"Election 2018: Every day in the run-up to the midterm elections, the mainstream news peddles the same message: Republicans are extremists.
But look at the data, and you see that it's Democrats who are increasingly well outside the mainstream.
Writing in New York Magazine, Jonathan Chait had this to say about the Republican party: "Everything that was terrible about the party that nominated Trump is significantly, terrifyingly worse today. Even more distressing: It is likely to lurch further rightward regardless of the outcome of the elections."
As a mainstream journalist, Chait is hardly saying anything unusual about Republicans.
Day after day, the mainstream press files stories describing Republicans as fascists, sexists, racists, anti-Semites, etc.
Here's a tiny sampling of recent headlines:
- "How Republican Extremism Became Normalized."
- "Yes, the Republican Party Has Become Pathological."
- "Why Are Republicans Promoting Ultra-Right Extremism."
- "The Proud Boys, the GOP, and 'The Fascist Creep.' "
What evidence is there of this, other than President Trump's often abrasive rhetoric, and the actions of a few crazed lunatics?
Trump's agenda so far has been mainstream conservative — tax cuts, deregulation, strong defense, secure national borders. (President Clinton said similar things about illegal immigrants and border security when he was president.)
Where Trump has strayed from conservative orthodoxy, it's tended to be toward the left — witness his efforts to force down drug prices and his rhetoric on trade.
...This year, the Democratic field is full of self-declared socialists. ...Prominent liberals routinely say the most incredibly extremist things, without anyone batting an eye.
Case in point is actor James Cromwell, who recently promised violence if Republicans retained control of Congress.
"If we don't stop (President Trump) now, then we will have a revolution for real," he said at an awards ceremony this week. "Then there will be blood in the streets."...
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