What Is the Purpose of Conservative Media?

To hear some tell it, nothing more than to amuse and follow.

On Wednesday, journalist Michael Tracey called out populist types (specifically Rand Paul) blaming the “Uniparty” for House Speaker Mike Johnson moving forward with a standalone Ukraine aid package yet conspicuously ignoring Donald Trump’s support of both Johnson and Ukraine funding:

This was all Trump’s doing. He and Johnson have been totally open about it. That’s why Johnson went to Mar-a-Lago on Friday -- to exhibit Trump’s support. Anyone still trying to cover for Trump by counterposing him against some nebulous “Uniparty” is just contributing to the hoax

The GOP “code of silence” on Trump: blame the “Uniparty” for the Ukraine funding bill, while displaying convenient amnesia about the decisive role played by Trump, thus duping your followers into thinking Trump opposes the thing he actually just gave crucial political support to

For the record, I support helping Ukraine beat back Russia while Tracey is in the vapors-over-World-War-III camp, but the basic point is well taken: MAGA and the MAGA-adjacent don’t even care about holding Trump accountable on their own stated priorities on the stuff that was supposed to distinguish him from normal Republicans. (In this case, Trump’s lack of conviction offers a rare glimmer of hope he might govern more responsibly in at least one area than his pandering has often indicated, but therein lies the trouble—too often you have to pass the Donald to find out what’s in him. But I digress.)

Tracey’s comment prompted a curious reply from The Blaze’s Steve Deace:

With all due respect, nobody's followers are really being duped. Influencers mostly don't influence on the Right as much as they reflect back to the audience what it wants to be influenced with/by. Around here the tail mostly wags the dog. Thus, much of the following isn't gaslit victims as you're portraying, but satisfied customers getting exactly what they want. Most are are being served that which they asked for.

The "code of silence" you speak of is more in fear of backlash from the following than it is fear of Trump. The "convenient amnesia" is really a business decision. The heart wants what the heart wants. There isn't nearly the demand for content holding Trump accountable on anything as there is absolving and/or crediting him for everything.

And this is what the overwhelming majority of the GOP base that is at least somewhat engaged at all (most of it is not and has largely given up, see off-year election turnout) wants. Trump as the hero, or Trump as the victim. Thus, the path to building/maintaining engagement is much wider and easier this way. 

This also explains the change from Trump 2016 to what we have now. In 2016 he earnestly thought he had to deliver for the GOP base, but now he realizes he does not. Which is why he will continue moving left on key issues like baby-killing, which is his more natural pre-2016 disposition anyway. He knows now he can do and say whatever he wants, and the worst he will receive for it is temporary cognitive dissonance -- until his enemies bless him once more with their Jihadic attempts to destroy him, which will then re-ignite the passions of the following once more as the cycle continues.

Obviously there’s a lot of truth here about a significant portion of conservative media consumers: mindless fanboyism for undeserving recipients, lack of factual curiosity and analytical reasoning, gullibility and emotionalism leading to nonsense conclusions, etc. It’s also true enough that much of the MAGA pandering doesn’t come specifically from fear of Trump himself, but from what hosts perceive their audiences’ desires to be. Deace’s description of the incentives at work is essentially correct.

But “nobody's followers are really being duped”? Seriously?

I could’ve sworn we just went through a primary season in which the leading candidate was permitted to repeatedly avoid tough questions from the right about his record and damaging stories went largely unreported. I guess I’ve simply missed all the articles and videos and radio segments pressuring the presumptive Republican nominee to stop undermining the pro-life movement and to ditch the sleazy hatchet men it continues to associate with. And how many of the major personalities and websites informed their audiences this week that Trump Media & Technology Group has an official “Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion” in writing?

The fact that Deace is talking about these things at all makes him a much-needed exception to the conservative media norm. But, being a part of The Blaze—whose head-honcho Glenn Beck is, as I’ve detailed here before, as egregious an offender as anybody—he still feels the need to give lame defenses of the sellouts like “we all have to eat.”

The simple reality is that "the people" are most certainly not forcing conservative media to lie to them, and the "having to eat" excuse doesn’t pass the laugh test. Beck, Mark Levin, Charlie Kirk, Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, etc. are all far, far above and beyond the "making ends meet" threshold, and in the Blaze's case, right off the top of my head an easy way to save money would be to stop paying dirtbag personalities no self-respecting organization would employ in the first place.

More fundamentally, “give the people what they want” is fine advice for the entertainment industry, but it’s wholly inadequate for anything that sells itself as a legitimate news organization or a mission to advance a political agenda—and conservative media sells itself as both. You’re either keeping your audience fully informed or you’re not. You’re either doing your part to advance conservative values or you’re not. You don’t get to preen about being the antidote to the MSM while emulating its worst forms of journalistic malpractice.

Of course, if conservative media had covered the Republican primary responsibly, it’s possible that voters wouldn’t have cared. Maybe the Right’s rank-and-file really are so brainwashed they would’ve just shot the messenger (although, between the major websites’ traffic troubles, diminished enthusiasm for Trump in the real world, and the number of online conservatives desperate for more serious options, I have my doubts). But hypothetical outcomes that will now never be proven don’t exempt conservative media from the duty they shirked to at least try—not unless they’re prepared to make it official that they’re nothing more than entertainers after all.