Thread by @whstancil

For decades there's been a right-wing information bubble growing - Fox News, talk radio, OANN, and the like. But it was mostly separate from the mainstream. Most people got news and communicated with each other outside of it.

But not anymore.

We're reaching the point where it will be VERY difficult for political leaders to communicate with us, or for us to communicate with each other, without passing through the right-wing bubble. Most cable news is in it to varying degrees. Most local channels too. Papers are dying.

And the internet is worse. Most of the major social networks are now inside the bubble: Facebook and YouTube are absolutely dominated by right-wing stories and voices. And now Twitter is under the total private control of a Thiel/Trump/Putin ally.

Liberals foolishly ignored the growth of the right-wing bubble when it was its own little alternate universe, and even then, it produced disastrous political consequences. I really don't think people understand how bad it will be if ALMOST EVERYTHING is inside that bubble.

You may well struggle to get a message out if it's not endorsed by the right. Worse still, liberals could simply be banned or excluded. There's no real reason, for instance, Musk couldn't simply ban every Democrat from Twitter if the party annoyed him. Why not?

Liberals are accustomed to solid, stable institutions run by people who are vulnerable to public pressure. But institutions run by the far right aren't like that. We can't pressure Fox News to take Tucker Carlson off the air, no matter how racist he gets. They just don't care.

Now imagine that this same attitude prevails everywhere.

To take an example, think about something that's been happening on here a lot lately: transphobes coordinating harassment campaigns. It's been an effort to suppress these, but there's halting progress. Now imagine the decisionmakers simply don't care. In fact, they SUPPORT it.

What is going to force their hand? Public pressure? From where? If most of the public information channels are in the hands of the right, anyone objecting will simply be shouting into the void. What are you going to do, handing out pamphlets on street corners?

Or consider something else that's been a huge problem on social media, one the government is very concerned with: anti-vax stuff. Right now, there's too much of it, but there's at least a notional rule that it's prohibited. What happens when the doors fling open?

There's this weird confidence among older liberal leaders that it'll all be fine, they'll deal with it, but how? With no ability to build any real public pressure, why would anyone feel any need to listen to you? Again, it's like complaining to Fox News. You'll get laughed at.

All of these problems severely reinforce each other. When it's just a few actors making these decisions, mainstream voices have the opportunity to get correct information out through other channels. But when it's EVERYONE, they just can't do anything at all. You're paralyzed.

And you can apply the same problem to literally any issue you can think of. Right now the US public is powerfully pro-Ukraine, partly because we've managed to suppress Russian propagandists. What happens if that stops?

Liberals have this tendency to always think problems can be solved by appealing to a superior authority. But who? The courts (under complete Republican control)? The media (overwhelmingly aligned with the right)? The public (increasingly cut off from you)?

You need to protect these institutions if you're going to rely on them, and liberals haven't. And no institutions have been more egregiously neglected than media. While the right spent decades scrapping and clawing for media influence, liberals just floated above it all, aloof.

Now we're 24 hours from letting it all happen yet again, as Musk takes over Twitter seemingly unobstructed. Another information channel, one of the biggest, certainly the most central, lost to the right in an instant.

But it's okay, Democrats and liberals. You don't need Twitter, probably. It's not real life. You know what's real life? TV ads. The WaPo op-ed page. You could start a blog! Hang out in Youtube comments and press your case. You'll do great. No need to think about any of this.