So, this past December, conservative pundit Steven Crowder decided to start a fight with his fellow conservative pundits at The Daily Wire. Crowder claimed that the contract he’d been offered was unfair, and too exploitative, and some of us had a nice little chuckle at the ultra-conservative propagandist discovering capitalist exploitation for the first time. Then, it turned out that the contract in question would have gotten Crowder $50 million, for his spiteful, bigoted drivel.
It really underscores just how much money there seems to be for right-wing media. It’s no secret, by now, that a number of right-wing billionaires spend money on propaganda, but sometimes it’s easy to forget just how much money we’re talking about. It’s also easy to forget that while hateful weirdos like Crowder, Dennis Prager, or Ben Shapiro may be some of the most obvious recipients of billionaire money, the problem is much more widespread:
It’s telling that wealthy people who don’t want more nazism and oppression are not equaling the funding that their brothers and sisters pump into those causes. The fascist demagogues are too distasteful for them to fund or even look upon, but the b-shaps and j-peets do protect the interest and continuation of the wealthy class. I’m thinking of b-shap’s cousin mara wilson. scumbags have less scumbagginous fam, but they never seem to put as much funding or effort into the opposition to equal the evil their families do. no offense to mathilda, but i don’t think it’s a coincidence.
or maybe i’m just trying to shame george soros into cutting all those checks the nazis think he’s distributing to us.
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Telling indeed.
Soros funds Thinkprogress and its subsidiaries, which you could see as liberal equivalent, but I doubt anyone’s getting the same kind of money given to the right. In that case, part of the problem is also the belief that liberalism is, somehow, the best way to fight fascism.
Abe Drayton @ # 2: Soros funds Thinkprogress and its subsidiaries…
NB: TP & Co shut down almost four years ago.
And now? George Soros nonprofit braces for mass layoffs – crown prince Alexander Soros, now in control, plans to cut 40% of Soros Foundation’s staff of 800.
Huh. Apparently I tuned that out entirely.
some of the proliferation of right0wing outlets comes down to basic psychology and the nature, methods of, getting paid in the mass media.
Everyone has heard the bromide: ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. Or, ‘sex sells’. Human brains are set up to pay attention to threats, dangers, sex, and the exotic. The right plays all those cards, repeatedly. A story about Hillary Clinton being wrong simply isn’t going to get the juices flowing. But a story about HC cutting the face off a toddler and dancing around a camp fire wearing it as a mask will. What it lacks in reality, truth, and common sense credibility it makes up in taboo, horror, disgust and shock value. Which is why they went with it, why it spread so quick, and why virtually every person on the planet now has some version of that self-inflicted phantasmagoria tattooed on their brain. You can’t easily un-picture it. Triggering people is the point.
This why child abuse, cannibalism, ritual sexual abuse and mutilation are so much a fixture of right-wing media offerings. They catch the eye, take up residence in the brain, stain reputations, and get retweeted far out of proportion to the weight of actual facts.
And, of course, the media pays, distributes money and charges advertisers based on numbers of clicks and exposure. The more outrageous the claim the better it works … mostly. A flaw in this is the simple fact that once you accuse your opponent of cannibalism and child molestation you have run out of fresh meat. People, true for most addictions, spend their time seeking the first thrill of the initial exposure. They rapidly develop a tolerance and need larger doses to approach the thrill they felt the first time. There is, until someone invents it, nothing more shockingly perverse as cannibalistic child molestation. Once you throw that card you are done.
Eventually it loses its shock value. No doubt, in time, people will understand and use techniques that allow them to face the ugliest parts of reality and avoid this trap.
Every cry about Soros as the controlling, mastermind puppeteer is a confession of sorts.