Tag Archives: Bernie Sanders

Counterfactual

Media, Politics,

The dictionary defines a counterfactual as “a conditional statement in which the first clause is a past tense subjunctive statement expressing something contrary to fact, as in: if she had hurried, she would have caught the bus.” In the aftermath of the Tuesday’s election, some progressives are suggesting this counterfactual: If the Democrats had nominated Bernie Sanders, he would have beaten Donald Trump in the presidential election.

This counterfactual can never be proven. The main evidence in its favor comes from the results of polling during the primaries which showed Sanders doing consistently better than Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical race against Trump. The chart below shows Real Clear Politics’ average of all polls pitting Sanders against Trump from January 1 until June 6, when pollsters stopped asking the question. The overall average is Sanders, 49.6%, and Trump, 39.3%. Clinton also had a slight lead over Trump during some (but not all) of this period, but Sanders’ advantage was, on average, more than twice as large.

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Not only were these poll results seldom reported by the corporate media, who were busily engaged in a “Bernie blackout,” but when they were, pundits urged readers to disregard them. (A classic example is an article by Slate‘s William Saletan entitled “Polls Say Bernie is More Electable Than Hillary. Don’t Believe Them.”) The pundits argued that Sanders had not been “vetted” as thoroughly as Clinton, and would therefore be more vulnerable to attack during the election campaign.

As Adam Johnson notes, this argument is wrong on two counts. First, Sanders’ qualifications had been thoroughly examined during the primary and throughout his long career. Secondly, whatever “vetting” Clinton had undergone had already resulted in a public evaluation that was more unfavorable than favorable, and she was still under FBI investigation. This effectively neutralized the corruption and character issues when voters compared Clinton with Trump.

But, you may say, Democratic Party could hardly have selected Sanders since Clinton received more votes in the primaries. She won it “fair and square.” (Cue the laughter.) Of course, this ignores the many obstacles the Democratic National Committee (DNC) placed in Bernie’s path. By far, the heaviest thumb they placed on the scales was the superdelegates—just under 15% of the convention delegates, nearly all of whom favored Clinton. More importantly, the corporate media, from day one, misreported the delegate totals by combining superdelegates (who were not committed) with those earned in the primaries (who were committed). This inflated Clinton’s lead by over 400 delegates. Her lead appeared insurmountable, and she was declared the winner before the primaries were over. It is reasonable to assume that this discouraged potential Sanders voters, but there is no way to tell how many votes this cost him.

It will be interesting to see whether the DNC reforms their primary selection process, or whether conservative Democrats continue to try to take the risk out of democracy.

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Trumping Bernie

Framing the Debates

Trumping Bernie

Media, Politics, , ,

Although we are right to be concerned about the growth of campaign advertising, especially when the candidates’ resources are unequal, you could argue that the amount of free time (or space) given to candidates by the news media is more important.  Statements made by and about candidates in the free media are not as likely to be discounted as advertisements. (The discounting principle states that our confidence in a particular explanation of behavior is weakened by the presence of alternative explanations. In an advertisement, our knowledge that this is a paid message intended to persuade us makes us less likely to see the message as truthful.)

Senator Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have both shown similar increases in support in the presidential polls. According to the Real Clear Politics average of all polls, support for Sanders has grown from 12.7% to 25% from July 1 to the present, while Trump has gone from 6% to 22%. Sanders’ progress might be considered more impressive, however, since he has received less free media coverage.

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Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) used the Nexus database to count the number of free mentions of Sanders and Trump on 13 news media sources between July 1 and August 15. In all cases, Trump received more coverage. The chart below gives the percentage of stories mentioning Sanders as a percentage of those mentioning Trump. For example, on CNN, the ratio was 33%, meaning that Sanders was mentioned one-third as often, or that Trump received three times as much coverage.

TrumpSandersChartOn average, Sanders received 36% as much coverage as Trump. However, there were some interesting differences among the 13 outlets.

  • On the three outlets with the largest audience, the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, Sanders was mentioned only 16% as often as Trump, or in other words, Trump received six times as much publicity.
  • The country’s five major newspapers averaged 34%, very close to the overall average.
  • Public radio and television, which presumably have a mandate to be fair, scored only slightly above the overall average in Sanders coverage.
  • MSNBC, sometimes described as a “progressive” cable network, did have the highest percentage of Sanders coverage, but still mentioned Trump more often.

As Bernie Sanders continues to draw large crowds, the message of the news media seems to be that there’s “nothing to see here.” If we were to ask them why Trump receives so much more publicity than Sanders, my guess is they would claim that his flamboyant personal style makes his activities of greater public interest. However, I suspect that a more important cause is that a central theme of Sanders’ campaign is reducing economic inequality, an unwelcome message to those who own, advertise on, or perform on the news media.

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In addition to discounting campaign advertising, these data suggest we should also discount some of the coverage candidates receive in the free media. However, we’re less likely to do that, since their conflicts of interest are less obvious.