Congress created the unpersons

Paul Krugman wonders why those who were in favor of a bigger stimulus package were considered "out of the mainstream" and left on the fringes of the debate:

One of the mysteries of the way issues are covered in much of the news media is how certain views get ruled “out of the mainstream” and just don’t get covered — even when many well-informed people hold those views.

...

...[T]he voices calling for stronger stimulus are, may I say, sorta kinda respectable — several Nobelists in the bunch, plus a large fraction of the prominent economists who predicted the housing crash before it happened.

But somehow, the pro-stimulus people are unpersons. Who makes these decisions?

I think this can pretty easily be explained by the fact that Democrats didn't do a good job of framing the debate.

The thing is, the mainstream media is not only very worried about keeping a nonpartisan reputation, but also very intellectually lazy. Thus, when an issue like the simulus package comes up, they wait and see what the Republicans propose and what the Democrats propose, and use those proposals as the right and left goalposts for the debate. Anything outside the goalposts counts as "fringe".

If the Democrats had boldly demanded say $1.8 trillion in stimulus, then this would have been seen as a "legitimate" (albeit very liberal) position, and Krugman and his ilk would be welcomed into the fold as representatives of the "respectable left". But as it happened, the Democrats misjudged and decided to lowball the figure (expecting it to go up), proposing under a trillion dollars of stimulus. The debate thus ended up being framed between those who wanted just under a trillion in stimulus versus those who wanted less (or none).

And, as others have pointed out, this same thing happened with healthcare reform: the Democrats didn't seriously propose a single-payer plan. Although obviously this never would have passed, it still would have set the left goalpost further out, giving Obama's public option plan some centrist cover. As it is, the public option is now framed as the most liberal plan on the table, which the mainstream media is unlikely to embrace.

(Photo "Goalposts-2" by huvisian)