Media top headlines May 26
CNN's Jeff Zucker downplaying Chris Cuomo advising his brother as a 'mistake' and more round out today's top media headlines
A New York Times opinion writer wondered in a new op-ed on Wednesday if the progressive cancel culture push will backfire on Democrats at the polls, and he isn't the only analyst asking the question.
"Is Wokeness ‘Kryptonite for Democrats?’" Times contributor Thomas Edsall's headline asked.
Edsall quoted several surveys finding most people are against the more radical campaigns, such as efforts to defund the police and upend traditional gender norms. And yet, he said, Republicans can still point to the extreme minority that is pushing these ideas to argue that the Democratic Party is increasingly beholden to the radicals.
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"Although centrist Democrats make up the majority of the party in the polls I cited above, the fact that a substantial minority of Democrats takes the more extreme stance allows Republicans to portray the Democratic Party as very much in thrall to its more ‘radical’ wing," Edsall wrote.
Edsall shared an email he received from social psychologist Jonathan Haidt arguing that the left-wing policies will only serve to drag down the party.
"Wokeness is kryptonite for Democrats," Haidt wrote. "Most people hate it, other than the progressive activists. If you just look at Americans' policy preferences, Dems should be winning big majorities. But we have strong negative partisanship, and when people are faced with a party that seems to want to defund the police and rename schools, rather than open them, all while crime is rising and kids' welfare is falling, the left flank of the party is just so easy for Republicans to run against."
That belief is shared by Democratic strategist James Carville, who made perhaps an even bolder statement on how cancel culture will impact the party last month.
"Wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it," he said. "It’s hard to talk to anybody today — and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party — who doesn’t say this. But they don’t want to say it out loud."
Andrew Guttmann, a New York City parent who has been speaking out against schools' push for critical race theory, said on Fox News' "America's Newsroom" on Wednesday that the cancel culture curriculum "is going to destroy our country" if it's not reversed. In a new piece for The Hill, he argued that the campaign for wokeness will only hurt the progressives spearheading it.
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"There appears to be widespread belief that opposition to critical race theory is a view held solely by the political right," he wrote. "This perception is wrong. It is certainly true that the conservative media has almost exclusively embraced viewpoints unfavorable to critical race theory while the liberal-oriented media has been overwhelmingly approving. But our polarized media does not seem to accurately reflect the view of most Americans."