Turning off the News
Quick quiz: what do these three statements have in common?
1) Donald Trump won in a landslide.
2) Kamala Harris lost because she ran a terrible campaign.
3) The Democratic brand is toxic.
Answer? They’ve all been spread by the mainstream media. And they’re all false.
Let’s take a moment to factcheck these classics of the gaslighting genre.
1) Donald Trump won in a landslide. FALSE. As of this writing, Trump’s popular vote margin over Harris is only two percent. As votes from western states continue to trickle in, his margin may be even tinier (insert Stormy Daniels joke here). This election will likely wind up being the closest since the 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
As for the Electoral College, Trump’s margin there was far from a landslide by historical standards, as I showed here. What’s more, only 780,000 votes separated the two candidates in all swing states combined. That’s how close Kamala Harris came to being president.
Why does this matter? The fact that this election was so close means that the 2026 midterms are eminently winnable for Democrats. If, on the other hand, the media convince you that Trump won a huge mandate, you might feel hopeless. And hopelessness is not a plan.
2) Kamala Harris lost because she ran a terrible campaign. FALSE. No campaign is flawless, but Harris’s came pretty close. She had to mount hers in a mere hundred days and did so brilliantly, with a masterful convention and a dominant debate performance.
So why did she lose? For starters, Harris was linked to Joe Biden, who was deeply unpopular. His approval rating was a lowly 40, which she wildly outperformed. She also had the misfortune to run in a year when incumbent parties were swept out of power around the world.
And last—but certainly not least—she made the fatal error of being a woman. That’s no small data point in a nation that has yet to choose a female head of state—something that 88 other countries have somehow managed to do. Even macho Mexico just elected a woman, and—eek!—a Jewish one at that.
3) The Democratic brand is toxic. FALSE. As Democratic “strategists” (euphemism for “unemployed gasbags”) bloviate on cable news about why their party lost, I’m reminded of a famous quote from the great political humorist Will Rogers: “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
The mainstream media have been amplifying the lazy critiques of this circular firing squad to attract clicks and viewers. But there’s no evidence that the Democrats—who have a stellar bench of popular elected officials including Andy Beshear, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, and Wes Moore, to name just four—are in such dire straits.
And there was good news for Democrats this cycle. In North Carolina, for example, Democrat Josh Stein defeated MAGA Republican Mark Robinson by a thumping 15 points. If that proves anything, it’s that the Black Nazi brand is toxic.
If you’re like me, you’re sick of being gaslighted and have decided to turn off the gaslight.
Since the election, cable news channels have seen their ratings crater. And hundreds of thousands of Washington Post readers have cancelled their subscriptions to protest the craven behavior of the paper’s owner, Lex Luthor wannabe Jeff Bezos.
So you might be wondering: now that I’m over mainstream media, where do I get my news?
Answer: mainly from BBC Sounds, the app from the BBC, which delivers high quality radio reporting from all over the world, for free. It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge upgrade over what the for-profit American media companies have been dishing out.
For example, you could watch MSNBC’s entire primetime lineup and never know that there’s a continent called Africa. Tune in to the BBC and you’ll learn all about the civil war in Sudan, which is affecting a huge swath of your fellow humans. Such coverage will make all those cable roundtables about whether Tim Walz was the right choice seem pretty silly.
But I wouldn’t recommend consuming the news—even from an excellent source like the BBC—around the clock. I’m not a neuroscientist like George Santos, but in my experience, turning off the news is good for your mental health. And you’ll have more time for things you actually enjoy. Read a novel. See a friend. Walk your dog. Which is what I’m going to do right now.
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Good morning, TBRers. Have any of you turned off the mainstream media? And where are you getting your news?
Aaaaackkkkkk!!!! My sister & I were just SCREAMING these things to each other last night!!! We both decided not to sneak any peaks at the mainstream media for as long as we can. I'm going with the Weather Channel, cooking shows and sitcoms and maaaaaybe a bit of The Daily Show.
Argh