There's this continuing narrative on mainstream media that because someone supports this or that, or they aren't supported yet by polls that they're unelectable, and they have to tell you every fucking day, every time they talk about them, over and over again, convincing you that there is no reason to ever support them.
Do you think I support a Muslim ban? Do you think that the majority of the United States supports a Muslim ban? I sure as fuck hope not, because that would mean that they're bigoted fools that have gotten convinced by the media that Muslims are the enemy and are dangerous. Muslims are not the enemy. Muslims are not dangerous. Muslims are just people that follow a different religion. They are no more dangerous than Christians or Buddhists are, as a whole. People from particular countries are not dangerous. What is far more dangerous is the idea that a religion, a nationality, or a race, makes you dangerous. Bigotry is dangerous and unacceptable. These kind of ideas should make you unelectable far more than supporting medicare for all, or higher education for all, or higher taxes for the wealthy and corporations.
Okay, that last one might make you unelectable, but that's because our system is more than a little corrupt, and our campaigns are paid for by the rich and the corporations. Our media is run by the corporations. They tell us who to vote for.
Do you think I support drone strikes on people, killing masses, and having insane levels of civilian casualties? Do you think I support the use of bombs and missiles as tools of assassination? But these are not things that they think are even worth reporting on to the levels that they report on other things, so it's not like normal people would even be informed well enough to likely have much of an opinion on them. Maybe they would. Maybe. Hopefully. But maybe not. Probably not. And yet, both Obama and Trump have done insane levels of drone and missile strikes. Trump has actually done far more. Where are the pictures of those strikes? Where is the news coverage? Where is the coverage of the fathers carrying their children's bodies from the piles of rubble. They don't think it's even worth covering. And yet...every night they can talk for hours about the President's latest tweet. Do you think that the majority would support that if they knew what was happening? Don't you think that doing something like that, that supporting something like that, that technology that really isn't quite good enough yet, and has far too many casualties, and is used too carelessly, should make one unelectable?
Do you think I support taking the food out of the mouths of the poorest of children? Do you think I support cutting programs to support the poorest Americans, and continually increasing military funding beyond what the military even wants? Do you think the majority support giving funding to programs that the military says don't work and should be cut when there are people in America that are starving? Don't you think that shit like this should make you unelectable? And yet, it's common practice now days. Neither the Democrats or the Republicans are willing to cut military funding at all, because they think that it's too dangerous to their electability. They can't even cut programs that no one wants, because of fear that it will make them unelectable. And yet cutting funding for the poorest is perfectly fine.
Do you think that it's fine to blatantly lie about the programs for the poorest, and paint them as lazy? Why doesn't that make someone unelectable? Why isn't it considered as horrible as it is to call the poor and disabled lazy? Do you think they want to be poor and barely squeak by?
Every single day, the mass media chooses what they put on their program. They choose the stories they cover. They choose the words they use. They choose to paint certain candidates as unelectable or too far left or not centrist enough. Every day, those people that support those candidates, that like their vision, are told that they support someone that can never win. They slowly feel like they have to support the more moderate candidate. Are they electable? Those assholes on TV don't fucking know! Because although they slowly push us towards certain candidates, what makes someone electable is not whether or not their policies are moderate, but whether or not they can convince enough people to come out and vote for them. There are a ton of policies supported by different people that the masses may or may not support, but they voted for them anyway.
Some pundit of the media might think that someone's policy stance on one thing makes them too far left, but at the same time, there are tons of policies that others support that would make most people recoil in horror if the news actually fucking covered them.
Israeli air force strike July 22, 2006, in Beirut, Lebanon
U.S. Navy photo/Petty Officer 1st Class Robert J. Fluegel (source)