MeidasTouch Turns Democrats’ Minds to Slop.
MeidasTouch Turns Democrats’ Minds to Slop.
Viewers are flocking to “independent” media that serves up a never-ending stream of anti-Trump content. But this stuff is intellectual poison and may even help the right.
Viewers are flocking to “independent” media that serves up a never-ending stream of anti-Trump content. But this stuff is intellectual poison and may even help the right.
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To some extent we can also blame TYT's inward collapse and rightwing pivot. They were the clearing house of all things resistance and progressive. Their rightwing/ MAGA pivot has to be one of the greatest betrayals in all media. To quote Mondale Robinson: "They took too damn much from the ethos!!"
Its not Meidas Touch, whom were never themselves progressives or even contending to be anything other than center right neoliberals and neoconservatives, its not their fault there is no media space to support progressive policies/ progressive news reporting.
The Majority Report (Sam Seder/ Emma) is great, but its not a "pure news" show in the way that TYT or Meidas Touch is. Its too wonky, too 'pure politics' in the traditional sense of political reporting. Its a politics show for people are deep into it. TYT was a daily show for people to take in, after the events of the day, but they've jumped the shark.
Because of this there is a void, and despite them being maybe not the right size/ shape, people are starving for honest reporting, or anything that seems to be representing it.
I'd love to see the whole "grab bag" of leftist political shows bundle up into one show, and produce an evening news show. Its too much "political hot takes" and not enough "news of the day". Of course, make your political hot-takes, but mostly, just tell me what happened.
I really like Some More News. They're kinda like Last Week Tonight in style: in-depth reporting on bigger issues, with some jokes thrown in. They also make two episodes of Even More News a week, but those are more hype-of-the-day with less analysis behind them. Honestly feels like it's just their brainstorm sessions recorded and released as a podcast.
I like the Crooked products, specifically Pod Save America. I wouldn't call them strictly progressive or liberal because they're far too analytical to be a blind cheerleader. Some of the other podcasts under their umbrella do get into the cheerleader effect a bit though.
I mean, look, you are probably going to take this the wrong way, and you should.
But Pod Save is some of the most toxic garbage there is available, and if someone tells me this is where they get their news, I'm writing them off. The are PURE neoliberal, Blue-MAGA, cultist; the culimination of why the modern Democratic party is a failure for all humanity.
They are a crew of one-off Obama era consultants whose primary job it is to manufacture consent for the extant power structures within the Democratic Party. They are incredibly pretentious and their takes are about as vapid a helium gas. They have no ability to predict what comes next in politics; the predictive capacity of their internal models is zilch. The advice they put out their is almost always the opposite of what one should do.
They aren't just representative of whats wrong with the Democratic party, they are the thing that is wrong with the Democratic party.
Ive listened to pod save for years and after the election just couldn't bring myself to listen to it anymore. It's been a lot of bad takes and frustrations. Who do you recommend I go to for news?
- Democracy Now! for the morning news.
I'll be honest, sometimes I can't handle the full hour, because Amy puts it out there raw as it is and sometimes when the shit is real bad, I just can't emotionally handle it. But the sanitizing of our news, thats a major part of the problem; sane washing in an insane time is a form of lying. If I don't have time for that, then I just watch the headlines.
- Majority Report with Emma and Sam
I try and separate the politics from the news as best I can. I consider Majority to be much heavier on the Politics than the News side, which is fine. They also have complementary schedules. If its an interview I'm not interested in, I'll turn it off. The fun half is good for getting an understanding of what MAGA is doing.
- Don Lemon Show
I do try and keep track of what the "centrists", or better phrasing, neoliberal/ neoconservative, "raised on corpo media take" is. Don Lemon is about as safe as you get. I also feel like I owe him one because he put a project of mine on his show right after J6, and that launched us in a big way. I watch Don Lemon to get an idea for what corporate media is thinking.
- Meidas Touch
I do watch Meidas Touch, but only if there is an important trial going on. As far as courtroom news, these are the ones to follow. They have the best "judiciary"/ law takes, because, well, they are all lawyers. Their politics are drivel and not worth listening to.
- The Benjamin Dixon Show
Ben barely ever puts out content since he started preaching again but he was one of my favorite contributors in the early days of TYT. I was making bootleg Benjamin Dixon show swag almost a decade ago and was one of his first patreons. I always tune in and love his takes. He was making the clearest most consistent points about the rise of white nationalism from 2016-2024 of anyone, but just had to step back because it was grinding him down.
- ClickBaity Political Thirst Trap
Squirrelgang rise up. These guys know how to win elections and ultimately, thats what matters. They take an unapollegitically black male perspective, which imo, needs to be elevated. They stream on Tuesdays.
- CurrentAffairs (the linked article)
I like Nathan J. Robinson, even though I think he's a Chomsky fanboy and Chomsky is mostly not worth listening to.
- LeftistMafia
Just to keep tabs on the zoomers.
- Jon Stewart
Again, too much of an apologist for the system and for power, but i've got a thing for Jon.
My goal with my media consumption is to gather a diversity of opinions, evaluate those opinions against what they say is going to happen versus what does happen, and weight them accordingly.
@[email protected] made a point below about my "strong opinions"; yes, I have conviction around what I believe to be true. But my goal with my perspective is to have opinions and takes that predict future states of the world, and I think I've demonstrated a strong track record for that. I've been following politics, in excruciating detail, since like.. 1997/8/9.
I think too often people offer charity that news sources don't deserve because they like the "tone" or manner in-which information is presented, rather than evaluating a given sources ability to predict future states. That's the only signal of virtue to me: does your opinion of what will happen predict the future?
There is too much weight put on conventional wisdom and conventional news sources when they are trash at predicting future states of the world.
I used to watch TYT for the evening news. DN! for the morning with Sam and Emma for politics and then TYT in the evening was a great way to keep on top of pretty much everything that mattered. I also liked the more international focus DN! and MR (when it had Micheal Brookes, RIP) had.
But I'm a boat adrift for a decent evening news program now.
Thank you, I'll follow the top few for a while and see how they hit. Here's a specific question: which one do you go to for hope?
Thanks, and yeah I don’t dislike strong opinions. You gave an essay answer about some folks you didn’t like so much, so I figured you’d have an essay for those you did like.
Do you ever listen to On the Media? I have appreciated their more focused goal of analyzing how the news is reported.
On the Media is fine, but I have a strong and deep distaste for "manufactured consent" experience which is NPR. Its prob the take that would get me most heavily down-voted most heavily. It was January 2015, and NPR ran some segment which was basically an explainer on why no one should bother running in the DNC primary that cycle because obviously Hillary should and will be the nominee, and would just wipe the floor with any Republican. I remember how idiotic they sounded, considering that even then , Hillary was just about the worst candidate you could have ever ran.
I have a special hole in my heart just for hating on NPR. I think its been one of the most destructive forces in American politics because it creates the illusion, the sensation of understanding without anything to back it up. It makes you feel like you are smarter than you actually are, just like pod-save. Its a pro-corporate narrative (I mean just listen to who gets the sponsor spots) with a veneer of "Americanism" and centrism, as if its just L v R and we'll still go to bed under the same sheets. The world is an existential and material fight for existence and NPR creates the sensation in people that they are doing something, that they are involved in something, when they are not. Its like the DNC. It stands in where something real should be.
I dip in and out with them. Sometimes I just need to hear some other people bitching about shit (because it’s easier than riling up my group of friends all the time). But I definitely tire of the constant outrage.
Also I’m not sure I agree with the other guy’s take on “consent for extant powers” when they were pretty fucking vocal about and critical of Biden last year… long before the catastrophic debate.
I prefer Offline and PSTW for the (usually) more even-keeled discussions and thoughtful interviews.
You’ve got a lot of very strong opinions here. What news are you yourself listening to regularly?
I mentioned you in my answer, written above.
I mean, look, you are probably going to take this the wrong way, and you should.
I'm not sure what I could take the wrong way. I think you were pretty straightforward.
I do think you're partly wrong about their pod though. They're pretty analytical. I find that they try not to take sides too much within the left, but they do try to understand and they're pretty honest when it's clear. When they do take a position on divisive wedge issues (within the Democratic Party) they tend to land progressive (not Leftist or liberal).
Calling them blue maga is some retarded shit though, FR. And I wish that's what neolibs were, we'd all be a lot better off. I think maybe you're just upset that they aren't completely radicalized?
Calling them blue maga is some retarded shit though,
You know its funny right. Because the only people who say that are the ones who take it personally.
For those not in the cult, it is a very useful and accurate term. Whoopi said she would vote for Biden if he personally shit himself on stage (on the view). She opposed removing him as the candidate to an audience of millions. How many people did she convince to vote for Biden with her perspective? And when we look at the kind of behavior, like insisting on running an obviously failed candidate well past the point of even being able to recover, an insistence on strategies and approaches that did not work in the past, that were not working then, and that obviously weren't going to work in the future: how can we classify such a movement as anything other than cultlike?
And PodSave, I mean they were that movements vanguard. And they pretty much lost the election for us. Blue MAGA as a movement, they precluded us having a robust primary because "of course we should just run the incumbent". They precluded us swapping out the candidate when they were' obviously floundering in the polls (ages before the meltdown Biden had on stage). They insisted we had to do almost every bad idea, because of their fundamental strategy: any blue would do.
But it turns out, any blue wont do. Candidates actually have to be grounded in the needs of the people they are asking to elect them.
And if you were / are Blue MAGA (which if podSave was/ is your primary source for poltiical interpretation, you almost assuredly are), sad day for you, and sad day for all of us.
Blue MAGA as a movement were wreckers who destroyed our ability to stop the death cult of the Republican party with their half-a-loaf, warmed over neoliberalism. On their insistence of decorum. On their wait your turn approach to leadership.
If that was you, the current state of things rests on your shoulders. Trump was as unpopular as Biden last election. And we lost because of Blue MAGA.
I think you're projecting your own frustrations about the Democratic leadership because most of what you're saying is wrong. There was a lot more discourse and a lot less defense than you're remembering.
I'm not sure what your definition of Blue Maga is. But if it's accusations against anyone that doesn't support whatever you think with undying loyalty, that sounds like you. I'm not saying that the absolute defense people doesn't exist, but that's not them. And your absolutism is just as bad as what you're complaining about.
Its pretty clear you don't really know what you are talking about. Ask around. Its a thing. And the thing is the definition I'm giving you. I've been posting on this exact topic here, to originally, a chorus of downvotes, and more recently, a growing chorus of support, for years. And I've specifically used the language Blue MAGA/ BNMW. The term has been around for over a decade.
Your ignorance isn't a form of evidence; nothing I'm saying is wrong, its just not a telling of history you would learn on PodSave.
It's pretty clear you're going to hear whatever you want from me and anyone else. You're no different from what you're attacking.
I mean you out here trying to tell me a thing isn't a thing. Bruh, its been a thing for almost 10 years. You being ignorant of that is on you brother. That it makes you uncomfortable you might be the thing: it changes nothing.
2016:
2019:
2024:
Since you #BlueMAGA, I suppose appeals to authority are your bag. Here's an article from Mehdi Hassan on the matter: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/15/democrats-joe-biden-maga
The gaslighters prayer
- That didn't happen.
- And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
- And if it was, that's not a big deal.
- And if it is, that's not my fault. 👈 we are here
- And if it was, I didn't mean it.
- And if I did, you deserved it.
I see multiple different definitions of what "blue maga" is in your post between denial and pro-Trump rhetoric. And your laundry list in the first pic straight up shows how full of shit you are.
You're a lot closer to MAGA than any of the shit you're claiming. Complete with conspiracy theories, denialism, and again baseless accusations.
- That didn't happen.
- And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
- And if it was, that's not a big deal.
- And if it is, that's not my fault.
- And if it was, I didn't mean it.
- And if I did, you deserved it. 👈 we are here
I mean what more should I expect from BlueMAGA? No critical analysis. First its that the thing doesn't exist. Then its not a big deal. Then i'm just like them. Bruh you need to critically assess how you got to be this broken in your thought patterns.
We lost this election because people confuse the sensation of understanding for actually understanding, its what BlueMAGA thrives on, the sensation that they've got it right, in-spite of the decades of evidence to the contrary, and its precisely what shows like podSave have to offer.
And you just offended that you were identified and called out for it. Thats all this is. And 3 months ago, 6 months ago, I'd be facing a brigade of down votes agreeing with you. The same blue-maga down voters who told us we had to run Biden in Feb 24. That we just had to. That of course he should run, he's the incumbent. Its exactly what podSave was putting out. Then it was that it was too late to swap. Then when we were swapping, it was that we just had to accept Kamala as she was. That we couldn't and shouldn't try to move her to more electable positions. All that bullshit.
And they were wrong. And I made the point to make the point of announcing that they were wrong, loudly, for the previous 8 years. And even more loudly in 2024. Idk much about you. Ain't even clicked your account yet. But no one here would be mistaken on the positions I've taken on the matter, here. So your little "errr your one like maga" shit ain't gonna fly.
But not no more. People are starting to see BlueMAGA for what they are. A failed political project. The fact is that the world has seen through BlueMAGA's bullshit. Its obvious that the podSave, Obama, Hillary, Biden, Harris approach to politics ain't worth shit. It was always selection bias on their part, waking up on third base thinking they scored a triple. So miss me with that bullshit.
But when I do click on your account what will I find? I do wonder. I do wonder.
Democracy Now has a daily news podcast I like to listen to sometimes
As a Canadian I thank God every day for Steve Boots. But unfortunately for you guys he keeps his content very much focused on our political sphere.