Dan Pfeiffer
π€ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And I believe that they probably genuinely liked Trump at some point, even if they don't like him right now.
But they are also people who are responsive to an audience.
And what has really driven the growth in right-wing media from 2016 until now has been just the simple fact that you either pro-Trump
or you died, right?
All the conservative entities that were not pro-Trump but tried to remain conservative
went away, right?
Weekly Standard, et cetera.
So you either had to become very pro-Trump or you had to become like a member of the resistance, right?
You had to be an anti-Trump organization.
And if these people were seeing giant drops in viewership or subscribers or advertisers, whatever else, they would not, I suspect that we would hear a different tone.
And you're not seeing that.
So I do think that there is something that has changed in the economic incentive structure of right-wing media, which I think is problematic for Trump.
Second thing here is β and it's worth separating the Megyn Kelly's and Tucker Carlson's from the Joe Rogan's and the Andrew Schultz's or the Theo Vaughn's or any of the other Manosphere, the Nelk Boys, any of those other people.
Because I think the main audience of the people who actually tune in to Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson are political people, right?
It's like the version β it's the right-wing version of people who watch our shows.
And then the people who tune into these other things are apolitical people who became interested in politics because the β
the host, content creator, influencer that they trusted, talk to them about politics and kind of push them on this.
And for Republicans, losing the apolitical people does hurt with turnout, as you point out.
I do not think those people are coming out for congressional Democrats for the most part.
Maybe the right Democratic presidential candidate can get them in 2028, but you don't see them just being like...