Will Bunch expresses what I’ve been thinking since Trump was elected. American democracy is under attack from within. The fascists who yearn for an authoritarian government in the media are promoting it, and the media who supposedly don’t support it fail to recognize it. They are busy trying to follow the political playbook of the 20th century.
The incentives of capitalism and the intended role of the 4th estate are not compatible. Stoking the flames of populism is simply too lucrative of a business model when compared to trying to keep the public informed. This is what allows perverse media groups to proliferate and dominate the public eye.
I don’t think this is an easy problem to solve. If you’re able to successfully regulate things like Fox, does that fix it, or do people just start gravitating more towards alternate media like Joe Rogan? Do you start regulating podcasts too? Twitter influencers? I feel like it’d just become a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. And given that the 4th estate’s role is to check the government, how do you use the government to safeguard it without giving them too much control over it? It’s a difficult balance to strike.
That said, clearly we aren’t striking that balance now, so perhaps it’s time to try something different.
I think that Fox news as well as Talking Heads like Joe Rogan and our old friend Rush Limbaugh are very effective propaganda artists who reach such a wide audience that they need to be shut down and held accountable for their actions into stabilizing this country. This country will devolved further into authoritarianism if we don’t put a stop to it.
But the same methods used to stop Joe and Rush could be used by government in an authoritarian way. Giving government more control over media is a very dangerous and difficult thing to do without media devolving into a propaganda arm
I suspect the people calling for it are either too short sighted to see that, or think their people would hold power if that was applied and then leverage it into only allowing propaganda for the “correct” party.
Always remember, never give the government power that you wouldn’t mind your opposition wielding.