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Comment by leviathant | Hacker News Reader

No. If that's what you took from my post, I've miscommunicated.

NPR has turned rightward. The entertainment shows are, without a doubt, liberal, on the American political spectrum. There are countless discussions and papers about the role empathy plays in successful entertainment.

The editorial content has turned rightward - and the leadership has turned rightward. This has been ongoing for at least two decades, probably longer, but I wasn't paying attention at that level when I was under 20.

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NPR was not rightward this past election, for sure. I don’t think NPR missed to report a single Kamala endorsement last fall.

OP is arguing nuances, and you seem to be intent to distill everything to a binary construct. Nuances are what runs the world, not binary groups.

I thought they meant NPR was generally neoliberal left of center, and their coverage has perhaps moved toward the center post-Obama while still being left of it.

Where exactly is the American 'center' as of 2025? Where is the midway point between the modern establishment left and the establishment MAGA right?

Because to me, that midpoint looks to be way to the right of, say, Mitt Romney or George Bush Jr or Reagan.

I think the center in modern American politics has historically been neoliberalism, which explains why the center keeps holding. Neoliberalism is only now having to respond to populism on the left and right, which has caused the balance of power to shift on each side. The neoconservative bloc has attained power on the right with the rise of Trump and the Tea Party before him, and some folks on the left have acquired influence, like Bernie Sanders and AOC. The center is holding less and less as the bureaucracy is being fired and defunded.

I don’t mean to be dismissive, as I think your reading is also accurate. The center of mass is shifting, but I’m not sure the locus of control is as much.

Sanders and AOC are fringe socialists who hold no power in either the press, or the political establishment.

MAGAnuts are now the mainstream face, body, and soul of the political establishment.

Where exactly is the 'center' between the latter and Chuck Schumer? Where is that 'center' going to be in three years, as every month, MAGA picks up the goalposts and moves them a few miles right-wards?

I think AOC is closer to the establishment than even I realized. AOC walked Khalil out from within the security perimeter to meet with family members and waiting press including Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWpRCoQ2wWE

AOC is doing the important work that Congresspeople do. I don’t know if it’s fair to say that she’s fringe. She’s showing up and doing the work that other people don’t show up and do. If it’s fringe work, that is fair to say I guess if you feel that way. I was surprised to see her in this video but at the same time it seems totally in character for her to be there. I think she’s probably going to run for president or vice president at some point in the next few cycles if I had to guess, and these are baby steps to build trust with the Muslim community and get in front of reporters on a national issue.

NPR and especially its editorial content has turned steadily more leftward over the past 9 years (especially since Trump’s election in 2016) and moderately accelerated during COVID/around the talk of the death of one of the hosts. I say this as someone who is left-wing.

I didn’t think there was much debate on this point, it’s rather well documented/easily searchable online. If you genuinely think NPR’s editorial content has turned more right from the left, you are probably operating on a different scale than the general American public. There has also been a lot more scandals with their editorial content and the information accuracy in recent years with the bias being more and more left.

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