How the myth of ‘liberal media bias’ warped American politics

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit plus.flux.community“Our real opponent is not the Democrats,” Donald Trump told his Twitter followers in 2019. “Our primary opponent is the fake news media.”You couldn’t ask for a more perfect distillation of how Republican campaigning works. The idea that the mainstream media and society as a whole are biased against right-wing viewpoints permeates every corner of American politics, even within the Democratic party and within mainstream media outlets.Within today’s Republican party, fighting against “liberal media bias” was the basic organizing objective of most of the grassroots people I encountered during my years as a Republican media consultant. Opposing media liberals has animated numerous fundraising drives, launched television networks, and built talk radio empires. But most importantly, the myth of liberal media bias makes people who believe in it discount information that might contradict their own political agenda.Trump endlessly attacks what he calls the “fake news media” because he wants his supporters to disbelieve any kind of negative coverage he may receive. Most people think the idea of Trump-as-truthteller is patently absurd, but it’s a remarkably effective lie, as public opinion polls have shown for years.Every myth has its origin story, and this one is no different. My guest in this episode, AJ Bauer, has a new book called Making the Liberal Media: How Conservatives Built a Movement Against the Press that traces the 80-year history of this lie, and how it’s made it so that reactionary Republicans have a better understanding of Marxist media theory than almost anyone in the left-of-center operative class.The full discussion of this episode is for paid subscribers. An excerpt on YouTube is available. To watch, read, or listen to the full discussion, you will need to be a paid subscribing member on Patreon or Substack.You can subscribe to Theory of Change and other Flux podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, YouTube, Patreon, Substack, and elsewhere. (Note: Purchasing a book through the links in show notes helps support Theory of Change.)Related Content--Despite the right’s complaints, there really isn’t a liberal media, why not?--Right-wing figures are applying their bogus complaints about the media to artificial intelligence--‘Post left’ podcasters have become an incredible voter depression tool of some of Trump’s top contributors--Reactionary comedy isn’t funny, but it sure is effective at capturing the imaginations of low-information voters--How Washington Republicans leverage QAnon and other conspiracy movements--Right-wing donors have been secretly (and openly) funding fake leftist candidates for decades--The women of QAnon--How naive faith in legal formalism handed the Supreme Court to the radical rightAudio Chapters(Full version)00:00 — Introduction12:19 — The right’s spoken-word culture and debate aesthetics22:03 — From Facts Forum to the Birchers: the origins of ‘liberal media bias’34:19 — The right’s decentralized media ecosystem43:37 — Trump, entertainment, and right-wing media amplification53:08 — Why the left doesn’t build its own media01:04:50 — Republicans use left-wing political theory more than the Democrats do01:16:21 — The Democratic Party’s flawed theory of politics