When CNN's Kasie Hunt seems to be campaigning for Republicans in 2022, look back at this tweet

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CNN’s Kasie Hunt apparently wants to see Congress pass paid family leave. Good for her! It’s an important and popular policy that few U.S. workers have access to, in contrast to workers in the vast majority of countries that do have paid family leave. The way Hunt is thinking about the fight for paid family leave, though … that could use some work.

If paid leave is left out of this bill, I’m going to spend the midterms covering how suburban women who turned on the GOP over Trump are responding to Democratic governing in DC — especially after the pandemic

— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) October 28, 2021

Where to start?

Do I start with her basic assumption that this is an issue best approached through horserace-style coverage? Or do I start with her failure to mention that the vast majority of Democrats in Congress support paid family leave, while zero Republicans support it. (To be fair, there are a couple of Republicans who would vote for a poorly structured family leave bill that didn’t help many people—if there was a Republican president in office to take credit for it.)

If congressional Democrats were the only votes needed to pass paid leave—if the vote was being held just among the 50 Democratic senators, for instance—the policy would pass in a landslide. But without a single Republican willing to support it, one or two Democrats can kill it. And we know their names.

So what we have is a very high-profile media figure saying publicly that if Democrats do not get their one or two recalcitrant members in line to pass a specific policy, she will dedicate her coverage throughout the next campaign to covering that failure as if there is not another party whose members could also have voted for the policy or who could conceivably be held accountable for its failure. That’s a staggering indictment of how the traditional media covers news, and a startlingly direct threat of using a cable news network—other than Fox News—to campaign against one party, if not for the other.

Hunt got torched in the replies and quote tweets:

Lady, stop it. You were going to do that anyway. All y’all ever care about is white suburban women voters so don’t threaten me with the status quo. https://t.co/BBjAvd7HcH

— 🎃Imani Gandy Corn🎃 (@AngryBlackLady) October 28, 2021

Oh, is making threats how it works now? Cool. Lemme try: “If voter suppression bills are allowed to stand, I’m going to spend the midterms covering how white people in the media don’t give a shit about democracy.”

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) October 28, 2021

If paid leave is left out, perhaps: • spotlight the nearly 190 nations that have it, and ask why we don’t • investigate how much the lack of paid leave hurts black, indigenous, and Latinx families, disproportionately • report on voters who don’t already get CNN’s attention

— Jamil Smith جميل كريم (@JamilSmith) October 28, 2021

Kasie, I’d love to see you feature all the Republicans who support paid leave. I think the American people need to hear their voices of support on what should be a bipartisan issue. And there are so many Republicans to choose on this issue, right? Should be easy to book them.

— Charlotte Clymer 🏳️‍🌈 (@cmclymer) October 28, 2021

Democrats need to understand the media ecosystem they exist in and tailor their messaging accordingly — and buy TV networks and stations, which has been a thing for the right as long as I’ve been alive. https://t.co/TQ8Vm01sLn

— Michael Arceneaux (@youngsinick) October 28, 2021

As of this writing, Hunt has not taken the time to reply to any of more than 11,000 replies and 2,000 quote tweets.

Posted in Independent News