I Believe in You and Your PowerPoints

Reader J sent me an email yesterday noting that he’s gotten two texts recently from groups trying to kill a proposed tax on vacation rentals, and opposing an increase in corporate taxes. Democrats don’t do this: what we get is endless begging for money, not calls to action. Perhaps if you’re a member of a more activist group (DSA, Indivisible, etc.), you might get action texts, but you certainly won’t get any mass texts about issues from our party or the big boogeyman donors that the right is so scared of (like Soros). As usual, with the right wing, every accusation is a confession, and that includes accusations that billionaires are paying for propaganda.

One of the key structural problems with Democrats and media is that nobody with deep pockets wants universal health care financed by taxes on the wealthy. The deep pockets want reduced tax burden, less regulation, the destruction of unions, and workers who are scared and living paycheck to paycheck. That’s essentially the opposite of what Democrats want.

Reader T sent this Instagram reel explaining this Media Matters report. Media Matters did what sounds like a very deep dive into the right-wing social media ecosystem. The reel has all the highlights, but here are the bullet points from the report:

• We found 320 online shows — 191 right-leaning and 129 left-leaning — that were active in 2024 and covered news and politics and/or had related guests. These shows had at least 584.6 million total followers and subscribers.

• We found substantial asymmetry in total following across platforms: Right-leaning online shows had at least 480.6 million total followers and subscribers — nearly five times as many as left-leaning.

  • Across platforms — YouTube, Rumble, Twitch, Kick, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — right-leaning online shows accounted for roughly 82% of the total following of the online shows we assessed.

  • Comparatively, left-leaning online shows had nearly 104 million followers and subscribers across the eight platforms — nearly five times less.

• Nine out of the 10 online shows with the largest followings across platforms were right-leaning, with a total following of more than 197 million. The only left-leaning show among the top 10 was What Now? with Trevor Noah, which had 21.1 million total followers and subscribers across platforms.

• Our analysis — which looked entirely at shows with an ideological bent — found over a third self-identify as nonpolitical, even though 72% of those shows were determined to be right-leaning. Instead, these shows describe themselves as comedy, entertainment, sports, or put themselves in other supposedly nonpolitical categories.

• Out of 320 online shows, right-leaning programs categorized as comedy — 15 shows in all — had 117.5 million followers and subscribers, or 20% of the total following of all programs we assessed. This category included The Joe Rogan Experience, This Past Weekend with Theo Von, and Full Send Podcast.

• Right-leaning shows accounted for two-thirds of the total YouTube views on videos from channels affiliated with the shows we assessed — 65 billion views in total. Comparatively, left-leaning online shows totaled 31.5 billion total views.

• Right-leaning shows use Rumble to expand their audience — gaining millions of subscribers and billions of views for their content.

So, the way the right wing gets their foot in the door is to brand their shows as non-political, probably because social media networks have traditionally been very uncomfortable with politics. But they often have political guests, and the guests’ politics are right wing.

Looking at the chart from Media Matters, below, I almost have to chuckle about the big debate over whether Harris should have gone on the Joe Rogan show. (My memory is that the reason she didn’t was because he was unreasonable about the length of the interview and the location.) That’s like wondering if pouring a glass of fresh water into the ocean will make it less salty. In his after-campaign reflections, Walz has acknowledged that the Harris campaign should have been “everywhere”. He’s right. Well, this is everywhere in 2025. It’s free media, not millions of dollars of ads on TV, so I’m guessing consultants are against it. Candidates should fire them, and hire people who understand this new ecosystem.