We are all aware of the constant Republican whining about “mainstream liberal media bias,” especially after last week’s outpouring of crocodile tears about the “gotcha questions” from debate moderators at CNBC. The candidates showed outrageous rancor against CNBC’s moderators and with the complicit assistance from the mainstream media sucessfully framed this as a story about the candidate-moderator relationship rather than the candidates’ inability to respond to the debate questions themselves. It is beginning to appear that the issue isn’t a “liberal” or “conservative” bias, but rather an establishment bias – consider, for instance that Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) has quietly lead Donald Trump in a presidential match in almost every recent poll with nary a word from the media.

In fact, according to RealClear Politics, in a general election: Sanders vs. Trump, Sanders is up by 9 points over Trump, 50 percent to 41 percent in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll from October 29. In another recent poll from CNN/ORC, Sanders also leads Trump by 9 points, 53 percent to 44 percent. In last week’s Quinnipiac poll, Sanders leads Trump by 2 points, 46 percent to 44 percent. And in the summary averages from RealClear Politics as of Wednesday morning, Sanders leads Trump by 3.2 points.

Writing for the Hill, Brent Budowsky points out that these polls – absent any media coverage of a potential landslide victory for Sanders trouncing Trump in a head-to-head match-up – should let us “dismiss the myth of liberal media.” These polls suggest that a Sanders victory is highly plausible, and the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal is hardly a liberal publication, but as Budowsky brilliantly puts it: “when America’s premier journal of capitalism releases a poll showing the democratic socialist candidate defeating by a landslide margin the capitalist who dominates television news, methinks it is liberals, not conservatives, who have the better argument against bias!”

In his four decades since entering politics in the 1970’s, Sanders has remained consistent to his original views on Wall Street and the banks, poverty, the environment, women’s rights, income disparities, the plight of the working class, and his ideas about the corporate media. He believes that the media “tends to trivialize the important issues…They want to cover campaign fights, not campaign debates…They over-rely on entertaining soundbites. Their news agenda is about generating profits, not producing quality journalism that will educate the voters.” It should be of no surprise that the media is threatened by Sanders and his ideas – trying to educate and empower folks to take-back control of their government. Why would the media report on polls that show the real possibility of a President Sanders?