I used to read and support both of them (I used to send money to Greenwald back at the beginning when he was a mere blogger) but as many observers have noted, they seem to have taken a turn to the right and I no longer seek them out. Will Solomon writes that a new book Owned by Eoin Higgins asserts that their shift is part of a larger program by tech billionaires like Mark Andreesen, Peter Thiel, and Elon Musk to buy the loudest voices on the left and right. (The article is behind a paywall so I’ll give just brief excerpts.)
Higgins has done a sort of service for those of us who have watched Greenwald and Taibbi in disbelief, as they’ve contorted themselves into more and more ridiculous positions in obvious deference to wealth and power—particularly wealth and power in the tech sector—and aligned themselves with an ascendant right. Both have repeatedly justified the transformation (a transformation that, to varying degrees, they also deny, instead blaming shifts in liberal culture) under the guise of rejecting corporate censorship and hegemonic liberalism, surfing the same wave of anti–cancel culture hysteria that has degraded public conversation more generally and simplified potentially meaningful debates around power and the consolidation of media into a more easily digestible pill of “liberal elites are muffling conservative voices.” And, of course, both men have gotten very rich doing it.
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