A special thanks to Oliver Darcy for filling in last week while I was away over last weekend. And thanks to everyone who's been sharing and subscribing. Tell your friends about this thing! (And a quick plug: I'm the co-host of BuzzFeed's revamped Politics Podcast, 'No One Knows Anything.' Second ep is out this week and you should check it out!)Here's what you need to do about the pro-Trump media turning on Trump:
The big story right now if you care about New Media Upside Down is the schism — that began with the Syria strike — over blind allegiance to Trump. Until last week, the pro-Trump media uniformly celebrated Trump's every move. But plenty of big pro-Trump outlets and personalities (like Infowars and Mike Cernovich) came out strongly against. Perma-loyalists like Twitter pundit, Bill Mitchell and his #StrongBase followers still believe that Trump can do no wrong.
Why it matters: The pro-Trump crowd came to power as an opposition force. And given that many of them are excellent trolls, they tend to work best in opposition. The Syria incident buys them some space to step back and be critical. Second, Trump's rise and win created some strange bedfellows, all under the #TrumpTrain umbrella (nihilist trolls, meme masters, true believers, media opportunists). The schism started with the Richard Spencer/alt-right break and this is part two.
An Infowars editor explains his dissent:
"America is not North Korea...it is OK to criticize 'dear leader,'" he wrote on Facebook this week. He also noted that "Trump is great. I love Trump...but he's only human and is under the intense pressure that all presidents are subjected to by the deep state and the Washington establishment."
Compare that to Mitchell's take today:
Bill Mitchell and Mike Cernovich clash and the photoshops come out. Meet #BotoxBill:
Point of Tension: The clash took another turn this week as reports came in that Bannon may be pushed out (allegedly by the Kushner/Ivanka/Globalist-in-the-White-House coalition). Loyalties split there as perma-Trumpers sided with whatever move Trump made, while others like Rebel Media's Jack Posobiec started a #KeepBannon hashtag and even held a flashmob yesterday in D.C.Mitchell thinks Bannon needs to go. Cernovich threatens to drop "marriage-ruining" dirt if Bannon is fired.
The Bannon Kushner Fight Runs Through Breitbart: As Business Insider's Oliver Darcy reported this week that Breitbart editors were telling staffers to lay off stories critical of Kushner.
Breitbart called it "100% fake news." (But so far this week, nothing critical!)
But former Breitbart staffer (now at Russian news outlet Sputnik) saw it differently. He put it this way to the Daily Caller:
“I’d rather just get it out there,” he said. “I’m loyal to Steve, I’m a fan of Steve’s — that’s all. No one is fooled that Boyle is an objective journalist. I’m not saying he’s a bad journalist. Boyle’s gone rogue. But Breitbart’s gone rogue. Breitbart not only does not have Bannon’s back, but I don’t think they have Trump’s back. Everyone knows he [Boyle] loves Trump and did Bannon’s bidding.”
Breitbart's haymaker: On Friday, Breitbart London editor wrote this critical front page article. The gist: base is shifting.
Trump is taking notice of Breitbart and, according to the NYT, he and his family have confronted Bannon over it.Forever Trump cheerleader Bill Mitchell responds: "I've always enjoyed Breitbart, but something feels sketchy to me this week. Have seen many intentionally misleading headlines." Per Katie Notopoulos, we're going to call this "Woke Bill Mitchell."
A great tweet that explains it all:
Without making rash generalizations about Trump voters but still important: "I only get news from [r/the_donald]."
Extra (super quick Twitter thread) reading on this.
Amazon still facing pressure to boycott advertising on Breitbart: my scoop from Thursday featuring internal Amazon emails.
Mike Cernovich keeps getting scoops: Bloomberg once again followed a story that Cernovich broke —this time about rumblings among Trump aids about ground troops in Syria.
Why it's important: Cernovich has frequently pushed false narratives and self-admittedly doesn't hew to traditional journalistic standards. And so his seemingly legit scoops/potentially good gov't sources complicate the MSM's 'fake news' classification of Cernovich. The lines are blurred if he's breaking real stories. And that's a new wrinkle MSM will have to grapple with.
Meanwhile, over in Blue Detective Land: On the other far fringe, journalist and former British MP Louise Mensch continues to lead the charge pushing the #TrumpRussia narrative. It would appear — to an outside observer — that Mensch finds quite literally every single pro-Trump display (from trollish tweets to protestors) to be near-definitive proof of Russian intervention.
And some on the right are calling it harassment. My colleague Joe Bernstein wrote about Mensch and The Crowdsourced Russia Twitter Investigation Has Prompted A Harassment Complaint
Latest Upside Down acknowledgement from the Trump Family: Donald Trump Jr (who tweeted last week that Cernovich deserved a Pulitzer prize for his Susan Rice scoop) retweeting Infowars' editor, Paul Joseph Watson.
How A Hitler Comparison Ends Up In the White House Press Secretary's Mouth: This week I traced how a Fox Business interview on Monday made life miserable for Sean Spicer on Tuesday.
CHECK IN ON COLD WAR: THE SEQUEL (via Russian state television outlet RT)
Twitter's Centrality, As Explained By Drudge:
It's a catchy headline but it also reflects the reality that — in the Trump admin — everything consequential in politics (from Comey live-fact checking tweets in a congressional hearing to North Korea) happens on Twitter. It isn't just the engine for political discussion but the engine for politics itself in 2017.Katie Notopoulos emails with her read of the week about Neo Nazis tearing apart the furry world.
Other Good reads about the right:
How a Kurt Schilling went from Red Sox pitcher to Breitbart radio host and into the fever swamp.
A deep dive mapping the Kushner/Trump/Bannon White House infighting.
Smart, interesting look at how the Duke lacrosse case in 2007 jumpstarted careers of the alt-right and maybe also eroded trust in the MSM with that crowd.