Amanda Carpenter argues in a Politico column that the media serves the role that the Democratic Party ought to be serving in our current political climate.
Where, oh, where is the leader of the loyal Democratic opposition these days?
Don’t ask former President Barack Obama. He’s out surfing. Hillary Clinton? Hiking in the woods. CNN’s Anderson Cooper recently asked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi who the leader of the Democratic Party is and she, oddly, pointed to both Obama and Clinton, both officially out of office. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer isn’t exactly rising to the occasion, either. He’s saying the same old things about Republicans—they’re all “extreme” and too far out of the “mainstream”—that he’s being saying for the past decade. Oh, and that new Democratic National Committee Chairman, Tom Perez? He’s already on the GOP’s “do not take seriously” list, unapologetically uttering nonsense like Republicans “don’t give a sh*t about people” and supporting the notion that President Donald Trump didn’t actually win the election.
No wonder the Trump White House considers, as top adviser Steve Bannon said, the media to be the “opposition party.” The Democrats, writ large, aren’t worthy opponents. For those making purely political calculations, it makes far more sense for team Trump to attack the members of the media, who represent a serious threat to Trump’s influence and power, than the Democrats, who appear to be no threat at all.
The only thing standing between Trump and his agenda, whatever that is, is the media.
