Mostly Open Thread

Some of them voted for hate.  Some voted the way they did because women should know their place. Some voted because of immigration fears.  Some voted because the way they did because they aren’t very smart. Some voted because they are petty and insecure and wanted protection from those scary people who aren’t white.  Some voted for cheaper egg prices.

And maybe they are getting some of what they wanted. But like the greedy bastard he is, they are also getting a whole lot of stuff they didn’t vote for, and some of them are getting it good and hard.  You can only deny reality for so long and then reality wins.

Dan Pfeiffer

We are living in dangerously absurd times, and it can be easy to lose perspective. The full breadth of Trump’s assault on democracy over the last nine months is hard to process because we all believed for so long that such things could never happen here. There’s a poverty of imagination about the real dangers, and therefore a tendency to normalize the abnormal — to cover this as just more “Trumpian politics.”

But the Trump Administration pressuring a major media company to suspend a comedian because they disliked his commentary is far from normal. As Jim Rutenberg wrote in the New York Times:

“[Trump] is now conducting the most punishing government crackdown against major American media institutions in modern times, using what seems like every tool at his disposal to eradicate reporting and commentary with which he disagrees.”

Kimmel is the beginning, not the end, of this censorship campaign. Brendan Carr, the FCC Director, suggested on Thursday that he wanted to go after The View, and Trump threatened late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers. All of this comes on top of a larger effort to punish anyone critical of Charlie Kirk in the wake of his murder. Pete Hegseth has people combing through the social media of troops, and JD Vance urged the public to turn in anyone who is insufficiently mournful of Charlie Kirk to their employers.

Trump has, of course, done innumerable bad things since taking office. Some have no political purchase with the public. Others have broken through and hurt his political standing. I believe Trump could pay a steep price for this hyper-aggressive government censorship campaign. If — and when — Democrats win back the House next year, the GOP will look back at their weaponization of Charlie Kirk’s murder with great regret.

Here’s why.

Kimmel + Kirk Is a Major Story

The best way to understand politics in our fractured media ecosystem is that each side has a group of hyper-engaged partisans who aggressively follow every twist and turn, while the rest of the country has largely opted out of political news. Most of the things you and I obsess over never cross the transom of the less engaged, so they don’t move the poll numbers. There are, however, a handful of moments so significant or viral that they break out of the political news bubble. Thus far, the tariffs, the illegal deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and the Epstein files have all truly broken through to the larger public. You can almost match declines in Trump’s approval to those moments.

The Kirk assassination and Kimmel’s suspension are huge stories. According to data from What’s Resonating, content about Kimmel, Kirk, and freedom of speechis receiving by far the most engagement.

Losing the Mano-sphere Influencers

One of the keys to Trump’s successful campaign was the support of a set of podcasters, YouTubers, TikTokers, and influencers with large audiences of young men. For this group, freedom of speech and hostility toward so-called “cancel culture” were major reasons to support Trump.

Now this group is particularly exercised about the administration’s crackdown on speech. Tim Dillon, Dave Smith, Andrew Schulz, Akaash Singh, and several Barstool Sports personalities have criticized Trump for violating his promises to end government censorship.

Trump was already on thin ice with them over his refusal to release the Epstein files. Without the support of these highly influential voices, he loses a gateway to the young men who helped him win the election. Even worse for Trump, he is already bleeding support among young men. According to pollster John Della Volpe:

“Since Mr. Trump took office in January, his approval ratings among men under 30 have fallen by 29 percentage points on the issue of inflation, 25 points on jobs, and 21 points on the economy. Yet those losses don’t automatically translate into Democratic gains, because many of these men still see Democrats as weak, ineffective, and unresponsive.”

Hard to fix that problem when the people with the most influence over young men think you are assaulting free speech and covering up a relationship with a notorious child sex trafficker.

Speaking of influencers…

Love the age of influencers or hate the age of influencers, they aren’t going anywhere.  And they have a big influence on young voters that we very much need in order to win.

I’ll be sharing some information related to influencers using their power and influence – for good – in Virginia.  You can look for that in a week or so.

In the meantime, if we can skip the re-litigating of the past for this discussion, it will be much appreciated.

There’s a quote that I keep on my refrigerator.

The past is the past; it’s what we do now that matters.

Is This What They Thought They Were Voting For?Post + Comments (230)