Once again, I agree with David French
I might need to get an MRI to see if I have a brain tumor or worm...
Look, I have plenty of beefs with French, his aggressive promotion of religious-nutterism being top of the list, but today in the Grey Lady, he point out that Patient 0 and 1 of the viral outbreak that is MAGA nuttiness are Trump and Musk.
Here’s the gifted article: Why Elon Musk is the Second Most Important Person in MAGA. I assure you it is worth the read.
His observation is that the rest of the right wing infotainment media universe is losing tons of traffic, and that traffic has shifted to the decaying carcass of Twitter1. That Musk’s purchase of the platform really shifted the window and where it was left leaning it is now hard right, with influencers like the infamous Catturd2, Baseball Crank, and Tucker Carlsen among the latest tastemakers
n.b. - it was never as lefty as the MAGA droids insist it was. Sure Rose twitter and resistance twitter was out there, but until early 2021 Trump drove a fuck-ton of MAGA insanity there, and going back to the beginning there was always plenty of wingnuts that spewed vile shit. It was just easier to tune that out with the original algorithms and tools
Furthermore, the shift to paid accounts getting prioritized means that the eager right turds are willing to drop $8 or (I think) $18 a month to get more reach and access to things like unlimited post lengths and the ability to monetize (honestly, I know there are two tiers of membership, but I ain’t on there anymore so I am guessing at the cost tiers).
Furthermore, they have made API access so expensive that the outside groups that used to do detailed traffic analysis have given up as tens of thousands of dollars per month is too steep to pay, means that there is little analytics besides the thin, self-interested shit that Musk lets dribble out of his rectum on any given day.
This short passage is exemplary of the current state:
That’s how a movement transfers its allegiance from the ideas of a man like William F. Buckley Jr. to an X “influencer” like @Catturd2 and his 2.4 million followers. It’s one reason a person like Tucker Carlson devolves from an interesting, idiosyncratic writer and thinker to an online shock jock and outrage merchant.
This transformation has the effect of further radicalizing the right. There’s a “Can you top this?” dynamic to posting that pushes people to extremes. In the offline world, paranoia is a liability. It inhibits you from seeing the world clearly. In parts of the online world, you’re considered a rube if you’re not paranoid, if you’re not seeing a leftist plot around every corner, if you’re not believing that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s romance is a Biden administration psy-op that culminated with rigging the Super Bowl.
Well put sir!
Then there’s the comments. Normally I shy away from diving in, because even with the NYT’s moderation, a lot of jizz hits the sheets, and hoo-boy are the MAGAt’s and Muskrats out in force. Some powerful self delusion.
Oh well, that makes twice when I have go grudgingly agree with David French
Coming Soon
I have been stealthily on The Bulwark, and I have to say that in the post Sykes era, the tenor, and the quality has degraded extensively. I am working on a post to offer my thoughts, but in short, I think that the bulk of their audience is center left, but they seem to enjoy shitting on those people pretty thoroughly.
More to come, stay tuned!
I fucking refuse to call it “X”
I'm still on Twitter, under deep cover. Even the Rush fandom has been infiltrated by TFG's cultists (not a big stretch I know, but it does require a hyperfocus on the couple of Rand mentions and ignoring the bulk of their later work—and especially public statements recently by Ged and Al that specifically reject a lot of her ideas and MAGA).
Impressed that you're still checking in at TB. My sub ended the first week of February, and I think I hung in about a week or so after that. I just couldn't take it beyond that. I do miss some of the guest contributors and Joe Perticone's column, but not enough to keep giving them clicks. Looking forward to your post.
I'm interested to see what Mehdi Hasan's new project, Zeteo News, does: https://www.zeteonews.com/
Trumpism makes for strange bedfellows. Makes me wonder what’s left when the Republican Party has gotten too extreme for David French.
I don’t believe Trump is going to get back in the WH. Maybe that’s excessive optimism. If he did tho, he would assuredly lose the popular vote by at least 10 million. So, it would take some bizarro combination in the electoral college.
I find it somehow reassuring also that, even in red areas and states, population centers are heavily Democratic. Even in my own backward district.
I put a request in at my local library for a book called “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy” by Tom Schaller. Chris Hayes had him on last night. With that title I’m tempted to just buy it if I have to wait long.