If you have felt uncomfortable about the overwhelmingly glowing coverage of Kamala Harris since last Monday—yes, it is hard to believe that President Joe Biden dropped out only on July 21 —you should brace for more.
The Harris campaign is planning a drip-drip-drip dose of news designed to feed the media frenzy so the non-stop positive coverage continues. Next up is the announcement of a VP candidate - which will be several days of fawning TV. Just as that dies down, if at all it does, is their joint appearances to campaign, perhaps even with the new VP candidate going out on their own to take on Trump and Vance.
Following that will be fundraising news reports - and other identity group alliances forming to support the Harris campaign, such as Black Women for Kamala, white women for Kamala, Latinas for Kamala, and white men for Kamala. And then, there will be the convention, the post-convention poll bump - the list is agonizingly endless to Trump supporters. .
But there is little to panic about. New media outlets - such as Elon Musk's X, Tucker Carlson's, and Joe Rogan's podcasts, and tweets by Trump supporters such as Colin Rugg and David Sacks - will more than neutralize mainstream media outlets’ propaganda.
On July 26, Musk retweeted an original parody video of Kamala Harris that was highly critical of her. An X user, Mr. Reagan, created the clip. The original Mr. Reagan tweet garnered 22.7 million views, more than the combined viewership of major mainstream media TV outlets, including CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and the networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS).
Musk's retweet, which included the introduction "This is amazing" and a smiley afterward, got 133 million views. For context, about 137 million voted in the 2016 election.
The Left got so mad at this reach that California Governor Gavin Newsom erupted with another of his ideas based on government power by posting on X: "Manipulating a voice in an "ad" like this one should be illegal. I'll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is." It just got 9.1 million views, but there's a more significant point.
Anyone who took a high school civics class knows that the Constitution's First Amendment fully supports parodies. Otherwise, there would never be late-night TV, including skits on Saturday Night Live, which have been making fun of Donald Trump week after week for more than nine years.
However, for nervous Trump supporters who may believe that Newsom would sign such a bill, examining what the Supreme Court did in the 1988 Supreme Court case Hustler Magazine v. Falwell should be refreshing.
Then, the Court ruled 9-0 in favor of Hustler Magazine in a case involving a parody ad that depicted Jerry Falwell, a prominent minister, in a fictional and offensive sexual scenario. Falwell sued for emotional distress and was awarded damages by a lower court.
The Supreme Court overturned this decision, holding that the First Amendment's protection of free speech allows for parody and satire about public figures, even if it is offensive and intended to cause distress. The Court ruled that public figures like Falwell have to tolerate a higher degree of criticism and parody than private individuals, especially when it involves matters of public concern. The decision underscored the importance of protecting free expression, even when it includes offensive or harmful content, as long as it does not involve false statements of fact or defamation.
There is no figure today more public than Kamala Harris, with the exception of former President Donald Trump. So, if Newsom's bill ever becomes law, it will immediately be stopped by a federal district court, even one with the most liberal judge. Lower courts do not disobey the Supreme Court's 9-0 rulings.
For a brief moment last week, the Daily Beast reported that Tucker Carlson dethroned podcast king Joe Rogan as the most-listened-to podcast in America. Carson had over 3.3 million listeners who listened to his show. For context, CNN and MSNBC viewership numbers at the 8 PM hour for 2024 average about 800,000 and 1.2 million viewers, for a total of 2 million. Also, Carlson has been an ardent supporter of Trump, having addressed the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, something that he could never have done as a Fox News host.
Joe Rogan's podcasts, of late, have been tremendously critical of the Democrats, almost as critical as anything that one can consume in the so-called right-wing media. In a recent episode, Rogan wondered how Kamala Harris went from being "the least popular vice president of all time" to a celebrated "hero." "Try googling a negative story about her. You won't find one." And again, for context, Rogan's podcasts are the most popular podcasts on the planet.
If propaganda is the story, new media outlets will have no trouble at all overwhelming mainstream media outlets. This fact should be comforting for a lot of Trump supporters.
Rajkamal Rao is a columnist and a member of the tippinsights editorial board. He is an American entrepreneur and wrote the WorldView column for the Hindu BusinessLine, India's second-largest financial newspaper, on the economy, politics, immigration, foreign affairs, and sports.
