I saw a rant from Mehdi Hasan the other day complaining that the way Elon Musk constantly says the media are corrupt and dishonest “has a massive effect not just on trust and polarization in society, but on election outcomes and political messaging.”
Hasan said that Musk, Trump and their ilk “have cynically created an unpenetrable [sic] bubble around their followers, primed them against a reality-based universe, [and] pre-emptively undermined any negative stories about themselves.”
Hasan is of course correct that the people who listen to Trump and Musk have largely been herded into fact-resistant echo chambers of cult-like loyalty, but it’s worth pointing out that Musk’s claims about the media are absolutely correct as well. The media are corrupt and untrustworthy, and do indeed promote lies and propaganda all the time. Just because Elon Musk says it doesn’t mean it’s false.
One great challenge of our time is that while it’s becoming common knowledge that western media is propaganda and western politics is a corrupt sham, fake solutions to these problems are being marketed to the mainstream by the same powers responsible for them. Donald Trump himself will tell you that the media are lying and the political establishment is run by swamp monsters, and then say that the solution is to support Republicans and trust right wing media. Elon Musk will go on Joe Rogan and say the same thing. In 2028 AOC will probably run for president campaigning on the Democratic Party version of the same faux-populist message, just as Bernie Sanders did.
This dynamic poses a major obstacle to those who yearn for real revolutionary change. It’s becoming increasingly necessary to not just stand against the status quo but against the fraudulent political factions which pretend to oppose it. It’s no longer enough to reject establishment politics and media, we also need to reject the fake anti-establishment politics and media which seek to herd a discontented populace away from meaningful revolutionary movements.
Too late
She’s not talking about yesterday, she’s talking about tomorrow.
In 2028 AOC will probably run for president campaigning on the Democratic Party version of the same faux-populist message, just as Bernie Sanders did.
