How Was the Right-Wing Disinformation Media Able to Take Over America?
There’s a proverb my friend Izreal recently posted, that in turn was probably originally from someone like Mark Twain. It goes like this: “It’s easier to fool a man than to convince him that he has been fooled.” And that’s the logic behind my explanation of the evolution of disinformation media, also known as right wing media here. Keep that in mind as you read.
How Right Wing Media Is Disinformation Media
Legacy media, the classic, old-school stuff that used to dominate TV, was designed primarily to “inform.” It was formulaic and reliable, much like a frozen dinner: not gourmet, but it kept generations coming back as a simple source of information. Yet even legacy media wasn’t without its flaws; it often misled by what it omitted, and over time, its trustworthiness eroded.
Enter the world of social media, which runs on a simple math problem: clicks equal conviction. When you’re convinced, you click-and then you click and click and click. This click-driven algorithm laid the groundwork for what I call the disinformation media; it’s the engine that powered the birth of “new media,” where engagement overrides accuracy.
This new media isn’t merely a product of technology-it’s the exploit of the polity of the day: right-wing actors. Right-wing media has long stood as an alternative to legacy media. Since at least the ’90s, while legacy media dominated the airwaves, right-wing voices ruled the radio waves (during the 90s and beyond). With the advent of online media, lacking a clear identity, a sort of Cold War for that identity played out via platforms like the App Store. Social media’s success paved the way for other outlets to mimic its format, and right-wingers simply bought up the spaces where this model worked best-effectively funneling their audiences into a digital echo chamber.
Today, these technologies-legacy media, radio waves, and online sources-are interconnected in a tightly controlled network, designed not to inform but to convince and hook its user. This system is famously fueled by the “dopamine effect,” exploiting our natural drive to engage and click. Rather than judging content solely by its factual accuracy, the system rewards messages that evoke strong responses, regardless of their truth value. That’s the essence of new media, and new media is Right wing through and through.
The key, however, is still choice. So, how does one’s choice get “bottlenecked” until conviction takes over? Simply put, those in power have shaped consumer choice through quasi-monopolies and aggressive, personalized advertising algorithms, economic incentives (like stimulus checks), and broader societal shifts. Consider, for example, how racially charged resentment during Obama’s presidency was leveraged. And right wingers have promise revenge for the trade off of political power. With all these factors at play, America became an open target-and a despot excels at picking off the masses. This is how Trump got America to relinquish its traditional political empire-built on “truth, justice, and the American way”-in favor of a system characterized by Russian polity, Chinese militarization, fascist normalization, and a return to oligarchy reminiscent of the Gilded Age. Where one clicks, one is convinced-and there’s no going back. At least not for where you get your “media.”
So, enjoy libraries; visit your local university’s research library; go on dopamine fasts. Or do what I do: make it a point in life to touch grass–quite literally–as a normal practice. Enjoy the outdoors without media-based technology. I call this the #touchgrass movement. So go, touch some grass. Ass, grass, and cash should never go out of style like being human–even if our AI overlords disagree.
