MSNBC's attacks on Bernie Sanders may result in a self-fulfilling "prophesy," but to what purpose?

It was clear that Rachel Maddow, probably the only person on MSNBC who gives Bernie Sanders the time of day on a network that spends most of its time warning of the coming Apocalypse if Sanders is nominated, was not her normally “friendly” self, but seemed particularly unhappy with the fact that Sanders was doing something “wrong.” Why weren’t younger voters turning out as “expected”? Why were his supporters “viciously” attacking Elizabeth Warren? Why wasn’t his “message” resonating with more people? Did he really think he still had a chance to win? Sanders was for the most part defensive and irritable throughout the interview. I didn’t blame him; Maddow was giving him the treatment that the now departed Chris Matthews had supposedly given Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton, and “fair is fair.”

Of course it wasn’t “fair” because Matthews was forced to “retire” because of a lame accusation, and Maddow was just doing her “job” at MSNBC by joining the anti-Sanders hit squad. Maddow didn’t admit to what others are saying—that MSNBC was busy poisoning the atmosphere against Sanders: Common Dreams News—“MSNBC in Full Freakout Mode” over Sanders becoming frontrunner; The Nation—“Why is MSNBC Freaking Out over Bernie Sander?s”; CNN—“What is MSNBC’s Problem with Bernie Sanders?”; Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting—“MSNBC’s Anti-Sanders Bias Makes it Forget How to do Math” and the Daily Beast—“Tensions Between Bernie Sanders and MSNBC Boil Over” are pretty self-explanatory about what is going on at MSNBC, the so-called “progressive” news channel.

But then again, it may all come down to who is being "blame" for Clinton's loss in 2016 when virtually everyone--including Trump himself--was "shocked" when she didn't. Let’s just take a look at who MSNBC is pushing on us this time, who Sanders is annoyingly in the way of. Joe Biden’s first presidential run in 1988 was such a disaster that it ended before the primary season even began. Biden claimed to represent a “new generation” of voters, but as the New York Times noted, his first run was a “calamity,” and that his missteps then still “resonate” today. Accusations of plagiarizing a speech by a British politician, and claiming that he had “high grades” in law school when in fact he finished 76^th out of 85 in his graduating class were just the beginning. For his staff, Biden had a “concerning” habit of inventing a past out of whole cloth that were easily exposed as lies, such his alleged “civil rights” endeavors (Warren has that problem too, to be “fair”). The Times also noted that his “swaggering, ad-libbing, liable to get carried away in front of a crowd" style could work for and against him at the same time. Biden also had—and continues to have—a habit of demeaning and belittling voters who question him. 

In his 2008 run, Biden was surprisingly unknown to a large number of voters, and most voters had no opinion of him at all—but that would soon change once the gaffes started. Although Biden and Barack Obama had a good relationship, it was Biden’s condescending quip that Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” that “resonated” with voters over anything else he said. Biden received one percent of the vote in Iowa and dropped out soon afterward. After he won the nomination, Obama picked him as his running mate because of his alleged “cred” with working class voters. Along the way, he said things like:

“Here I am, the first Irish-Catholic vice president in the history of United States of America. Barack Obama is the first African-American in the history of the United States of America.”

“If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

“What I’m trying to say without boring you too long at breakfast, and you all look dull as hell, I might add. The dullest audience I have ever spoken to. Just sitting there, staring at me. Pretend you like me!”

After a time of laying off Biden and his son’s Ukrainian connections and assorted conspiracy theories, it appears that Trump and his supporters in Congress are eager to resurrect their attacks on him. Given his past history, I’m not sure that Biden is “equipped” to push back on these attacks in a “thoughtful” manner, I suspect that if people thought that the 2016 election was ugly, they haven’t seen anything yet if Biden is the nominee. And as for MSNBC, its credibility with progressives may be irreparably damaged.

Unlike Biden, Sanders has a moral and ethical reputation that is hard to beat. I suspect the problem with Sanders is that maybe people think he is too “serious”—that when he talks “change” he actually means it—and when it comes right down to it, most people are afraid of “change.” Every human being deserves a chance at a dignified existence, but not everyone believes that--certainly not Trump. Some people, like Biden, only promise nothing more than a slight “change” of priorities, enough to mollify those who feel “guilty” about allowing an out-of-control moral and ethical monster to occupy the White House. Is that enough? For the voters who the Democrats are trying reach, only possibly, since the only people in this country who truly feel  what a cruel beast Trump is  are the immigrant groups he hates for reasons of race--and who really cares about those "Mexicans" anyways? The fewer the better, right?