The Election of Trump

By John M Repp

The victory of Trump in the recent presidential election has been a shock for many people. How could anyone vote for a pathological liar, a convicted felon, an adjudicated sexual abuser, climate change denier, and a man who attempted to overthrow the Federal government and change the result of an election? Why did the voters reject Kamela Harris, an intelligent, honest, woman with a successful record as a public prosecutor? Is there something I don’t understand about our nation?

Michael Tomasky, an editor of The New Republic, published the article entitled “Why Does No One Understand the Real Reason Trump Won?” on November 8, 2024. His answer is “the right wing media.” Specifically, “Fox News (and the entire News Corp.), Newsmax, One America News Network, the Sinclair network of radio and TV stations and newspapers, iHeart Media (formerly Clear Channel), the Bott Radio Network (Christian radio), Elon Musk’s X, the huge podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, and much more….” 

Tomasky makes the jarring statement that this partisan media “sets the news agenda in this country.” One powerful reason that his thesis (i.e. the right-wing media sets the news agenda in our country) is not understood is that many people do not listen to or watch that media. They live in a “bubble”. But millions of other people do and too many voted for Trump.

Tomasky has followed the growth of the right-wing media for three decades. Fox News started in 1996. With the increasing importance of the Internet, at first there was also plenty of liberal media, with sites like HuffPost. But billionaires have invested far more heavily in the partisan right-wing media in the last two decades, and liberal or progressive sites have not been able to keep up. Currently, the right-wing media is much larger and sets the agenda for the “mainstream media”, also called the legacy media. Even more important is that the right-wing media speaks with one voice and it says “Democrats and liberals are treasonous liberals who hate you”. By way of contrast, the right-wing media “love God and country and are the last line of defense against your son coming home from school your daughter.”

Tomasky even says that often it was the right-wing media that came up with the ideas and themes that Trump used during the campaign. He predicts that after January 20, 2025, the right-wing media will start carrying stories about how the economy is roaring. That would be just the opposite of the horror stories about the “Biden-Harris inflation” of the last year. He estimates that almost two-thirds of the people of the United States listen to and watch the right-wing media in all its forms. The rest of us never see or hear this media except when we walk into a hotel lobby, a bar, or an airport.

If this analysis of the recent election is true, it gives us an idea of what we must do to confront the coming chaos. We must be media activists as well as nonviolent street activists and find new ways to get out the truth, including using social media. We can support the viewer-supported Free Speech TV. I really admire KODX-FM, a low-power FM radio station located in the University District in Seattle combined with a website that can reach the world.

Robert Reich explains the effects of inequality on our democracy. Here is Reich’s list of where he goes to get his news. Contrast this list with the list above of right-wing media. “Here are the sources I currently rely on for the truth: The Guardian, Democracy Now, Business Insider,The New Yorker,The American Prospect,Americans for Tax Fairness, The Economic Policy Institute, The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, ProPublica, Labor Notes, The Lever, Popular Information, Heather Cox Richardson, and, of course, this Substack.” All those links above are live.