My wife always says to our boys “dada’s listening to Joe Biden” when I put on a new Mystery Grove podcast. I didn’t realize that this was a thing others thought too!
I think the unique targeting of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin is resentment of the over educated commentators in the right wing podcast space. He has been mischaracterized as uneducated because he did not complete his bachelor’s degree. However, he abandoned his degree (still earning an associate’s degree) because his father was ill and he needed to come to take care of the family business. He proceeded to use his intelligence and people skills to make it even more successful.
These “influencers” are aghast that he has power and they don’t despite all their advanced degrees and elevated language. It’s the equivalent of the Left’s overeducated class working boring office jobs who resent entrepreneurs who might not even have any college degree but who make more money than they do while contributing more productivity to society.
The Mullin outrage is also evidence of this perverse monetization structure. With Noem there was a new big story every week about the BASED immigration enforcement. Now Mullin is effective but quiet, removing all content generation
If they want to write some piece promoting based enforcement they actually have to do the research of removals and look into policy about how visa fees are implemented. Much easier to complain about nothing being done, raising the target or intentionally misunderstand the work of the admin to drive the same click & revenue
Social media is an outrage machine, rewarding people for spreading outrage whether right or wrong, and this feeding people alarm. It threatens real progress.
Sadly those aren't mutually exclusive. Some of these influencers are money hungry and so narcissistic they view them as the cause. Look at Milo, Candace, and Tucker. They would claim to support the cause but their policies of 180 of what they were. And they push stupidity and crazy.
Morello's comments fit right in with the Auron MacIntyre group on X. They all try to be the standard bearers of this new rightward group(vanceguard? permabased? We need a better political compass for all these individuals) yet never hesitate to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Always countersignalling and being so horribly bad at reading the room.
Hopefully the new X monetization parameters disincentivizes these posters soon. They do nothing to drive policy forward and just depress the electorate for those who tune in. It also further enforces my belief that all "reporters" and "journalists" serve no purpose and it would be better if the vast majority of them were shot into the sun.
Auron “Doughface” Mac(Donald)tyre always seemed off to me in his physiognomy and effeminate voice. He seemed like a plant who would play the long-term game of sabotaging from the alleged purist Right.
Really great piece. I struggle with figuring out how to stop rewarding them with negative attention because I am afraid ignoring it could be seen as a passive endorsement or just all them to continue doing it unopposed, but responding to every false claim or psychotic theory just feeds the attention economy that they're operating in. So many of these people are just happily moving into their roles of being whatever the Retard Right equivalent of a lolcow is, with much bigger political ramifications. It's challenging because their bullshit need to be debunked but in a way that doesn't pretend the untrue thing they're saying is based on simple lack of knowledge, but rather them just being lying scum.
This is the same feeling I have. I guess the good news is that a lot of these people are confined to the online ghetto. Obviously, this panel presents a notable exception to this but I hope that the admin will refuse to engage with these people and actively denounce them. I think keeping them in the online ghetto will pay dividends later on.
If it’s true that interest in influencer content is sharply declining, then it follows that influencers will aggressively attack whatever target results in more clicks. Owens and Carlson engage in outrageous rage bait behavior even though their audiences are quite large, and it sends a signal to people lower on the food chain that this is the way to grow their follower base.
Ridicule and shaming should be applied liberally to these actors. It won’t shut them up, but it might cause their more thoughtful followers to think about what they’re saying and why they’re saying it.
Insightful article. I’m not a Mullin fan but it has little to do with the job he’s doing now, which in my estimation is excellent. In the past he was kind of a blowhard. But Charlie Kirk trusted him. Mullin was like a project that Charlie took on to make that leap over to MAGA. I would not be surprised to learn that he was the one to recommend Mullin to Trump. You can go back and watch the interviews.
Many of the pro-Bovino influencers have tenuous ties to Fox News. They either used to work for them in some capacity or they’re hoping to do appearances on Hannity or an owned podcast. I was surprised to learn that Tucker, Megyn and others still work for Fox through the corporation’s acquisition of Red Seat Media, a network of podcasts. Some of them are Fox personalities. Others, like Jesse Kelly (who I think is a retard most of the time) is a Fox apparatus. Many roads lead back to The Murdoch’s of Australia and their desire for full amnesty and foreign wars for America. Fox News is currently, actively trying to lose the midterms. My Mom has it on all day. I can hear the parade of Democrats and constant demoralizing.
It’s been really sad to see what’s happened to a lot of the right over the past year. Tucker Carlson in particular has really fallen from grace.
One thing that seems to be missing from a lot of the reporting on this is that Mullin seems to have a newfound allegiance to Trump; Mullin’s son was sick in the hospital and Trump called him every day checking up on him (and likely offered assistance, even if nominally). I don’t think you can really overstate how meaningful that may have been to Mullin as a father with a kid in crisis. Mullin is probably devoted to Trump in a way that’s lost in the shuffle and conversation. People just see “oh a somewhat conservative Senator from Oklahoma, he should have been Redder” and miss out on his Come to Jesus moment.
You’re probably one of the few people with his head on straight. If I were Team Vance, I’d have you on as a consultant, or at least get you onboard an org that isn’t full of dishonest charlatans.
In Russia, these kinds of people are referred to as "Sixth Columnists." There, as here, there is an army of them online posing as super patriots while doing everything they can to undermine the current administration, wildly exaggerating failures (or fabricating them), dismissing or trivializing successes (explaining why they aren't real or don't matter), and everywhere and always repeating the claim that the regime has betrayed its supporters, it is not possible to succeed, and catastrophic defeat is inevitable. I don't know how much of that is organic and how much of it is orchestrated to make failure more likely; I have no doubt, there and here, it's a bit of both, but I agree with you that that isn't the point. The point isn't why, it is what will happen if anyone listens to these people. Some of it seems to spring from the same apocalyptic personality disorder source as much of online commentary generally, where chicken little shrieks hysterically every day that the sky is falling because he wants the sky to fall (hello ZeroHedge); some of it seems to be noise generated to get attention for money, some of it is definitely intended to make failure more likely by presenting it as impossible to avoid. Bad air! Open the window!
Didn't watch this panel but I won't be surprised if in the next episode of John Doyle's show he will talk about how painful it was to sit there as the moderator and having to bite his tongue listening to Morello's bullshit.
You're such a good writer. I dread the day you eventually self-doxx/face reveal and we find out you really are Joe Biden.
My wife always says to our boys “dada’s listening to Joe Biden” when I put on a new Mystery Grove podcast. I didn’t realize that this was a thing others thought too!
I think the unique targeting of DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin is resentment of the over educated commentators in the right wing podcast space. He has been mischaracterized as uneducated because he did not complete his bachelor’s degree. However, he abandoned his degree (still earning an associate’s degree) because his father was ill and he needed to come to take care of the family business. He proceeded to use his intelligence and people skills to make it even more successful.
These “influencers” are aghast that he has power and they don’t despite all their advanced degrees and elevated language. It’s the equivalent of the Left’s overeducated class working boring office jobs who resent entrepreneurs who might not even have any college degree but who make more money than they do while contributing more productivity to society.
The Mullin outrage is also evidence of this perverse monetization structure. With Noem there was a new big story every week about the BASED immigration enforcement. Now Mullin is effective but quiet, removing all content generation
If they want to write some piece promoting based enforcement they actually have to do the research of removals and look into policy about how visa fees are implemented. Much easier to complain about nothing being done, raising the target or intentionally misunderstand the work of the admin to drive the same click & revenue
Social media is an outrage machine, rewarding people for spreading outrage whether right or wrong, and this feeding people alarm. It threatens real progress.
It's hard for me to imagine purposely spreading lies about my side for a living.
If I were posing as a Leftist it would at least make sense. My only guess is that they're saboteurs or actually mentally ill.
Sadly those aren't mutually exclusive. Some of these influencers are money hungry and so narcissistic they view them as the cause. Look at Milo, Candace, and Tucker. They would claim to support the cause but their policies of 180 of what they were. And they push stupidity and crazy.
Morello's comments fit right in with the Auron MacIntyre group on X. They all try to be the standard bearers of this new rightward group(vanceguard? permabased? We need a better political compass for all these individuals) yet never hesitate to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Always countersignalling and being so horribly bad at reading the room.
Hopefully the new X monetization parameters disincentivizes these posters soon. They do nothing to drive policy forward and just depress the electorate for those who tune in. It also further enforces my belief that all "reporters" and "journalists" serve no purpose and it would be better if the vast majority of them were shot into the sun.
Auron “Doughface” Mac(Donald)tyre always seemed off to me in his physiognomy and effeminate voice. He seemed like a plant who would play the long-term game of sabotaging from the alleged purist Right.
My understanding is that “Auron” isn’t even his real name.
He doesn’t even deserve the cool name (S)auron, though perhaps that’s where he came up with his lame pen name.
Really great piece. I struggle with figuring out how to stop rewarding them with negative attention because I am afraid ignoring it could be seen as a passive endorsement or just all them to continue doing it unopposed, but responding to every false claim or psychotic theory just feeds the attention economy that they're operating in. So many of these people are just happily moving into their roles of being whatever the Retard Right equivalent of a lolcow is, with much bigger political ramifications. It's challenging because their bullshit need to be debunked but in a way that doesn't pretend the untrue thing they're saying is based on simple lack of knowledge, but rather them just being lying scum.
This is the same feeling I have. I guess the good news is that a lot of these people are confined to the online ghetto. Obviously, this panel presents a notable exception to this but I hope that the admin will refuse to engage with these people and actively denounce them. I think keeping them in the online ghetto will pay dividends later on.
Block them.
If it’s true that interest in influencer content is sharply declining, then it follows that influencers will aggressively attack whatever target results in more clicks. Owens and Carlson engage in outrageous rage bait behavior even though their audiences are quite large, and it sends a signal to people lower on the food chain that this is the way to grow their follower base.
Ridicule and shaming should be applied liberally to these actors. It won’t shut them up, but it might cause their more thoughtful followers to think about what they’re saying and why they’re saying it.
Insightful article. I’m not a Mullin fan but it has little to do with the job he’s doing now, which in my estimation is excellent. In the past he was kind of a blowhard. But Charlie Kirk trusted him. Mullin was like a project that Charlie took on to make that leap over to MAGA. I would not be surprised to learn that he was the one to recommend Mullin to Trump. You can go back and watch the interviews.
Many of the pro-Bovino influencers have tenuous ties to Fox News. They either used to work for them in some capacity or they’re hoping to do appearances on Hannity or an owned podcast. I was surprised to learn that Tucker, Megyn and others still work for Fox through the corporation’s acquisition of Red Seat Media, a network of podcasts. Some of them are Fox personalities. Others, like Jesse Kelly (who I think is a retard most of the time) is a Fox apparatus. Many roads lead back to The Murdoch’s of Australia and their desire for full amnesty and foreign wars for America. Fox News is currently, actively trying to lose the midterms. My Mom has it on all day. I can hear the parade of Democrats and constant demoralizing.
It really is important to stop tolerating these people
Hopefully there aren’t future events to write about!
It’s been really sad to see what’s happened to a lot of the right over the past year. Tucker Carlson in particular has really fallen from grace.
One thing that seems to be missing from a lot of the reporting on this is that Mullin seems to have a newfound allegiance to Trump; Mullin’s son was sick in the hospital and Trump called him every day checking up on him (and likely offered assistance, even if nominally). I don’t think you can really overstate how meaningful that may have been to Mullin as a father with a kid in crisis. Mullin is probably devoted to Trump in a way that’s lost in the shuffle and conversation. People just see “oh a somewhat conservative Senator from Oklahoma, he should have been Redder” and miss out on his Come to Jesus moment.
Objectively I think he’s doing well at DHS.
You’re probably one of the few people with his head on straight. If I were Team Vance, I’d have you on as a consultant, or at least get you onboard an org that isn’t full of dishonest charlatans.
In Russia, these kinds of people are referred to as "Sixth Columnists." There, as here, there is an army of them online posing as super patriots while doing everything they can to undermine the current administration, wildly exaggerating failures (or fabricating them), dismissing or trivializing successes (explaining why they aren't real or don't matter), and everywhere and always repeating the claim that the regime has betrayed its supporters, it is not possible to succeed, and catastrophic defeat is inevitable. I don't know how much of that is organic and how much of it is orchestrated to make failure more likely; I have no doubt, there and here, it's a bit of both, but I agree with you that that isn't the point. The point isn't why, it is what will happen if anyone listens to these people. Some of it seems to spring from the same apocalyptic personality disorder source as much of online commentary generally, where chicken little shrieks hysterically every day that the sky is falling because he wants the sky to fall (hello ZeroHedge); some of it seems to be noise generated to get attention for money, some of it is definitely intended to make failure more likely by presenting it as impossible to avoid. Bad air! Open the window!
Didn't watch this panel but I won't be surprised if in the next episode of John Doyle's show he will talk about how painful it was to sit there as the moderator and having to bite his tongue listening to Morello's bullshit.
One thing I will say about all of this is that despite some minor disagreements with people here in the GroveSpace™®©, it is one of the rare, fleeting areas on the internet I can go to and feel like I'm not losing my mind and I see people trying to lie to me or sell me something stupid. It's one of the few places I can let my mental guard down. I applaud and that and I hope it continues. There's probably more lurkers like me who silently watch and appreciate what we read here.
We're gonna have to deal with these people the same way we deal with free subscribers
Always impressed by your calmness and levelheaded analysis of a situation