What is called "left" these days is more, "that which conforms to Democrat narratives" and lately quite illiberal, while pretty much anything else is called "right" or "far-right" even when it's attacking corporations or the military-industrial complex.
A Left leaning news source would be much more interested in discussing the demands of workers, pushing for strong labor, nationalization of corporations, etc. When Slavoj Žižek becomes a newscaster somewhere, and the news is talking about how important it is to eliminate landlords then we can talk about left leaning news media.
Obviously the Overton Window works in both directions. All I’m saying is that MSNBC seems to track generally the state of liberal-progressive political discourse, even if it isn’t the left-leaning progressive discourse you’d hope it would be.
Hopefully that makes sense. Appreciate your reply.
I think I probably care more about defining "left" vs "liberal" then most here in the States.
And I'd agree, as much as I want it to be the case that we see more worker solidarity, it's not the thing most Americans seem to think about. Even if they have concerns about current policies. For instance, Americans could call for a general strike as a response to the Roe v Wade decision. But the idea of using worker power in that way seems quite alien here.
I'm sorry, but the credibility of those networks has completely inverted.
That's not my opinion. The vast majority of media-fueled outrages that were blasted by MSNBC and CNN over the last 6-10 years have proven to be cynical distortions or extrapolation at best, and many times outright fabrication.
Meanwhile, "conspiracy theories" are consistently turning out to be relatively accurate, which is a double whammy as the MSM are the ones telling you they are conspiracy theories.
That is your opinion. There is no factual basis on which to claim that Fox (which is part of the MSM btw.) is somehow more factual or better news than the rest. This of course doesn't mean that the rest is good, just not as crazy bad.
> "conspiracy theories" are consistently turning out to be relatively accurate
Absolutely.. if you you are part of some right-wing-bubble.
Sincerely, your George Soros sponsored online shill.
When I'm at my parents' house and Fox News is on (as it always is) I can google a pretty high percentage of things they're "covering" and find they're bullshit. The most-used, but not only, tactic is to report something ordinary as if it's new and sinister, omitting all context. They do it constantly.
To be fair, maybe you're right and CNN and MSNBC are even worse. Dunno, I've mostly known people from center-left to far-left (plus a few that defy categorization) in my social circles for most of my life, and none of them have ever thought either network was worth a damn.
Nothing mainstream. The right wing is fond of calling the other side communists, though in reality you could probably fit every actual communist American into a single stadium. America is a right-leaning country, there is no left to speak of.
Though I suppose it might be fair to say that such constructs only really matter within a single political system, so "left" and "right" don't automatically have to be a particular definition.
It’s not always as progressive as American progressives would like it to be, but not being progressive≠ not left leaning.
This is unfortunately a consequence of the two party system in the States. We equate Democrats with Left and Republicans with Right. Anything supportive of Democrats gets labeled "left" even if the policies are really centrist, pro capital ones. Because we don't really have the language here to differentiate the Left and Democrats in mainstream American parlance.
I think your perspective is more radical than you realize. You sound like a revolutionary to me, not a progressive.
You can like some aspect of capitalism and think some industry/market should be protected from it (like inherently monopolistic markets?)
Compare the difference between Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden. Warren and Biden fundamentally believe that capitalism is good and the natural law of the land. Sanders does not. Warren believes that we need to do more to address inequality between the owners and the workers, Biden does not.
I would (personally) consider Bernie to be Leftist, Warren to be Left Leaning, and Biden to be Centrist.
None of them I would consider to be revolutionary left. I've met plenty of tankies who believe in an authoritarian left seized through violence. (I am not one.)
There are fundamentally, multiple axises upon which you can measure political policy, views, goals, parties, etc. A few examples of widely understood ones being “progressive/conservative”, “authoritarian/libertarian”, “collectivist/anarchist”, and some even cover similar things such as “socialist/capitalist” which has philosophical overlap “collectivist/individualist” but is not the same, being obviously more focused on the economic structures than basic political philosophies of collectivism vs individualism.
All of this is to say that boiling politics down to a simplistic “left/right” spectrum does nothing but confuse the issues.
That said, and I'm curious if you'd agree, I don't think that means that we cannot observe that MSNBC is left-biased. Both in a relative (definitely) and absolute sense. That said, if we are going to use such a reductive spectrum, we do lose a huge amount of important details that may keep individuals from agreeing with my perspective.
Effectively I could agree with a characterisation of MSNBC as “left” if you want to define “left” as just “progressive”. Which feels like an oversimplification that hides the fact that when you look critically at the situation that broadly speaking news in the USA is tailored to instil fear as a mechanism to keep people watching because seeking information (to ensure our safety) on things our brain finds threatening is a basic human instinct that happens at a subconscious level. Effectively the only difference between the 24/7 news channels is what they think you’re afraid of.
Democracy Now! (radio)
The Nation (print)