Democrats, struggling for oxygen, blame the media – is AOC the answer?

Jim Clyburn is ripping the media.

The Democratic congressman, who essentially handed Joe Biden the nomination in 2020, says the party is having trouble getting its message out.

"I think the message coming from the Democratic Party is a good message," the South Carolina lawmaker told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. "The problem we’ve got, I’ll say, is that we have to depend upon the media to deliver it."

Let me stop right there. The party’s approval ratings are in the toilet – that’s not the media’s fault. The party lost every swing state to Donald Trump in November – that’s not the media’s fault.

And the Democrats have no clear leader at the moment – again, not the media’s fault. 

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"If we have The Washington Post, for instance, caving to this wannabe dictator and we’ve got other media entities that seem to rather push a narrative that will bring eyes to their newspapers or to their television sets and not really give a fair hearing or reporting to what we’re doing," said Clyburn, exempting Velshi.

"I would hope that there are people outside of the audience taking in what we’re saying because my message is gonna be very, very coherent. It’s going to be very – a little bit alarming. But it’s gonna be a message that I think everybody will understand if they were to hear it."

Sorry to break it to the esteemed congressman, but it’s not the media’s job to carry water against the man he calls a "wannabe dictator." You and your colleagues can only do it by getting out there and making, uh, news.

At the same time, everyone already hates us. So it’s hardly surprising that the left, as well as the right, is bashing our business.

I mean, Joe Biden barely talked to journalists – even for a Super Bowl interview – and now we know why.

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Gavin Newsom is clearly running for president in 2028 – and he makes news by appearing on Fox and right-wing podcasts. This shows that he’s willing to engage the other side. 

"I don’t know what the party is. I’m still struggling with that," Newsom told the Hill.

He also had California sue the White House over the tariffs.

The buzz right now is about AOC running for president. This seems far-fetched on its face – not because she was once a bartender, which gives her street cred, but because of her uber-liberal record.

Yet she and Bernie Sanders are drawing huge crowds around the country in what feels like a generational handoff – an image captured on the front page of Sunday’s Washington Post.

After making an initial splash as a rebel, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now works with the party’s leadership.

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A conservative columnist for the Hill listed her as No. 1 for the next election, calling AOC "simply the most exciting figure in Democratic politics…Yes, she has a legion of detractors. But she also has charisma, authenticity and the ability to draw huge crowds."

But even the columnist, Niall Ferguson, asks: "Would a left-wing Latina from New York City really be the best option for a party that needs to win states like Michigan and Pennsylvania to take back the White House?"

Axios says Ocasio-Cortez, 35, "has been cheered like a political rock star over the past two weeks" and knows how to make the cash register ring: "In the first three months of 2025, she raised $9.6 million – more than double what she’d ever raised in a quarter."

She would undoubtedly be opposed by center-left liberals like Josh Shapiro who would stress the importance of winning swing states like, uh, Pennsylvania.

Now it’s a bit crazy to be talking about this just three months into Trump’s second term. Someone who’s "hot" now could easily cool off by then. Name recognition only takes you so far.

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In a recent Gallup poll, just 25 percent expressed confidence in Democratic congressional leadership, an all-time low.

Republicans don’t expect fair coverage from the media. But many Dems act personally offended when they draw critical coverage.

The takeaway: Democrats have to make their own news, not just bash the media. But hey, we’re the easiest target out there.