The Changing of the Guard
11-17-2024Many pundits are finally starting to realize that the Democrats lost because they are associated with a woke and technocratic establishment. But even as they recognize the problem, they continue to hope that there is a fix for their loss, that if the media and the universities bring in new perspectives and shed their supercilious tone, things will go back to normal. What they are missing is that the liberal and intellectual control of our institutions is likely over. It was one thing for Donald Trump to win once in 2016. It could be seen as an accident. But now having won twice, it is now clear to those with eyes that the people who will have power, jobs, money, and clout in the coming decades are those who reject the liberal narrative. Ivy league institutions are losing their authority. So too are the legacy media. In journalism, academia, and also business, the dominance of liberal elites is coming to an end. A new elite will emerge alongside the old, sometimes in tandem with it, maybe even dislodging and replacing it. Wolfgang Münchau makes this clear with regards to journalism and fake news:
"The Democrats and European centrists still dominate the legacy media, but the legacy media itself has lost control of the information flows. We recall predicting as early as 2008 that the traditional media would lose their dual oligopolies over advertising and readers. Some of the traditional US and UK newspapers have found viable business models. But none are in control any more. We have been observing this trend to varying degrees in European countries, too. Bild still exercises an enormous influence on popular opinion - but only within the part of the political spectrum that ranges from the SPD on the left and the CDU/CSU on the right. Beyond those confines, the social media rule. The AfD and the entire Wagenknecht phenomenon would not have been possible otherwise.
The legacy media are the Norma Desmond of the media world - delusional about their own influence. It is possible nowadays to be perfectly well informed about current affairs without reading any newspapers or news magazines and without watching any TV, if you try hard enough. That was not possible 20 years ago.
The social media contain fake news, but so do traditional media, especially during wars and pandemics. Modern methods of data visualisation have introduced new ways of lying with statistics.
One of the first things you learn in journalism schools is that your terrorist is someone else’s freedom fighter. Perspective distortion applies to other categories too. Your facts are someone else’s fake news. When people complain about fake news, what they are really complaining about is that they are no longer in charge of information flow. In that respect, Senator Clinton is right. The Democrats have lost control. The party will be back in power one day. But the days when they control - or think they control - information flows are over."