Holding The Public To Account

A common observation about the UK press is that they see their primary job as holding the public, not the powerful, to account. I don't think I'd describe the problems with the US media that way, though there are some ways in which that tendency emerges, but I'd say it's an attitude which affects our D-leaning political-industrial complex generally.

All the ways in which the public is sliced up into deserving/undeserving for things is like this. Sure team R thinks "richer white people are deserving and eerybody else isn't" which is really bad! But team D has their own model of deserving/undeserving.

Complex eligibility requirements, to make sure people are obeying all the (abritary, complex, inconsistently applied) rules.

That model drove everybody into student debt, of course. The success sequence required college, those without it were undeserving.