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Beck unintentionally illustrates the point that the movement that produced Trump is/was largely a product of right-wing media, with its focus on grievances and fearmongering.
This was not a populist revolution. And it sure as heck ain’t an anti-lower-case-L-liberalism movement. It is the story of highly successful media propaganda, a skilled media personality, and strategic use of social media propaganda (all of which Ds tried, too).
During the Obama years I obsessively followed RW and fringe RW media, particularly as it spread virally on Facebook. You can draw a line from WorldNetDaily to Breitbart to a thousand smaller pages that repackaged the same stories and rhetoric and then right to Trump.
Overwhelmingly, these sites (like similar sites and pages in the left [daily kos!]) gave readers what they wanted. They often addressed real issues (broken immigration) but gave readers simple, safe, non threatening solutions.
An elite few ran media that heavily shaped how conservatives imagined the problems facing our country. Most weren’t hip NYC “elites,” but in the sense of power and exclusivity, they absolutely were and are elites.
Some elites in Christian radio. Some in web publishing (Steve Bannon). Some in radio. One group I know of built a network of Facebook pages and fake (or at least highly deceptive) news aggregator sites and then sold the operation around the election.
Again. None of this is completely unique to the right. The left is no less likely to harness the media and social media for what is essentially propaganda.
For most people in these positions, publishers, editors, writers, etc, who produce highly deceptive or straight up false news, the cause is greater than the truth. We must be realistic and play the game of politics which requires propaganda, they think.
Let me finish by saying this: any effort to resist the collapse of a democratic republic will require dramatic changes in the nature and philosophy of our media in its various forms.
Example:
The trump era has many storylines and causes, but the effective deployment of propaganda and the widespread erosion of the possibility of knowing is one of the most important stories.
The trump era has many storylines and causes, but the effective deployment of propaganda and the widespread erosion of the possibility of knowing is one of the most important stories.
