Bernie Sanders was on Lou Dobbs last week (transcript posted here) and he was civil, non-combative, dare-I-say Senatorial. I am thrilled that now that Bernie is no longer in the minority among 435, but in the (sort of) majority among a mere 100, he can no longer be ignored by the corporate media. But his appearance on Lou Dobbs last week demonstrates just how powerful Lou Dobbs' brand of fear mongering can be. I know it may come as a surprise to many of you, but Lou Dobbs was discussing immigration the night Bernie appeared. Sanders is against the present guest worker program, a position outlined well in Trapper John's recent front page story The Progressive Case Against the Immigration Bill. But follow me below and we will see just how Bernie got Lou talking like a lefty and how Lou loaded up his questions with premises that Bernie appeared to agree with. Who co-opted who?
So Lou in much like every show talks of invasion and sovereignty threatened, complete with night-vision images of groups of "illegal aliens" crossing the border. His "grabber" this night gives a taste of Lou's branded demagoguery :
Tonight, new charges that pro-amnesty senators are using underhanded tactics to ram amnesty through the Senate. Opponents of that so-called grand compromise say the illegal alien lobby is trying to stifle democracy.
Then Lou does yeoman's work covering the debacle in Iraq and Cheney's claim to be a fourth branch of governement unto himself. This is perhaps what is most troubling about Lou Dobb's routine-- when he aims his "angry white guy" schtick at powerful targets, his moral outrage is umatched. It is a real shame that he spends so much of his time promoting hostility towards Latinos. And that is precisely what he does. Agree or not with him on the immigration issue, I am certain that his continuous "illegals invade" drumbeat effects how his loyal viewers interact with all Latinos, citizens, documented, or not.
Dobbs then does a story on the President's and Congress' tanking poll numbers, a story that leaves one with the impression that Americans have concluded that "the Democrats are just as bad." He follows this story with Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid working to get the immigration bill passed, and then a piece on corruption and incompetence at the Border Patrol. Seems that a Border Patrol agent "Gonzalez this week was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison. He was caught on camera stealing a bundle of marijuana from a suspect's pickup." I guess you can't trust the legal ones either. And as if to distill the gestalt of this portion of the show, Dobbs uses "reader email" as he cuts to commercial:
Jim in Oregon said, "I switched from Democrat to independent, as the Democrats are the same as the Republicans. We need to get back to the basics and become Americans again."
Al in Michigan: "Lou, what is so hard for the knotheads in Washington to understand? The majority of American citizens have told them point-blank: Secure our borders and ports first. I am now officially an independent because I'm thoroughly fed up with members of both major parties."
Back from commercial, a story on failing schools, and then yet another story on the threat from our neighbors:
Representatives of the United States, Canada and Mexico are preparing for a summer meeting to further the goals of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America. The SPP, which many consider to be simply a blueprint for the North American Union, would weaken U.S. laws and regulations and diminish American sovereignty.
He closes this segment with a real mishmash gem of his favorite internal enemies:
It's unbelievable -- it's primarily left wing activists who are denying what is happening with the elites of corporate America, academia, and of course our political elites as well. All indifferent to the needs and desires of the America people.
That's right folks, "left wing activists" are covering for the corporate, academic, and politcal elites who are undermining our nation. "Primarily"!
Then a story on a new military laser and then Bernie's few moments of time with Lou. But Lou is never done naming his enemies and again mixes his intro of the Bernie segment with yet another story on the enemy:
DOBBS: Coming up next, why one Latino group wants to drag California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger before an international human rights commission.
And the only independent U.S. senator fighting that part of the Senate grand amnesty compromise that forces our middle class into further economic distress. Senator Bernie Sanders joins us here shortly. Stay with us.
Back from commercial, it's finally Bernie time!
DOBBS: The future of the so-called grand amnesty compromise is highly uncertain tonight. Many senators opposing that legislation. The only independent senator in the Senate is Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. And he joins me now. Senator, good to have you with us.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, (I) VT: Good to be with you, Lou.
DOBBS: Senator, this is a tortured process that Senator Harry Reid is directing, aided and abetted by the so-called grand bargainers. Do you expect this thing to survive cloture?
SANDERS: It's hard to say at this point. It really is. I hope very much that in its present form it does not survive. I think it needs a lot more work on it, especially looking at the economic implications of these guest worker programs.
Sanders gets right to the economics of the guest worker program, lets the knock on Harry Reid go, and then Dobbs brings up low approval ratings for Congress:
DOBBS: You know, as we look at these numbers, they're absolutely startling. President Bush, you've looked at these numbers just as I have. The president is doing horribly. Only Nixon on the verge of impeachment had a lower approval rating than George W. Bush who has now the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. But Congress, 14 percent approval in the Gallup poll, the lowest in just about 35 years.
Here's where Lou plays fast-and-loose with his enemies. Note how he bundles "special interests" and "corporate interests":
Is there any sense amongst your colleagues in the Senate, there in Washington, that it is time for people to begin to represent their constituents rather than these special interests, corporate interests ...
SANDERS: You've got it. And that's exactly the situation and of course there is concern on at least some of our parts. The reality is that I think a growing number of Americans understand that what happens in Congress is to a very significant degree dictated by big money interests.
And these guys are basing their - their whole ideology is based on greed. They're selling out American workers and in fact they're selling out our entire country and that is a major struggle that we have got to engage in to take back our country from these very powerful and wealthy special interests.
Now Bernie picks right up on Dobbs' mention of corporate interests and gets to say things rarely said on corporate media-- big money interests, an ideology of greed, "very powerful and wealthy special interests." Here Bernie recasts Dobbs' "special interests" (an old right wing meme from the Reagan years) as the overclass. But Dobbs makes sure he directs focus back to immigrant rights organizations, and implies Bernie's agreement with a subtle "and you and I have talked about this" :
DOBBS: These special interests, and you and I have talked about this. It is now so blatant, so overt, that only those who would refuse to see could deny that both the Democratic and Republican parties are owned lock, stock and barrel by corporate America and special interests including in the amnesty legislation, socioethnic- centric interest groups who really have very little regard for the traditions of this country, the values of this country or the constituents.
How's that for a premise for a question? Benrie leaves all that alone and focuses instead on the question Dobbs finally delivers:
It is seemingly impossible to awaken our elected officials in Washington to their moral responsibility. There are wonderful people -- including yourself -- I don't mean to suggest that everyone is in this situation, only the majority, unfortunately in the Senate and the House. Is there any hope that we can change that?
SANDERS: Of course there is hope that we can change that. And I think there are a growing number of Americans who understand that there's something wrong when the middle class in this country continues to shrink despite a huge increase in worker productivity, poverty continues to increase. Since Bush has been president, 5 million more Americans have slipped into poverty. Six million Americans more have lost their health insurance and the gap between the rich and everybody else is growing wider.
So when President Bush tells you how great the economy is doing, what he is really saying is that the CEOs of large multinationals are doing very, very well. He's kind of ignoring the economic reality of everybody else and that gets us to the immigration issue.
If poverty is increasing and if wages are going down, I don't know why we need millions of people to be coming into this country as guest workers who will work for lower wages than American workers and drive wages down even lower than they are now.
So Bernie takes the opportunity to reframe the issue yet again-- as a larger issue of economic fairness in the age of globalization, and not as a threat from "socioethnic-centric interest groups who really have very little regard for the traditions of this country, the values of this country or the constituents." And just to be sure that we know that when Dobbs is castigating "corporate interests," he is not necessarily talking about the guys who write his paycheck. No, Lou has smaller fish to fry:
DOBBS: And as we know, the principal industries which hire the bulk of illegal aliens, that is construction, landscaping ...
SANDERS: Lou, I just heard something.
DOBBS: Those are all industries in which wages are declining. I don't hear that discussed on the Senate floor by the proponents of this amnesty legislation.
SANDERS: That's right. They have no good response. I read something today that a lot of people coming into this country are coming in as lifeguards. I guess we can't find - that's right. We can't American workers to work as lifeguards. And the H1B program has teachers, elementary school teachers. Well, you know.
Then Dobbs premises his final question by evoking the Ted Kennedy bogey-man, and I really wish Sanders had something like "well I have tremendous respect for Senator Kennedy, but in this case...." Instead Sanders uses the question to connect corporate capital flight from the US with the influx of low wage labor into the US:
DOBBS: And that H1B program, we got to watch Senator Ted Kennedy watch there with the sole witness being one Bill Gates, the world's richest man, telling him he wanted unlimited H1B visas, obviously uninformed to the fact that seven out of 10 visas under the H1B program goes to Indian corporations that are outsourcing those positions to American corporations in this country and that four out of five of those jobs that are supposed to be high-skilled jobs are actually category one jobs which is low skill.
SANDERS: Well, you raise a good point, in that this whole immigration guest worker program is the other side of the trade issue. On one hand you have large multinationals trying to shut down plants in the America, move to China and on the other hand you have the service industry bringing in low wage workers from abroad. The result is the same -- middle class gets shrunken and wages go down.
So Bernie got his framework on the guest worker program out there to a large audience, but Lou Dobbs' premises and question-framing may have won the day. Because after Bernie has had his interview, the Dobbs drumbeat continues:
DOBBS: Senator Bernie Sanders, we thank you for being with us, as always.
SANDERS: My pleasure.
DOBBS: A reminder now to vote in our poll, if you will. The question is, are you surprised that members of Congress and this president still refuse to do anything to improve our border security while illegal aliens cross our southern border almost at will each and every day?
Cast your vote at loudobbs.com. We'll be back with the results here and Senator Ted Kennedy says the Senate's grand amnesty compromise will bring millions of illegal aliens out of the shadows. . .
So Lou Dobbs' framework will prevail. I think Senator Sanders needs to go on shows like this and am not at all suggesting that he stay away from Lou Dobbs. Sanders remained focused on the economic implications of the guest worker program and did not engage in any xenophobic rhetoric. Sanders also got Dobbs singing the anti-corporate song, but I dont know if that is a usual part of Dobbs' rhetorical arsenal. However, Sanders did not challenge the nativist premises of Dobbs' questions. But had he done so, there would have been no time to answer the questions. Sanders' appearance on Lou Dobbs is an excellent case study in how corporate media reframes and contains progressive ideas. No wonder conventional wisdom has it that "the Democrats are just as bad."