It’s time I explained what I mean when I say rightwing media apparatus. I don’t mean Fox. I don’t mean Breitbart or Twitter. I don’t mean Joe Rogan or Steve Bannon or TikTok. None of these in isolation would have the power to move just enough people in just enough places in this country to believe just enough of Donald Trump’s lies.
I mean all of them, altogether, plus hundreds, maybe thousands, of other sources, big and small, that work in tandem, 24-7, to advance the Republican Party’s agenda, to defend it when things go sideways and generally to set the “rules of the road” that everyone else follows.
It is huge. It is everywhere.
And the Democrats have no counter.
According to Matthew Sheffield, who at one point in his life developed much of information infrastructure that underscored Trump’s victory, the rightwing media apparatus (my term, not his) does the following:
- It educatesvoters “to maintain negative partisanship, meaning that people who dislike the leaders [namely, Trump] will still be inclined to vote for the party.” It “also helps co-partisans interpret negative information in a more favorable light.”
- It speaks to and learns from elected Republicans “to find messages that will mobilize them. Talk radio and web shows are much better than focus groups for this because the host-caller relationship is far more organic and unforced.”
- It attacks the liberal and Democratic opposition around the clock “in a way that allows candidates to keep their hands clean.”
- It provides professional networking “to help members earn a living, capturing their passion and making expansion easier.”
- It brings co-partisans together and “helps new voters find community” by organizing numerous public events.
The rightwing media apparatus also insulates the Republicans from their failures, Matthew wrote shortly after Kamala Harris’ defeat.
We should never forget that.
Even if Trump’s policies hurt the very people who voted for him, those voters might never know that he’s responsible for hurting them. FAFO (“f— around and find out”) is trending among liberals and Democrats. But, as Matthew said, “large partisan ecosystems are great for both attracting and maintaining relationships with reluctant voters.”
The Republican Party’s “large partisan ecosystem” is great for doing another thing – to make the inherently artificial nature of a presidential campaign seem natural, authentic, more truthful, no matter how many lies, smears and falsehoods are in fact packed into it.
If the rightwing media apparatus has been telling a lie for months, even years, and then a presidential campaign comes along to tell the same lie, there’s nothing jarring to the consumers of the rightwing media apparatus. Indeed, the lie might have the imprimatur of a deeper truth.
Conversely, a presidential campaign might seem artificial, unnatural or even deceptive in the absence of a “large partisan ecosystem.” I’m talking specifically about the effect of campaign advertisements. The Trump campaign got more bang for its buck, because its target audience was already primed to receive the message of those ads. Can the same be said for the Harris campaign’s ads? In the absence of a Democratic counter to the rightwing media apparatus, I would say no.
The rightwing media apparatus is so big as to be invisible to people like Democratic strategist James Carville, who’s now asking how on earth the vice president could raise more than $1 billion and still lose. Carville has been looking for evidence of wasteful spending, like paying Oprah Winfrey’s production company a million dollars. On his podcast, he demanded an independent audit of the Harris campaign’s expenses.
But the vast majority of her spending went into media buys: online, radio and television. In fact, Harris outspent Trump in the final days of the election, according toUSA Today. Yet it didn’t matter. Why?
I think it’s because ads on their own are already of dubious utility. There are several nonpartisanstudiesby political scientiststhat cometo that conclusion. But also – and to be clear, this is my common-man commentary – ads need an already existing context if they are to work as intended. Trump had a “large partisan ecosystem.” Harris didn’t. Her ads didn’t persaude as well as his did. That made all the difference.
If we do not put this difference at the center of our thinking about the Democratic Party’s future, we risk coming to pointless conclusions. Some say paying stars like Beyoncé only added to the impression that Harris was an out-of-touch liberal elite. Others blame her defeat on billionaires like Elon Musk, who is buying power, rather than earning it.
Both are wrong. Harris outspent Trump in the final days and most of that quarter-billion dollars (no, really) went to ads that were forgotten nearly as quickly as they were consumed. She didn’t waste her money on celebrities. (That was probably money well-spent.) She wasted it on the very thing – ads – that Democratic elites like James Carville believe are the only true investment. And she did so in the absence of the only thing that could make give those ads a chance to work as intended.
A quarter-billion dollars isn’t enough to match what Donald Trump has at his disposel. The Republicans have been building the rightwing media apparatus for decades. Its cost probably can’t be calculated.
But a quarter-billion dollars would be a good down payment on the creation of a media infrastructure that would educate voters, speak to and learn from elected Democrats, attack the opposition around the clock, provide professional networking for media people, and bring co-partisans together though common goals and shared destiny.
With the roots of a liberal media apparatus in place, campaign ads paid for by future Democratic nominees might have the desired effect.
Without it, though, they won’t.