LOL: CNN Says Trump Won Because The Left Doesn’t Have a ‘Media Ecosystem.’
The late night comedy shows may not have been very funny after Donald Trump’s election victory, but the Wednesday edition of CNN’s Inside Politics was as PBS News Hour White House correspondent Laura Barron-Lopez got the panel to agree that one reason Kamala Harris lost is that, unlike Trump, she did not have a “media ecosystem” to help her get across the finish line.
Barron-Lopez desperately wanted to avoid the conclusion that Democrats need a reboot, “One thing that I think stands out also, we can’t have this conversation, a little bit to your point, Dana, is that maybe it’s not so much Democrats’ policies or messaging or the words they used specifically, but there is an entire right-wing media ecosystem that doesn’t exist on the left and it does not exist in the center or mainstream and people are getting their information in very different ways now.”
Here’s the clip of Barron-Lopez of PBS appearing on CNN and arguing that there’s no leftist “media ecosystem:”
Are the media playing the same semantic games that they played in 2008 and 2009 after Barack Obama won the election to pretend that they’re completely objective and centrist? Especially after propping up Kamala as much as they propped up Obama in 2008? After going all-in on Trump is Hitler, Netanyahu is Hitler, the Russian collusion hoax, etc., etc? They are!
Whatever the Journolist is called these days, it must be hopping this week, as Taylor Lorenz makes the identical point to Barron-Lopez on her Substack (say, why isn’t she in the WaPo anymore?): Why Democrats won’t build their own Joe Rogan.
While the right has spent years fostering a symbiotic relationship with alternative media, the left has failed replicate anything like it. There are simply no progressive content creators with Rogan’s cultural impact and online following, and a quick look at the podcast charts or trending channels on YouTube shows the disparity between conservative vs progressive creators’ reach online.
Without a network of culturally relevant influential content creators boosting and translating their messaging, the Democratic Party is rapidly losing credibility among younger, predominantly male audiences who have become ardent supporters of influencers that promote a distinctly conservative worldview.
This imbalance when it comes to online influence is no accident. It is the result of massive structural disadvantages in funding, promotion, and institutional support. And understanding why Democrats can’t (or really won’t) cultivate an equivalent independent media ecosystem that rivals what the right has built is crucial for anyone who hopes to ever see the Democrats back into power.
The conservative media landscape in the United States is exceptionally well-funded, meticulously constructed, and highly coordinated. Wealthy donors, PACs, and corporations with a vested interest in preserving or expanding conservative policies strategically invest in right-wing media channels and up and coming content creators.
This creates a well oiled pipeline for conservative influencers: young TikTokers, YouTubers, livestreamers, or podcasters are discovered, developed, and pushed to larger platforms, often with the financial backing of conservative billionaires or organizations on the right who have long recognized the content creator industry a valuable means of shaping public opinion and policy.
Organizations like Turning Point USA, PragerU, and The Daily Wire and others receive millions from backers who view them as advertising for a broader conservative agenda. These media entities act as content creator incubators and spend extensively on outreach, production quality, and audience growth. The resources and near unlimited funds they receive allow conservative content creators to grow rapidly and spread their message widely.
If only Dems had, oh, I dunno, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and NPR in the tank for them. I’d add the New York Times to this list, but I have it on good authority that they’re in completely in the tank for Trump: Taylor Lorenz Says NYT Only Allows Right-Wing Opinions At Newspaper.
“Trump’s Podcast Offensive Worked,” River Page writes at the Free Press. So what caused guys to tune into Rogan and other podcasts so much?
None of these podcasts or streams are inherently political, and neither is the UFC. They are not right-wing media, in any traditional sense of the word. They are, though, the young male mainstream, representing a large but silent minority—one ignored by politicians at best and demonized at worst.
Each program in this system differs a bit: The Nelk Boys started out as a prank show on YouTube, Adin Ross plays video games, and Von has a successful stand-up career. Rogan is rather thoughtful, while Ross and the Nelk Boys are more interested in making the audience laugh. The Barstool Media Universe, presided over by Dave Portnoy, has a loose sports focus. What they all have in common though is that they involve men talking, mostly to other men, off the cuff. The audience doesn’t view them as journalists or thought leaders, but rather as para-social friends. They have natural, long-winded conversations that could go anywhere. It’s like hanging out—in a way.
I’m a 28-year-old man, and it’s virtually impossible to not encounter this media ecosystem, particularly if you’re online, whether through YouTube’s suggestion algorithm or as clips on TikTok. The fact that most streamers comment on the news, but don’t focus on it incessantly, is a reprieve from the 24-hour news cycle.
Several months ago, left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker went on the liberal podcast Pod Save America. Twitch is a video platform where people stream themselves for hours, often while playing video games, and Piker is one of the most popular streamers there. He admitted on the podcast that his program was an outlier when it comes to politics. “If you’re a dude under 30 and you have any hobbies whatsoever—playing video games, working out, listening to a history podcast or whatever—[it] is completely dominated by center-right to Trumpian right-wing politics.”
That shouldn’t be a shock. Increasingly, every male interest, from going to the gym, apparently a fascist recruiting ground, to playing video games is decried as right-wing by the left. If you tell young men that everything they like is right wing, you shouldn’t be surprised when they start to believe you.
And as a result, we’ve entered some sort of bizarre hell-world in which Van Jones is a voice of sanity:
