Mainstream Media’s Go-To “Electability” Experts? Corporate-Funded Think Tanks.

As progressive, DSA, and DSA-adjacent candidates win primaries throughout the US, corporate media is rushing to prop up their favorite “centrist” and “moderate” critics — who, ostensibly, are just looking out for the wellbeing of the Democratic Party — to explain why these candidates people are voting for are actually dangerous and “unelectable. ” What the media is refusing to do, on an institutional level, is disclose the glaring conflicts of interests these groups — backed by billionaires, health insurance giants, pro-Israel lobbying firms, and massive corporations — would have in attacking candidates who undermine their sponsors’ bottom lines and ideological agendas.

As I noted in TRNN in June, certain personalities and parties with blatant conflicts of interest are being boosted by US media — presented as mere neutral observers who are Deeply Concerned About Electability — to dump on insurgent candidates such as Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, Melat Kiro and, most recently, Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. El-Sayed’s primary victory in Michigan signaled serious upward momentum for the latest progressive insurgency within the Democratic Party — and triggered a PR crisis for the Democratic establishment. That momentum was stemmed this week, if only for now, as DSA-endorsed candidate for Wisconsin Governor Francesca Hong was narrowly defeated — a defeat that was reportedly due, in part, to voter concerns over “electability.