Big Money and Big Media Lost in 2024

Almost three weeks since the election, the consensus is that this has been a populist victory — the people saw themselves ill-served by a lordly empowered elite and voted them out.

There is one aspect of this populist victory that may need a little more emphasis, and that is that the roll of fundraiser has been knocked down and trimmed down, though by no means entirely broken.

Going back to what passes for ancient history, as the Republicans headed towards the first primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2016, Jeb Bush seemed invincible. He had the family connections, he knew the right people, he had political experience as a governor, and most of all, he had an immense campaign war chest.

In July of 2015, the Bush campaign announced that Jeb’s super PAC had raised over $100 million. The feeling among the pundits was that he had a crushing advantage, squeezing out the other candidates. His regular campaign fund, described by Politico then as a “fundraising juggernaut,” was just as impressive. His sums were roughly double that of his nearest rival for the nomination at that point, Ted Cruz. The common wisdom was that as the money goes, so go the votes. Jeb was the man to beat. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: With Trump’s Win, The Law Wins)

And Trump beat him, and everyone else in that election. Jeb was out after the South Carolina primary in which he finished a distant fourth, getting a mere third of the votes of the third-place finisher — a poor return for those millions. His candidacy didn’t make it to March.

In this year’s election, $100,000,000 was chump change, whether because of the Biden inflation or because people have genuinely bought the thought that fundraising is by far the most important thing of all. The Kamala Kampaign raised over a billion dollars and spent even more — they are still fundraising, seeking to cover a multi-million-dollar deficit.

And Trump beat her.

As readers probably can attest, the Trump campaign and its allies filled our email boxes and every other box with endless requests for money. The point here is not that an effective campaign can be run without money.

The point is, rather, that money is not the final determinant or the prime determinant of election victory.

The American people are not such dummies as the professionals have thought, easily manipulated by the media bombardment of the campaign. It seems that the people decided that they had had enough of the Harris campaign’s messaging. They did not trust it or the media that conveyed it.

It didn’t matter that Trump was severely outspent. When the trusting ear of the people was lost, no amount of high-financed campaigning was going to yield the votes that had been touted.

It was not just that the money failed. The media failed as well, and spectacularly.

The great deposit of trust that had been accumulated by the journalists of the past has been run through by the moral spendthrifts of the Trump-era legacy media. It may be that only committed Dems still view WaPo, NYT, CBS, ABC, and NBC as fair, balanced, and reasonably objective in covering Trump and the MAGA phenomenon, or even covering old-fashioned Republicans who did not jump to the Never Trump faction.

The legacy media’s immense corporate pocketbooks, their grand supportive structures, the high-salaried faces — none of those things  succeed in swaying minds and hearts as they once did.

The reason is that they went parochial. They stopped talking to people not already committed to their way of thinking. They preached to their choir, just one denomination in a vast religious quarrel, in which the opposition (satan in Hebrew means one who opposes) is satanic and whose victory would bring an apocalypse.

And their influence is increasingly confined to the devotees of their creed.

Outside the bounds of those media and their remaining clients, most people have their own religion already. Moreover, they embrace the core American idea that politics should not be made into religion. They sense, if they do not know the details, how America’s Founders learned from the horrors of the English Civil War and the Cromwell dictatorship, when politics was religious, and its disputes were absolute and deadly.

They sensed that what the media and the elite ruling class was trying to do was to establish their creed as the ruling religion of America. And they know and love the Constitution well enough to know that that ain’t kosher.

It Was Even Worse for the Old-Line Media

The fancy media has been the loser even more than King Money. Far more people are going to independent media for their coverage: Joe Rogan, Megyn Kelly, Victor Davis Hanson, Ben Shapiro, and many more, who willingly compete in a free market for the trust of the people and who win it each day anew.

Rogan’s 3-plus-hour interview with Trump got more viewers than the World Series game that night, and after three days, had recorded almost 40,000,000 viewers. Legacy media folk warn ponderously of the illegitimacy of seeking news from anyone but themselves, but they are, as above, preaching to their own choir in an increasingly isolated and bitter denomination that demonizes those who do not share their beliefs.

No religion has fully realized its beliefs and ideals. Anyone who is honest about their own journey towards manifesting their deepest beliefs in their lives is not offended or put off by seeing that people with different creeds are similarly imperfect. We embrace the freedom to improve. (READ MORE: We Must All Renew the American Covenant)

What most Americans do not like and will not accept is an attempt by a creed to force compliance with their beliefs. Only to those humble enough to teach their faith wisdom invitationally do we give our attention, and to their methodology give respect. We all want to understand the puzzle a little more and we know we can gain from hearing out a different perspective. Just don’t force us.

A great many Americans have sensed that the legacy media, the moneyed supporters of the DNC and the myriad of PACs allied with them are a modern religious sect. They do not begrudge them their beliefs, but they do mind being constantly proselytized to join.

It is like a knock on the door or a call on the phone at suppertime by someone seeking to persuade you that theirs is the only path to salvation. We think — why must you impose on my space and my life? I don’t want to argue about my faith. I want to live it, be inspired by it, and be challenged by it. I will not be forced into an intimate discussion by someone who doesn’t know me or respect me.

And so, in this last election, a great many Americans closed the door to these sectarians.

We, the door slammers, hope and pray that that door-closing will speak clearly and spur more respect from the slammies and perhaps they even might reflect on why they were slammed. Most of us would welcome that and probably pray for it.

In the meantime, we who were shut out and shut down will now have our say. Let us not fail in respect and in grace, even as we use the power granted us in the way our deepest commitment requires of us. May it inspire our disappointed fellow citizens to find their way back to a deeper and better national conversation.

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