Former Rep. Donna Edwards (D- MD) said Monday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that it was not “fair” that the media acts like there are two equal sides when covering politics because Republicans were destroying democracy and favoring “authoritarianism.”
Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “I want to make clear as someone who worked at the highest levels of the Republican Party is an authoritarian but every leader running to curry Donald Trump’s endorsement and currently running the House Republican Caucus and in the Senate are bending toward all of these authoritarian impulses.”
She added, “I would like you to jump in on this conversation about journalism that seemed to have spilled into the public’s view. Goldberg makes it clear that Atlantic’s vision will be covering democracy and perhaps its demise. What do you make about the appropriate role for covering what is actually happening and getting away from one side says this, the other says that?”
Edwards said, “Well, I think, Nicolle, you have hit on it on this show. I mean, for the last five years, you have been covering the demise of democracy as we have seen all the guardrails pulled down from the Republican Party. The challenge that we have is that it isn’t just that Republican people or those who consider themselves Republican voters have steered toward authoritarianism. It’s that there are no leaders or few leaders in the House and the Senate, in the Congress of the United States, who are willing to take another view and a different direction.”
She added, “So given that there are no leaders, it falls and has fallen squarely on party the Democratic Party to be this to put up guardrails and protect our democracy. I don’t think it is fair for journalists to do the one side versus the other side. There really is one side here. One is democracy. One is upholding democratic and constitutional conventions. The other is authoritarianism. There is no middle ground there. So we can’t cover it as though somehow, you know, one side is equivalent to the other side. I think that is where we have been challenged over these five last years.”
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