Mainstream Media Keeps Pushing the Intramural Democrat War Narrative but There Is One Thing They Never Say About It

Martha Raddatz called Andy Beshear a moderate Democrat on national television Sunday.

Days earlier that same moderate demanded America abolish the Electoral College entirely.

The network anchors never explained what moderate actually means anymore so you have to ask why.

ABC NBC and CBS All Ran the Same Script This Weekend

Raddatz opened This Week with a simple sentence.

"The moderate and progressive wings each scoring wins at the ballot box this week."

She never defined either word.

Over on Meet the Press, Kristen Welker ran the identical frame.

Ed O'Keefe did the same thing on Face the Nation.

Three networks, three anchors, one script, zero curiosity about what any of it actually meant.

Wisconsin's David Crowley got the moderate label this week.

Minnesota's Angie Craig got it too.

Both vote with the furthest left members of their party on nearly everything that matters.

Crowley beat a self-described democratic socialist named Hong in the Wisconsin primary.

The networks covered that outcome as proof moderates are winning.

Nobody asked what a moderate loses to when the other option is an open socialist.

The Beshear Test Nobody at the Networks Wants to Take

Andy Beshear is the model moderate in this storyline.

He is the Kentucky governor Democrats keep floating for 2028.

He is also on record wanting to scrap the Electoral College.

He has pushed term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court.

Those are not moderate positions by any definition that existed before this year.

They are structural rewrites of the constitutional order.

A moderate in 1996 wanted welfare reform and a balanced budget.

A moderate in 2026 wants to blow up how presidents get elected.

The label did not get more centrist.

The Overton window got dragged so far left that yesterday's radical is today's moderate.

Peggy Flanagan just beat Angie Craig in the Minnesota primary running well to Craig's left.

The networks called that a progressive win too, as if Craig had been the reasonable one all along.

She was never the reasonable one.

She was just slightly less far left than Flanagan, and that is the entire trick.

Democrats Learned This Rebrand From Mamdani

This is not new, and it is not accidental.

Bill Clinton and Bernie Sanders fought over the word progressive back in 2016.

Sanders wanted it because socialist tested badly with swing voters.

Clinton wanted it because centrist tested badly with her own base.

Every Democrat since has learned the same lesson those two taught the party.

Never say socialist on television if progressive will do the job instead.

Zohran Mamdani ran as a self-described democratic socialist, and network coverage of his win kept reaching for progressive instead.

The label laundering is not a bug in the coverage.

It is the entire point of the coverage.

Call a socialist a progressive, call a hard-left liberal a moderate, and suddenly there is no left flank left for viewers to worry about.

That is the whole trick, and three different Sunday shows ran it in the same 24 hours.

Voters keep telling pollsters they want moderates.

The party keeps handing them the same far-left agenda with a new label stapled to the front.

Sherrill Proved the Label Sells Even When Nobody Explains It

Mikie Sherrill just proved how well the moderate label sells even empty.

She is a Naval Academy graduate, a former Navy helicopter pilot, and a four-term congresswoman.

She ran as a moderate in New Jersey's governor race and won by more than 14 points.

Reporters covered the margin as proof moderates win.

Not one of them detailed a single policy that made her moderate rather than another rank-and-file Democrat vote.

Now she has launched a PAC to back more candidates carrying the same undefined label into next year's primaries.

Democrats are even spending real money to protect the brand.

One Democratic group has committed 15 million dollars this cycle fighting off self-described socialist candidates in primaries around the country.

That is not a party debating ideas.

That is a party managing a marketing problem, and the Sunday shows keep helping them sell it.

Sources:

• Jorge Bonilla, "The Sunday Shows Are Still Pushing Fake Moderate vs. Progressive Narrative," NewsBusters, August 16, 2026.
• Curtis Houck, "CBS, NBC Highlight Moderate vs Progressive Battles in MN, WI Democrat Primaries," NewsBusters, August 11, 2026.
• Curtis Houck, "Networks Highlight Progressive vs Moderate Labels After Hong Defeat," NewsBusters, August 12, 2026.
• Bill D'Agostino, "Media Whitewash Socialist Candidates with Fuzzy Progressive Branding," NewsBusters, August 12, 2026.
• "Sherrill Flexes Political Muscle in Midterm Battle Between Moderate Democrats and Progressives," Fox News, August 2026.
• "Democrat Group Spending 15 Million Dollars Against Socialist Candidates in 2026," American Journal Daily, 2026.