Egad! I don’t watch CNN or read Politico so I had no idea. At least MSNBC has not been giving kudos to De Santis; they have been taking him to the woodshed. Eric, I think you would really like the Pod Save America episode from Monday the 14th “Beat the Press”. I listened to it after another commenter mentioned it. They harshly criticize the media for all the gotcha questions, trivial focus (Will Biden’s dog be put down), distractions like not giving Trump credit for the vaccines, etc. Then they play a game of identifying which questions for Biden came from political journalists and which were from ordinary people. The difference was striking. The questions from the public were much more substantive than those from the professionals.

What really got my attention was when one of them (Jon Favreau?) said that he thinks that there is a gender bias in they way the media treats Republicans v Democrats — Republicans are treated like they are masculine and Democrats as if they are feminine. “It is assumed that Republicans will be strong, intransigent, confident and that their needs need to be heard and appeased; and it is Democrats’ job to be nurturing, supportive, to listen, and to take care of those needs. It is why the idea of someone asking Mitch McConnell what are you doing to create unity today or asking Ted Cruz what are you doing to bring the Senate together or asking Tom Cotton why are you not doing more to address the fact that you alienate so many urban Americans...... it’s why these questions are some much more unusual than the ones pointed at Democrats. There’s an assumption that Republicans are who Republicans are and it’s Democrats’ job to kind of nurture and help them figure out how to work together for the benefit of the country. For years I have thought that journalists treated Democrats, even Democratic men, in the same biased way women are routinely treated. They are more critical of Democrats when they act aggressively. They expect them to behave much, much better than they expect Republicans to, etc. There is a not-so-subtle disdain for Democrats like Gore and Kerry for not appearing to be manly enough despite the fact that a they both volunteered to go to Vietnam, clearly more impressed by the performative macho bullying of the chickenhawks Cheney and Bush. Bill Clinton was mocked for feeling people’s pain. Trump repeatedly called Biden weak, obviously seeing him as a “girly man”. In 2000 Maureen Dowd mocked Gore for being so feminized he was practically lactating because of his concern for our environment.

I think this subconscious belief that Democrats are the soft, nurturing “Mommy Party” and Republicans are the strong, authority-wielding “Daddy Party” is a major, but subtle reason, for the biased treatment of Democrats by the media that has not been addressed. Too many in the media are in awe of macho bullies just like they were in high school so Republican bullies get their respect.