Three Years

IN 2004, DAVID BROCK WROTE: 

The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy Hardcover – May 18, 2004

In The Republican Noise Machine, David Brock skillfully documents perhaps the most important but least understood political development of the last thirty years: how the Republican Right has won political power and hijacked public discourse in the United States.

Brock, a former right-wing insider and the author of the New York Times bestseller Blinded by the Right, uses his keen understanding of the strategies, tactics, financing, and personalities of the American right wing to demonstrate how the once-fringe phenomenon of right-wing media has all but subsumed the regular media conversation, shaped the national consciousness, and turned American politics sharply to the right.

Brock documents how in the last several decades the GOP built a powerful media machine--newspapers and magazines, think tanks, talk radio networks, op-ed columnists, the FOX News Channel, Christian Right broadcasting, book publishers, and high-traffic internet sites--to sell conservatism to the public and discredit its opponents. This unabashedly biased multibillion-dollar communications empire disregards journalistic ethics and universal standards of fairness and accuracy, manufacturing "news" that is often bought and paid for by a tight network of corporate-backed foundations and old family fortunes. By dissecting the appeal, techniques, and reach of the booming right-wing media market, Brock demonstrates that it is largely based on bigotry, ignorance, and emotional manipulation closely tied to America’s longstanding cultural divisions and the buying power of anti-intellectual traditionalists.

From the disputed 2000 presidential election to the war with Iraq to the political battles of 2004, Brock's penetrating analysis of right-wing media theories and methodology reveals that the Republican Right views the media as an extension of a broader struggle for political power. By tracing the political impact of right-wing media, Brock shows how disproportionate conservative influence in the media is integrally linked to the Republican Right’s current domination of all three branches of government, to the propping up of the Bush administration, and to the inability of Democrats to voice their opposition to this political sea change or to compete on an even playing field.

As only an ex-conservative intimately familiar with the imperatives of the American right wing could, David Brock suggests ways in which concerned Americans can begin to redress the conservative ascendancy and cut through the propagandistic fog. Writing with verve and deep insight, he reaches far beyond typical bromides about media bias to produce an invaluable account of the rise of right-wing media and its political consequences. Promising to be the political book of the year, The Republican Noise Machine will transform the raging yet heretofore unsatisfying debate over the politics of the media for years to come.

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Three Years

And Miles to Go

Mary L. Trump Nov 10

Just a reminder that the first post-election edition of Ask Mary Anything within Reason begins at 6:00 p.m. ET:

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First, some emergency art—a poem that reminds us, with extraordinary economy of language, what really matters.

The Red Wheelbarrow, William Carlos Williams

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens

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I launched The Good in Us three years ago today and I’ve been trying to take stock of how much we’ve been through since then. It’s hard to comprehend what has unfolded—how much the landscape has changed, how much we have.

We learned a lot earlier this week about the many reasons we lost—from the institutional and structural and characterological—but the main reason, which is both a cause and effect, is the massive, coordinated right-wing media ecosphere which has overtaken traditional/legacy media and which the left has done nothing to challenge.

Ever since Fox came on the air in 1996 and Rush Limbaugh dominated talk radio, traditional/legacy media has been losing ground. I do not at all discount the other very salient deficiencies with which we’ve been confronted, but it is also true that, for years now, Democrats have been buying TV ads while Republicans have been buying TV stations—and radio stations, local newspapers, and podcasting networks.

Week after week, the heirs of Limbaugh—Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk, Candace Owen, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino, Clay Travis and Buck Sexton, Glenn Beck—dominate the top ten of Apple, Shopify, and iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel).

The right-wing media company, Sinclair, has taken over local TV, radio, and newspapers. The Bott Radio Network inundates the airwaves with white evangelical Christian talk radio. Elon Musk has been allowed to turn Twitter into a fascist cesspool. Through these means and others, a majority of the country’s citizens has been fed a consistent anti-democratic message and a steady diet of disinformation.

In 2022, Hungary’s autocratic leader Viktor Orban said this to CPAC: “Have your own media.” The right listened.

The pro-democracy coalition needs to find a way to counter the onslaught of coordinated disinformation swamping the American electorate. This week, our democracy suffered a serious blow. If it’s going to survive, a strong independent media is required.

As I’ve said in the past, subscribers to The Good in Us help make it possible for me to do other work—and I appreciate the faith you’ve placed in me to do that work, just as I appreciate your patience as I tried to figure out how to be most effective in the lead up to the 2024 election.

We’re in a whole new fight now. The stakes are higher, and the road ahead is harder. There is no giving up, but we need to find a better way forward. Your support continues to be vital to those efforts.