Mamdani's Real Fight Won't Be In Albany, It'll Be In Your Newsfeed
Who controls your opinion of politics? What about your MAGA loved ones?
Every American’s opinion of Mamdani, and politics in general, is filtered and shaped through television, newsrooms, billboards, and social media.
From Politico:
Billionaire hedge fund investor Bill Ackman, a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, has donated $1 million to Defend NYC, a super PAC opposing Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign…
Defend NYC was founded by Jason Meister, a former Trump campaign adviser and insurance sales broker. A frequent political commentator, Meister told the New York Post that Jan. 6 should be a national holiday known as Patriot’s Day “to honor these American heroes who risked their lives, freedom and honor to protest what they perceived to be a stolen election.”
Meister’s super PAC is behind MeetZohran.com, which calls Mamdani “a radical socialist” and “an inexperienced ideologue with no plan.” When Meister launched the organization in July, he said he planned to “flood New York with hard-hitting ads across subway cars, bus stops, taxi cabs, billboards, and television.” But the super PAC has not reported any spending yet beyond consulting fees and polling.
And the same class of billionaires who spent millions to defeat Mamdani own the apps, own the news channels, and own many of the politicians and pundits who pop up on them.
Unless your media diet includes non-profit and independent newsrooms reporting in the public interest like Rolling Stone, for example…
…you’re basically watching a story written by billionaires and their operatives–and Mamdani’s their next villain.
Every headline, every take, every meme—strategically created to make Mamdani look like a failure or an extremist. MAGA America especially is swimming in a toxic stew of propaganda.
Our MAGA supporting friends and loved ones will continue to be inundated with horrific memes from anonymous accounts whose reply sections are full of disinforming bombast. These racist posts will never be taken down because Elon Musk ensures that this type of content thrives on his platform.
Irresponsible AI companies will facilitate any propagandist’s desire to generate slop video after slop video. And they will be posted to Facebook and Instagram despite the overtly racist content of the account holders. (The below account’s other Instagram posts are insanely racist, but I think you deserve to see the kind of indecent things that are flooding the brains of your neighbors).
The oligarchs who own your newsfeed can’t afford for Mamdani to look competent or, it seems, even decent. And MAGA politicians will help.
Yes, they’ll use levers outside of media to ensure his agenda fails. But even if he succeeds, your newsfeed will be dedicated to getting you to think he’s a failure.
So get a new news feed. I can help. My lists on Bluesky are full of fact-based, pro-democracy newsrooms, scholars, and experts.
The media we feed on as a society becomes our outcomes. The billionaires know this. Stop letting them force feed you their agenda. And help your friends and neighbors kick toxic media diets. Because we can’t keep our healthy information to ourselves. We have to be viral, just like the billionaires pay to be.
Here’s a video version of this post:
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