troubling soft-on-crime record and inability to define what a woman is.
Haven’t we had enough of this charade? Why is it that liberals don’t like to admit they’re leftists? And why does the media push the false narrative that leftists are moderates? The obvious answer is that they do it to fool those voters in the middle into thinking that Democrats are more mainstream than Republicans. Perhaps some hardcore Democrats have been fooled into believing they are in the center, as well.