Critical failure: GOP strategists say Trump’s unbeatable propaganda machine is crashing
12 June
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures during a speech at the Kennedy Center (REUTERS)
President Donald Trump has managed to effortlessly hijack the Republican Party’s propaganda machine to dominate the public discourse on his policies — no matter how unpopular or hurtful. But there comes a time when every machine pops a cog and careens into a wall.
For decades, the Republican Party has enjoyed the benefit of an army of propagandistsparading as “news” to spread Republican talking points. Later that propaganda network expanded to include a legion of MAGA influencers and paid entertainers to broadcast GOP policies and arguments. More recently Trump has lumbered into the captain’s chair of that same propaganda network. But critics tell MS NOW anchor Nicole Wallace that Captain Trump appears to have steered his ship into an iceberg.
“There's a lot of anger out there,” former Republican speechwriter Tim Miller told Wallace. “I think there's a lot of things that … Democrats should be able to channel with voters. I mean, you've got Donald Trump's buddy becoming the first trillionaire today — Elon Musk. They're going to have the birthday party for him on the lawn. And all of this out of touch French Revolution style behavior from Trump, I think, will be manna for the Democrats politically.”
Media Matters President Angelo Carusone pointed out that the openly indifferent Trump has managed to sever his historic ties with his own MAGA voters, however.
“That was a source of his strength. I mean [in addition to] the media apparatus around him that he could use to amplify his message, but his connection to that zeitgeist allowed him to then, amplify stories and messages and capture that gut feeling that then enabled him to build power on what used to be considered the fringes and also pull in people that maybe wouldn't, have been there in the first place,” said Carusone.
But now the regrets are piling up among Trump’s voters to the point where it’s even boiling over on MAGA-bastions like daytime talk radio and focus groups and polls, he added. Worse, the massive GOP propaganda machine can’t seem to deal with it.
“[W]hen you have so much regret amongst Trump voters, amongst MAGA voters, amongst MAGA audience, MAGA media doesn't have a plan. They don't know how to deal with regretful Trump voters. So, what they end up doing is ignoring them,” said Carusone.
The tactic compares to the kind of software failure that makes a dumb Roomba bump into a wall over and over again until it drains its battery.
“And … what does that do? Well, if you're being ignored, you just get more mad. And then everything that gets said gets further and further detached. That gap becomes wider and wider and wider,” said Carusone. “This is a trend we've seen going all the way back to the way they handled the Epstein stuff. At first, they turned a crack into a full-blown fissure, and that's the feedback loop that [Trump] is in now with his audience. And so [his] … audience gets more mad because Fox and the hosts, they just ignore them. And so does Trump.”
Only now the effect is boiling over so furiously that Miller and Carusone both say even Fox News hosts are getting pushed along in the river of fury.
“It just continues to brew up, and then the personalities have to slowly start to shift. I heard Jesse Watters say something negative about Trump this week,” Carusone erupted. “That is insane. That's incredible. That never happens.”