This morning the Daily Beast broke a new “bombshell” about Bernie Sanders, basically accusing him of racism:

EXCLUSIVE: As Sanders floats at the top of the polls, previously unreported statements from the '70s where he compared predominantly white workers in his home state of Vermont to black slaves may put his past and judgment into questionhttps://t.co/s8V6GKl5yE

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) January 23, 2020

In one archival interview obtained by The Daily Beast, Sanders told a local newspaper that the sale of a privately held mining company harkened to “the days of slavery when black people were sold to different owners without their consent” https://t.co/Qsa85TBIaf

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) January 23, 2020

He also and compared the service economy to chattel slavery.
Despite a long history of advocating for civil rights, Sanders faced difficulty winning over voters of color in 2016, particularly across the Deep South. https://t.co/Qsa85TBIaf

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) January 23, 2020

I only have one concern about Sanders here: Who released their oppo research, Biden or Warren? The Daily Beast framing on Twitter is instructive, and quite honestly, terrifying. The author of the social media posts opens with “as he floats at the top of the polls…” we understand why these decades-old statements are seeing the light of day: he’s becoming too dangerous. The accusations are pathetically weak, but the Beast wants to plant the seed of doubt for black voters in, especially in the South, because they constitute an important voting bloc that has been swaying in Sanders’ direction.

This is more media collusion with other Democratic campaigns in open warfare against Sanders. Recently the Warren campaign leaked a supposed scoop to CNN about Sanders telling her that a woman could never be President. There were two people in the room, Warren and Sanders; a classic he-said, she-said. And yet, the media decided to run with the narrative that Sanders did indeed make such statements, and neglected to point out the glaringly obvious: the leak about Sanders came from within the Warren campaign. On MSNBC, Noah Rothman had a succinct takedown of the situation:

Hoping someone would post this. I have thoughts on Warren’s tactics here. They’re not kind. https://t.co/iAYNe9zchJ

— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) January 17, 2020

It keeps making me wonder: Is the experience of watching the media work towards Bernie Sanders’ destruction going to end up red pilling his supporters?

I used to read The Economist religiously. I loved the tone it took regarding world affairs I was totally unfamiliar with. I didn’t know anything about domestic politics in India or Indonesia, but I felt like I did after I read the paper. That is, until I started to follow Israel news closely, and read coverage of it in the Economist. It wasn’t just wrong, it was maliciously so. And it made me wonder: What else are they lying through their teeth about and I just have no idea? We ended up letting our subscription lapse, I just couldn’t trust the paper anymore.

Will Sanders supporters have a similar experience with the mainstream media? This week it was reported that 9 in 10 Republicans have lost faith in the media, and some wrongly attributed this phenomenon to President Trump:

With 9 in 10 Republicans reporting having lost faith in the media (because Trump's rhetoric has worked), I argue it's time for newspapers to rethink their relationships with readers and end endorsements now – my op-ed is up on @NBCNewsTHINK – https://t.co/q08k3vpb9p

— Matt Laslo (@MattLaslo) January 20, 2020

This is bigger than Trump. I always say that the President keeps going back to the anti-media well because it keeps filling back up with water. With Sanders’ popularity soaring and mainstream Democrats colluding with the mainstream media to kneecap him, I can’t help but wonder if we’ll see similar numbers on the Left in short order.