Welcome back to the fever swamp. It's a glorious summer Sunday here from our perch in Idaho so let's waste no time and get into it.The real effect of Trump's anti-media twitter rants: What happens when a president uses his office to constantly undermine coverage he doesn't like as "fake news?" And what is the lasting effect of a relentless anti-MSM pro-Trump media that trumpets messages like #CNNIsISIS? One example is this headline which I couldn't get out of my brain this week:
It's just one poll, I know, but...HOO BOY! As Allahpundit notes:
"45/20, tantalizingly close to a clear majority for torching the First Amendment. Nothing says “small government” like telling judges to close down newspapers for having too much of a point of view."
We are — at present — so deep in the day-to-day chaos of Trump administration (the tweets, the policy shifts because of tweets, the hirings and firings, and the on-record venting and backstabbing with New Yorker reporters) that none of us can begin to try and grasp the consequences of what we're struggling to keep up with week in and week out. Perhaps first among this is the "Two Universes" concept of the pro-Trump media.
On this week's Longform Podcast, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman was attempting to describe Trump's brain and mode of thinking. She suggested that Trump spoke to the Times so frequently not only because he craved the approval of the paper but also because over the years he's managed to conjure his own version of reality and he's keen on trying to sell that reality to anyone he deems important enough. This conception of Trump is, in my mind, key to understanding the media shitstorm we find ourselves in today. There are two universes, here. And each one has a media apparatus.
The YouGov poll is eye-opening because it hints at the first real signs of the consequences of our current toxic media environment. The conspiracy peddling. The constant bad-faith arguments. The decision to equate coverage that makes you uncomfortable as not representative of reality. None of it is happening in a vacuum. It is all leading somewhere. The "Two Universes" concept is often used in a tongue in cheek manner — a shorthand for the idea that we're not listening to each other very well or that we're very polarized. But polls like this one suggest that maybe there's some real truth to the concept — and that even though Donald Trump hasn't sold Haberman or the NYT on his alternate reality, more and more people are taking up residence there.
Oh, and it's not just Republicans (though they're the most in favor, according to the poll). As Allahpundit notes:
Happy Sunday (lol)!"Among 25 demographics measured, not a single one has a majority opposed to the idea of court-ordered shutterings of certain media. The groups most strongly opposed are Clinton voters and “other” voters last fall at just 42 percent apiece. Overall, a plurality of 43 percent of the population “hasn’t heard enough” to form an opinion yet about whether the state should be allowed to target news outlets for closure."
What fuels Trump's alternate universe? Politico's Jack Schafer suggests that POTUS has followed the path of so many others in his age group and is yet another OLD who's been hoodwinked by Fox News in its long-running quest to sell catheter ads.
MAGA internet loves The Mooch.
Anthony Scaramucci's first week as White House communication's director was quite the rollercoaster. But the MAGA world of pro-Trumpers enjoyed the ride, it appears. At first, there was lots to doubt from pro-Trump world. He's a Wall Street jabroni who, besides being a globalist, basically savaged Trump in the lead-up to the election. But the new guy's rant this week, published in the New Yorker, was brash enough to win him plenty of friends among the trolls.
This string of tweets was sent to me by a 4chan devotee who pointed to 'Adorable Deplorable's' tweet with the note: "In one sentence.....This is The MAGA Base"
Basically, he did his best Trump impression and MAGA world loved it.
It also highlights another split in the pro-Trump media. Raheem Kassam, the author of the first and last tweets in the thread is the editor of Breitbart London and he seems none too pleased with The Mooch. Similarly, Breitbart had its guns out for Scaramucci this week, with this article:
Most notable bit is this lede, which is basically a flare shot in the direction of the Oval Office, intended to catch Trump's attention (and piss him off royally):
It's also yet another sign of Breitbart zigging while the rest of the pro-Trump media zags."Move over President Donald Trump. You are yesterday’s news. It seems like this is now The Anthony Scaramucci Show. And Trump better get used to it."
More scoops for the pro-Trump media. Reince was fired/resigned/whatever Friday afternoon. And Mike Cernovich had the story 90 minutes before Trump announced it on Twitter. Similarly, dirty trickester and informal Trump advisor, Roger Stone, floated on Tuesday on Infowars that Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly might step in to fill the Chief of Staff position...which also came true on Friday.
What to make of this? I wrote back in May that Cernovich and pro-Trump media scoops throw off the MSM's bullshit detector and make it so that "the lines are blurred and the mainstream media is caught befuddled and playing catch-up. Which, in its own way, may be the Upside Down’s greatest troll yet."
But after the Reince scoop a couple of smart people pushed back on the idea that these scoops matter at all. You can see the whole argument in this Twitter thread, if you want.
I go back and forth on this. Maybe the scoops don't matter all that much in terms of what it does for the media environment. Trump is a troll president and he brought with him a troll press corps. So what?! Ultimately, the only real thing it signifies is that this group is getting increasingly cozy with people in positions of real power.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Roger Stone-John Kelly scoop highlights as CLASSIC pro-Trump media tacit, which is the scoop-by-buckshot approach. In the Infowars segment where Stone scoops the media (by 3 whole days), there's a catch. In his interview, Stone says that the shakeup is likely and that Trump has a "three-way decision." He then floated three names: David Urban, Dina Powell, and "a wildcard," John Kelly.
So — just to be perfectly clear — Stone kept his options open. Granted, the intel proved to be pretty good, but this is a common pro-Trump media tactic. Float everything and maximize your chances for victory. When you lose, ignore it and create an outrage to move on to. When you win — flaunt the victory endlessly:
The Platform Wars And What It Means For The Pro-Trump Media:Three similar events transpired over the last two weeks that stuck with me. A week ago, Bill Mitchell tweeted that Facebook blocked — without warning, he says — his 'Your Voice Radio' content. And Alt-Right (honestly, I'm actually a little unsure where she lands on the political spectrum these days) personality Lauren Southern tweeted at length that her Patreon crowdfunding account was deleted. And finally, this weekend, the alt-right vlogger and Twitter personality, Baked Alaska, had his GoFundMe account suspended as he was trying to raise money for a #UniteTheRight meetup in Charlottesville, VA in August.
To the pro-Trump media, these are flagrant signs of censorship and punishment for their viewpoints. But as an outside observer it also highlights the importance of mainstream technology platforms in the pro-Trump media. The far-right has put together a number of bespoke crowdfunding sites but for the most part there's a huge tech deficit on the far right. The major social distribution platforms —where the pro-Trump media largely have risen from and have indoctrinated and gained their followers — are touted as inclusive and as open to nearly all viewpoints but are generally thought of as part of a progressive culture and (generalizing here...but) most have pretty liberal workforces. It sets up a pretty interesting dynamic. Especially when you consider that none of these platforms are required — as self-governed corporate entities — to be equal opportunity spaces or even to uphold basic tenets of free speech (though, for the most part, they try to).
When the pro-Trump media is banned from a major platform — take Milo and Twitter — there are very real consequences for those individuals. Mostly that's because these platforms are a) how they grow their audiences and b) where they can cross over and get the attention of the MSM. Again, take Milo and his Twitter megaphone. He's still in the news cycle, sure, but his voice — and reach — is drastically turned down as a result.In recent months there've been some valiant efforts to create pro-Trump tech communities like Gab.ai (an almost carbon copy of Twitter with a near-anything goes speech policy). Gab may have a growing user base and some cash on hand and even dedicated fans but the one thing Gab doesn't have is liberals to troll and trigger. Twitter does. Twitter is the crossover portal between the MSM and the pro-Trump "Upside Down." That makes it vital to the pro-Trump operation. Just like YouTube is "red-pill" ground zero (where the pro-Trump media) can indoctrinate new followers, Twitter is where they can break through. What happens if some or any of that goes away?
And finally, Hannity replaces one conspiracy with another.
If you're looking for some consistency in the pro-Trump media conspiracy industrial complex, you'll have to go someplace else. As Ben Collins details in the Daily Beast:
"A month ago, Hannity was sure the DNC was hacked not by the Russians, but by a heroic Wisconsinite named Seth Rich trying to get out the truth about Hillary Clinton. Rich, a former DNC staffer, was murdered last July and right-wing conspiracy theorists claim the Democrats are to blame. (Police, who are still investigating the killing, believe it was a botched robbery.)...But now, Hannity is intimating that a Pakistani man named Imran Awan, who never worked at the DNC and has no ties to Rich, hacked the committee, as part of a still unfolding nefarious plot."
Gonna end this newsletter with an earnest question to my pro-Trump media/MAGAland subscribers: Please explain to me how this isn't continued proof of seemingly desperate conspiracy fishing for a Wikileaks/DNC tie that ISN'T Russia? Also: is Seth Rich over and done with now? Truly curious. Respond simply by replying to this email. I'll be sure to print any good-faith responses in the next edition of this newsletter un-edited. Promise.
Thanks for reading, all!