Seth Cotlar

Heyooo come out to Salem this Wednesday to hear me and @sethcotlar.bsky.social talk conspiracy theories and the far-right!

No, bless YOUR heart, nameless person on the internet.

Yes I do. And I remember him being asked about by the media and I remember him responding in an attempt to explain himself, an explanation many found unconvincing.

Agreed, that's why I'm not talking about converting hardcore MAGA supporters...this is about the huge swath of US voters who don't pay much attention to news and think of themselves as "independents" or "moderates."

Efron spent years as a writer for the putatively non-partisan TV Guide and shaped the way that hugely influential magazine talked about politics and culture, especially race, in the 1970s. She approached her topic from a very conservative, partisan position, though she claimed to be objective.

Been thinking about doing something on this and the biggest issue is that we just do not have good data on Trump's mass deportation push, so it's impossible *at the moment* to do exact apples to apples comparisons.

The Conservative War on Liberal Media Has a Long History Roger Ailes's success at Fox News is unique, but the project of creating a right-leaning alternative to established media stretches back to the 1940s.

Nixon had Chuck Colson buy up every copy he could find of Effron's book so as to get it on the NYTimes bestseller list. It worked. For years after, Nixon staffers recall tripping over boxes crammed with copies of "The News Twisters." www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

YouTube video by NewsActive3 Firing Line: The News Twisters, September 1, 1971

Nixon LOVED Edith Efron's shoddy 1971 book "The News Twisters." It played a significant role in the creation of the "liberal mainstream media" narrative that became an article of faith in conservative political culture beginning in the 1970s. youtu.be/zzMDEEQCYcE?...

I should have mentioned this obvious point earlier, but the reason why powerful right wing politicians like Agnew and Nixon wanted American citizens to distrust the media was BECAUSE THEY WERE CROOKS WHO WORRIED THEY WERE GOING TO BE CAUGHT BEING CROOKS BY MEDIA OUTLETS THEY COULDN'T CONTROL.

And just as antisemitism lay at the heart of so many contemporary MAGA conspiracy theories about how "the liberal media is trying to brainwash you," Spiro Agnew thought "organized Jewry" was out to get him. bsky.app/profile/seth...

YouTube video by Joseph Hewes Spiro Agnew: Media Monopoly and Beginning of Fake News - November 13, 1969

Virtually every plank in Trump's "fake news, liberal media" framing was present in this 1969 speech by Spiro Agnew. Agnew was gaming the media and trying to gain advantage for the US right. It was a right wing *political* strategy, not a genuine critique of journalism. youtu.be/Y97l3n8pVP8?...

These right wing media entrepreneurs like Richard Viguerie and Roger Ailes framed what they were doing as bringing "balance" to our media landscape, but that was bullshit. They were trying to sabotage evidence-based journalism (however imperfect it was) and supplant it with right wing propaganda.

A key way that the Reaganite right came to power in the late 20th century was by building a massive, alternative media apparatus that equipped conservative activists w/ simplistic but powerful counter-arguments to what they were reading in the MSM which they were trained to call "the liberal media."

come on

Indeed, and Obama tried to get those laws changed via a closely divided (or GOP controlled in many cases) Congress and they were making progress until the anti-"amnesty" crowd got the GOP to walk away from the process. And so Obama's constitutional obligation was to enforce the existing laws.

Yes, that is a perfectly reasonable thing to think about Obama's policies. It's also worth noting that the backdrop for what he did was Congress's failure (largely due to pressure from racist anti-immigrant Republicans) to create a workable immigration policy.

It's not enough to just say "but Obama didn't do that." Sure, it's true, but that's not how memory works. You need to tell a true story about what really happened, populate the discourse with evidence and examples that give life to a memory of the Obama era that people can picture and engage with.

They don't. That's why I'm not talking about them.

If the current state of hyper-aggressive, violent, and even murderous ICE/CPB/DHS activity on US streets comes to be accepted as "normal American stuff, just like what Obama did and no one complained," then that's some major grease on our slide into ever greater authoritarianism.

Because, IMO, a key political battle right now is over what counts as "normal." Between 2021 & 2024, MAGA managed to get people outside of their base to accept J6 (and promised pardons) as "normal." As of now, masked goons murdering people and violating civil rights on the main looks "not normal."

When that guy who mainlines 4 hours of Tucker Carlson content per day starts bloviating at work or in the gym or in church about Obama's deportation regime that no liberals complained about, it would be good to have some useful facts at hand...not for him (likely a lost cause) but for his audience.

This is how Trump's propaganda machine tries to distort our public conversation by reframing the people protesting ICE as MSM-brainwashed simpletons who are pro-pedophile and pro-rapist. IMO, one role of non-MAGA media is to provide information and context to help balance out these conversations.

There are still spaces in our society (mostly not online spaces) where people come into contact with folks who don't totally agree with them politically. Those are the spaces MAGA media targets by equipping Trump fans with simple talking points like this Obama/Trump comparison.

I can't stress how ubiquitous that specious Obama comparison is in MAGA social media, and I assume it's because it feels like a slam dunk win for them. Given that the press's job (theoretically at least) is to help inform our public conversation about politics, this seems like a perfect opportunity.

"Trump is just doing what Obama did, & no one complained back then!" Given that this is a central talking point MAGA is using to reach people outside their hardcore base, it would be useful if a proper journalistic outlet addressed this comparison in an evidence-based way. I haven't seen one yet.

Bad Bunny going after ICE at the Grammies is getting its attention. But Coach Muffet McGraw calling Trump a “fascist” who “needs to be removed from office” is a thing. In the part of the country where Coach McGraw is revered, this is a big deal. www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/2...

In other words, if you're going to cite the Farmer-Labor Party and Nordic socialism as the basis of political culture in Minnesota, then you need to also reckon with how antisemitism and Nordicism played such an important role in the politics of the state in the 1930s...

By a columnist who recently left the Washpost (where this piece likely would have been spiked)

People are making fun of him for this, but I feel pretty confident that the new Trump Kennedy Center will be as much of a success as the Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Vodka, Trump Shuttle, Trump Mortgage, Trump Steaks, and Trump University.

Concerning. I’m looking into it.