Michael Bloomberg looks on before delivering his speech to delegates on the last day of the Conservative party conference, in the International Convention Centre on October 10, 2012

The Media's Third Party Delusion

On the Media | May 6, 2016

After nearly a year of pundits declaring that Donald Trump will never, ever, ever be the GOP nominee...Donald Trump is now the presumptive GOP nominee.

It's just the latest upset in an election that has defied conventional wisdom and broken nearly every rule. But the anti-Trump punditocracy has not yet given up hope. In fact, in the wreckage of their failed predictions they see a glimmer of hope: the time has finally come for a technocratic-centrist third party candidate! Just like they said in 2012. And 2007. And 2005.

Brooke talks to the New York Times' Brendan Nyhan about why the dream of this kind of candidate is never more than a delusion, and to The New Republic's Brian Beutler about how the centrist fetish is really an indicator of how media elites like to think of politics and themselves.

Song: "Washington's March" by the Liberty Tree Wind Players

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