Who really runs this?
Just kidding this is as miserable as it every is
Hey, everyone. It’s another one of these newsletter things I’m doing with Substack. As a company, they’ve been ultra supportive and I’m liking my new home here. Podcast distribution went through them last episode. If you have any issues getting episode 52 of sh!tpost, let me know and I’ll forward your issues to the team.
Alright lets get into this edition.
In Lie, Cheat, Steal Killer Mike has a line that speaks to me as a researcher:
Like who really run this?
Like who really run that man that say he run this?
Who who really run that man that say he run this
Run run run run this?
Behind every right-wing horseshit factory is a system of funding. If you look at my Twitter mentions and you’re a reactionary huckster you might yell about “SOROS” in a tone equivalent of the one that Alex Jones uses to rail on the “lizard people” that are definitely not real and that definitely don’t employ me to do whatever it is that you might think that I do. I wouldn’t be splitting a one-room apartment with my girlfriend if that were the case. We’d have at least two bedrooms if that were the case, because I’m a needy artistic type who demands a creative space (and that space is currently shared space in our living room).
Who really funds these hack shops like The Daily Wire? It’s big-money interests. These billionaires and millionaires hope that by distracting you with debates about nonsense like whether every Muslim person in this country wants to implement Sharia law, that you won’t take the time to understand that it’s actually the big money interests that’s beating this country down into the dirt.
This Vanity Fair article perfectly illustrates the investment in this phenomenon:
[Jeremy] Boreing realized that Shapiro’s look, while perfectly adequate for a right-wing think-tank talking head, wasn’t going to cut it in many of the demographics they wanted to conquer. Shapiro quickly agreed to revise the right-wing-dork look, and the makeover began: Boreing and a wardrobe stylist emptied Shapiro’s closet almost completely, took him to Macy’s to re-stock, gave him an objectively better haircut, replaced his personal trainer, and presto, the Ben Shapiro look emerged—a decently-fitted button-up shirt in neutral blues and grays, tucked into better-fitting jeans, and a jacket that didn’t look too expensive.
So who really run this? Who who really run that man that say he run this? Run run run run this?
Look no further than big-money interests. From money-in-politics reporter Alex Kotch, Ben Shapiro’s funding groups include:
Prominent GOP political donors to these groups include Charles Koch, Education Sec. Betsy DeVos and her family, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, prolific GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus, and Wyoming gubernatorial candidate Foster Freiss.
Shapiro denies that any of his major funding interests have influenced his editorial control, which is actually not so far-fetched. It could easily be that Ben’s interests just so happen to align with that of his mega-rich funding.
We laid down in the grass one day
Speaking nothing, feeling late
The clouds were magnets for our sister eyes
We have some more weird stuff in this edition of the newsletter for you to enjoy/fear. For example, this is a nearly flawless parody of every Joe Rogan Experience interview ever (click to see the video):
This old video was shared to me and it’s incredible.
My digital friend Charlotte Clymer spoke about the issue of transgender service members in the military and did an amazing job:
And of course, there’s horrible shit. I wrote about the far-right picking up dumb clown memes to smuggle in racism to “normies” last week and yesterday former actor turned pro-Trump social media guy James Woods posted an image depicting the man accused of mass murdering Muslims in the name of white supremacy as one of those clown memes:
The Nib’s Matt Bors really nailed the whole clown thing in a comic he published today:
This beautiful Dave Rubin quote resurfaced. I have no idea what to say about this so I’ll let it sit by itself. (We talked about Dave Rubin in the latest episode of the podcast.)
Some closing stuff:
-Conservatives are claiming all over the place that they’re “shadow banned,” but Media Matters has released a study debunking that notion. This, of course, won’t stop them from making this claim—in fact there’s another Congressional hearing on the topic this week. I plan to be there if I’m able to.
-Our friends at the QAnon Anonymous podcast caught something interesting: Alex Jones has returned to supporting “Q.” Infowars, by all accounts, is not in great shape and that may account for this shift. The network is facing declining online viewership of its flagship programs and the network is being inundated with lawsuits that aren’t really going so well.
-I did an interview with Kevin Logan about the work I do in my day job. Give it a listen. We talk about the House Judiciary Committee hearing on white nationalism and hate crimes I attended this morning. Here’s the Right Wing Watch article with my takeaways.