In the 1994 midterms, Republicans swept Congress, taking both the House and the Senate, as well as the majority of state legislatures and governorships. Conservatives and liberals alike credited talk radio for “turning the tide” and Republicans honored Rush Limbaugh — then the king of the format — by declaring him an honorary member of the 104th congressional class. A decade later, in 2004, George W. Bush defeated John Kerry and won the popular vote with the help of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, which had come to dominate cable television. That year, veteran conservative activist Richard Viguerie called Fox “one of the [conservative] movement’s greatest success stories.”
In the 2024 election, Donald Trump wielded yet another mass communication medium that conservatives have managed to conquer: podcasting and online video. Trump’s brash “alt-media strategy” overwhelmed Kamala Harris and the Democrats’ ground game, propelling the twice-impeached, convicted felon back into the White House. Many on the Left have long romanticized on-the-ground politicking, but no amount of door-knocking can match the reach of conservative influencers who build parasocial bonds with one’s neighbors and provide them, each day, with powerful stories that make sense of political life.
Murdoch and Trump have always held a media-centric theory of power, and, for the most part, their theory has proven to be correct. With the decline of unions and so many other forms of civic life, media organizations have filled the void and have even usurped some of the traditional duties political parties once played.
Before the dust settled on the morning of November 6, a debate had already begun over whether progressives need their “own Joe Rogan.” These…
Auteur: Anthony Nadler
