There are many explanations why Donald Trump, despite his long history of lies, criminality and inciting a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, narrowly won the Nov 5. election. The reasons most often cited are the economically destructive post-pandemic spike in inflation, fear about the large number of immigrants crossing the southern border, crime, and omnipresent racism and misogyny.
But one major factor that clearly affected the outcome of the election was the pervasive spread of disinformation and misinformation that led large numbers of voters to accept false claims about the state of the country and candidates’ positions on major issues. A powerful decentralized right-wing network of propaganda platforms on social media, podcasts and the Internet was wildly successful in driving large numbers of voters to believe in politically weaponized lies and wild conspiracy theories that influenced how they voted.
A recent commentary by John Stoehr, editor of the daily politics newsletter, The Editorial Board, examined the power of this right-wing media apparatus, which he explained wasn’t simply comprised of Fox News, Breitbart, Twitter, Joe Rogan or TikTok, but rather, all of them together, plus thousands of other sources that worked in tandem 24/7 to advance the Trump and Republican party’s agenda — to which progressives and Democrats have no counter. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Stoehr about the nation’s dangerous media landscape and the corrosive impact it has on U.S. politics.
JOHN STOEHR: I think most of us who pay attention to politics or have paid attention to politics for 25 years or so like myself, we’re used to talking about politics in terms of liberal and conservative, in terms of left and right. And the thing that this election really showed me is that that thinking is upside down and backwards. It’s just not helpful anymore.
The true axis in politics right now is true/false. That’s really what it is right now. And as a consequence of this right-wing media apparatus, we live in an age really similar to the Renaissance period, where there’s so many people who live in darkness.
We live in an age of superstition and fear and tremendous ignorance, and the right-wing media apparatus being what it is, as I describe it in the piece, it just brings out what was already there. I mean, don’t get me wrong. We’ve always had ignorant people, right? It doesn’t make people ignorant. But it reinforces their ignorance.
It justifies their ignorance. It arouses their ignorance in such a way that just enough people in just enough places believe just enough of the lies about Kamala Harris, about the Democrats, period — about reality. I mean, the right-wing media apparatus is so big. There are people in this country, millions of people, who can inhabit a reality that’s very distinct and different from the one I live in, from the one you live in.
And the fact is that people who understood the facts to the best of their ability, they tended to vote for Kamala Harris and people who believed lies tended to vote for Donald Trump. And that’s the true axis in American politics right now.
SCOTT HARRIS: John, briefly describe what we’re up against in terms of the media system on the right that very successfully has a conveyor belt of lies that it’s mainstreaming through podcasts, social media and a lot of other avenues that really evade any kind of fact-checking, where investigative reporting, revealing corruption and malfeasance is totally absent. Tell us a little bit about that system and what you think we have to do as responsible journalists and people with political interests in moving the country forward? What do we have to do to build an effective counter to it?
JOHN STOEHR: We need to stay focused on the effective counter and there is none right now. A lot of us sit around, you know, hoping that the Republicans will stop being terrible. They’re not going to stop being terrible. There are a lot of us sitting around hoping that the mainstream media will do its job, and does by its own principles.
This really is probably not going to happen. We saw it with The Washington Post, the L.A. Times and now most recently with ABC news caving to Donald Trump. We probably can’t have much hope in them. So what do we do?
We need to look to the Democrats and get them to see that they really need to step up. They need to find the money. They need to find people. They need to make the connections and start creating their own media apparatus. You don’t need to lie, just actually need to propagandize the truth. That’s basically what you need to do. You need to speak for the truth, to speak for facts.
Right now, Democrats are in this bad habit of saying to themselves, well, the facts are out there and people will come to their own conclusions. No, no. Absolutely not. The Republicans never let anybody come to their own conclusions. They will lie to achieve those purposes. What Democrats need to do is speak for the facts and push people toward conclusions by way of the truth and toward good policy and so on and so forth.
SCOTT HARRIS: Is there any evidence that that’s happening — that people within the Democratic party or the left in general and we’re talking about labor unions, too — understand that the future of the country really relies on combatting a disinformation system that is succeeding and changing the outcome of elections.
JOHN STOEHR: There is movement now of some people taking it very seriously. There are three people right now who are vying to be the chair of the Democratic National Committee and all three of them, from what I can tell, really understand this problem very well. One is Ken Martin from Minnesota. The other is Martin O’Malley from Maryland. And the best one, I think, is Ben Wikler. He’s out of Wisconsin.
So, yes, I think there is some movement in that direction. We’ll see where it goes.
For more information, visit The Editorial Board at editorialboard.com.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with John Stoehr (18:55) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.
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