As Charges Mount, Trump's Media Bubble Shrugs
A peek inside the alternate factual universe in which his supporters and many GOP electeds inhabit -- which could make a Trump second term much more likely.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) appeared on Fox News on Friday, June 9, reacting to the latest document drawing the channel's attention. "It was very credible and legitimate," she said. "It corroborates information we've seen in other places."
If you thought she was talking about the 37-count criminal indictment against former President Donald Trump for allegedly retaining classified documents after he left office, you were wrong. She was referring to an FBI interview conducted with a confidential informant about Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian company Burisma.
The exchange illustrates one political advantage that Trump has in his quest to win the Republican nomination en route to the presidency and one challenge for Special Prosecutor Jack Smith in convincing the public of Trump's charges: many of his supporters live in an alternate media ecosystem with a different set of beliefs, including the lie that Trump had the 2020 election stolen from him. This ecosystem includes Fox News, which is the most-watched cable network in the United States; Twitter, which has turned into the center of the conservative media ecosystem since the company's acquisition by Tesla CEO Elon Musk; and conservative publishers like Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro who have attracted a loyal audience thanks in part to Facebook algorithms. It's entirely possible to bounce between these platforms and television channels and not see much about the contents of the indictment itself -- or the viral photo of classified documents in the bathroom.
Despite the historic indictment against President Trump for keeping classified information at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, many elected Republicans simply are ignoring it or offering vague defenses, but not mounting a defense against the charges themselves. Scanning the responses from House GOP members on Twitter since the particulars of the indictment were released on June 9, there was virtually no defense against the allegations. Even some running against Trump for the GOP presidential nomination offered vague defenses. "The American people are exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach, double standards, and vendetta politics," Nikki Haley wrote on Twitter, before the particulars of the indictment were released. (A few Senate Republicans, like Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah, offered statements directly addressing the charges and describing them as "serious.")
The House Republican caucus are close to their voters, and any sign of apostasy to Trump is punished. Robert Draper, author of the book Weapons of Mass Delusion on the post-Jan. 6 House GOP, said Trump was the "arbiter of truth" to Republicans. He wrote that GOP House members "could speak out against him and risk forfeiting everything but their integrity. Or they could hold their tongues, risk becoming pariahs of the truth-based world, and keep their jobs." Most have chosen the latter. Those that chose the former almost all lost their primaries or chose not to run for re-election in 2022.
The aim in pointing this out is not to say that all truth is relative; rather it is to point out that this divide exists and presents a structural problem for American politics. American politics are no longer divided between two parties jockeying for voters in the center. Democrats -- because their coalition includes everyone from Joe Manchin to Bernie Sanders -- have to appeal to both the center and the base, and Republicans just appeal to the base. Thanks to the distortions of the Electoral College which disproportionately gives weight to small, rural states, Republicans can win presidential elections without winning the popular vote. This divide began in the early 2000s, as Karl Rove, the architect of President George W. Bush's campaigns, shifted him from a "compassionate conservative" in the 2000 election trying to win over centrists, to appealing to conservatives in 2004 with gay marriage bans. In 2016, after Facebook and Twitter became big social platforms, Donald Trump served as a hero to this base with its own online and television media ecosystem: he raised the ratings of Fox News and went viral online, winning a minority victory by mobilizing conservatives in this bubble.
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There are two things that can be done. First, is for prosecutors to act professionally. In 2016, Attorney General Loretta Lynch agreed to meet with former President Bill Clinton as their planes were both stopped at the Phoenix airport. While Lynch denied that the meeting had anything to do with the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, merely having the meeting was a big mistake because it fed into the conservative perception that the Clintons were corrupt. So far, Jack Smith hasn't fallen into this trap -- on the contrary, his statement on June 9 was terse and professional. President Biden is refraining from commenting on the charges.
The second is to be patient. The conservative bubble was not built in a day and it will not fall in a day. However, reality usually wins out. Consider the uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine amid an onslaught of disinformation. While many people died or were seriously ill from not being vaccinated quickly enough, as of October 2022 (the last time statistics were updated), 74 percent of U.S. adults aged 18-64 and 93 percent of those 65 and older were fully vaccinated. The reality of the deaths and serious illness eventually spoke louder than the disinformation.
Trump faces more probes both from Smith and prosecutors in Georgia over trying to change the results of the 2020 election; it's possible that the cumulative effect of these charges will overwhelm this bubble. Or the bubble will help him win the presidency again. We just don't know. Buckle up.