I think a good example is immigration reform and how "guest worker" programs (arguably not real immigration) factor in to this and how each sets of candidates are asked questions on this subject.
Public's concerns:
1) Democratic Party
- the base wants real immigration reform to help with the path to citizenship.
- the base wants to limit or eliminate guest worker programs out of concern for the abuse of foreign workers in them AND loss of American workers' jobs which they displace, and replace these programs with more streamlined real immigration or very specific immigration for specific job needs not met and not just giving a "cheap labor" advantage to guest worker program sponsors.
- the party does care about immigration reform, but also wants to have these guest worker programs in place in a way to reward wealthy donors as a way to help them race to the bottom that will work as a package deal with "free trade" legislation.
2) Republican Party
- the base does NOT want real immigration reform, and wants to build things like walls to keep foreigners out.
- the base wants to limit or eliminate guest worker programs out of concern for loss of American workers' jobs which foreign workers displace, and they'd like all of these foreign workers kicked out as they blame them for the problem.
- the party doesn't care about immigration reform, but wants to have these guest worker programs in place in a way to reward wealthy donors as a way to help them race to the bottom that will work as a package deal with "free trade" legislation.
So, what does the media do? They give all of the attention to populists like Donald Trump and recently more converted populist Ted Cruz on the guest worker programs, to make it sound like the Republican party is more pro American worker's concerns than Democrats are, and at the same time appeal to their xenophobic base, by engaging with the party and letting Rubio duke it out with these other two candidates to appeal to the populist base, but make guest worker issue sound like one only xenophobes support.
Now on the Democratic Party side, they DARE NOT ask ANY question to Hillary Clinton to put her on the spot for her last stated position on H-1B visas which she supported back in 2007 in her election cycle against Obama. Instead at least twice now, they try to put Bernie Sanders on the defensive by through certainly phrased questions making it sound like Bernie is anti-immigration by asking him to explain his anti-immigration bill votes in 2007, which he has both times explained with his stances that he couldn't in principle vote for the guest worker provisions in the bills for what they did to foreign workers as well as to American worker jobs too.
What will happen with the following scenarios:
1) Bernie and Trump or Cruz get nominated.
- In this scenario, that is when Bloomberg will follow through on his threat to run as a third party. He and his complicit corporate media allies will team up to make it appear that he's the only candidate wanting immigration reform, and that both Sanders and Trump or Cruz will be "xenophobes" for their not supporting of past immigration bills, even if in Bernie's case, it is only the guest worker pieces that have kept him from supporting them. Bloomberg has stated at the same time he threatened to enter the race that he wants unlimited quotas on H-1B visas, making that guest worker program an even worse scenario than it is now, but one that corporate America would love, and he'd be hoping to have Democrats and Republicans split on the issues of protecting the American worker, while the media will try to depict Bloomberg as the pro-immigration candidate that neither party has.
2) Bernie and Rubio or another establishment Republican get nominated.
- In this scenario, corporate media will continue to carry on with their characterization of guest worker programs as being xenophobic in nature to try and scare Democrats away from Bernie.
3) Hillary and Trump or Cruz nominated.
- In this scenario, they will corner Hillary with a surprise debate question on guest worker programs, which she will be unprepared for, and that will allow them to depict Trump or Cruz as the "pro-labor" candidate by comparison to Hillary who wants to support worker exploitation, to get a lot more "Trump Democrats" or "Cruz Democrats" like we had "Reagan Democrats" back in 1980 to vote for Reagan then in the same fashion.
4) Hillary and Rubio or another establishment Republican get nominated.
- in this scenario, the corporate lobbyists won't care, as they will have both candidates in their pocket being pro guest worker program in the way they want, and if Hillary gets voted in and lets them pass some token immigration path to citizenship legislation, they probably won't care much as long as they get guest worker program visas passed and encouraged as the primary means for foreigners to live in this country over immigration which will have processes stalled much like they are today.
This is the way corporate media will manipulate who gets nominated, and what gets discussed to manipulate ultimately the general election results to corporate money's interests.
Note some of the news this week on this program on how news on this topic is being manipulated, and those affected by guest worker programs are finding themselves publicly endorsing Trump, along with getting a trip to testify in front of Congress yesterday on this topic as it related to Disney and Eversource.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=7641458
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