By Thomas J. Gaitens
70 million Americans watched, 61% of households, it was a landmark moment in American history, the first Televised Presidential debates, between a sitting Vice President Richard Nixon and upstart Senator John F Kennedy. This historic event ushered in a new era of political journalism in America. So transformational, that 6% of those polled, claimed the TV performance by Kennedy and Nixon’s perspiration was the consequentially deciding factor to support Kennedy.
Three debates, in 1960, all garnered historic numbers, each ranking in the top four all time in ratings. The new era of political media began 64 years ago and it died during the 2024 cycle with the epitaph “ Trump and Musk Democratize Political Media laid to rest on November 5th 2024.”
Beginning in April of 2022 and closing in October of 2022 Elon Musk set out buying up Twitter stock with the goal of assuming control, offering the ungodly amount of nearly 44 Billion in the end. While, this major media, stock, news event seemed entertaining, no one understood, then, the impact it would have in American History.
The same year, 2022, not yet candidate Trump appeared for the first time on the ‘Nelk boys’ podcast, with another in 2023 and then 2024. Reaching an audience largely ignored by political media advisors, it was a harbinger of things to come.
Like the Boston Massacre, 1770, and Tea Party, 1773, the tide was coming in for a revolutionary change, but few understood how big. Trump continued to by-pass the traditional media outlets and focused on going directly to the people through podcasts.
Using the direct democracy of podcasts without the filter, control and editing of biased mainstream brands like ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, Trump talked directly to millions on souls. Each podcast brought a new audience, 18-30 year olds, sports fans, gamers, wrestling fans, you name it, he carved out a new strategy, to engage people where they were, instead of asking them to tune in to places they did not want to go.
Trump’s genius was recognizing the dwindling impact of traditional media, the growth of the new media and how to use it. The left had invested billions over the years to dominate and control message from the traditional sources, and had virtual zero control or understanding of the new media.
The culmination of this strategy came when Trump accepted the invite from Joe Rogan and joined the experience. Episode 2219 will go down in history as shot heard round the world. Rogan gained 400,000 subscribers that day. His already enormous audience grew, viewership over the few days ballooned to 51 million views. By comparison, The NYTIMES has 8.8 million online subscribers and 300 thousand print subscribers. ABC Nightly news only garners 7.4 million viewers per week.
November 5th will forever be known as the birthday of media democratization and the death of the propaganda news networks. News is delivered directly, on our phones, via podcasts and over the radio. People stream, they consume on their own time, no longer having to wait to hear from David Muir at x o’clock.
Elon Musk ended the government censorship of Twitter and in doing so, freed people to engage without fear, without worry that they can be free to consume, share and read democratically. Trump used the this ‘brave new world’ of media and rode it to victory. Musk and Rogan made possible the victory for Trump on November 5th and the world will never be the same!
