Joining his Republican colleague Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas has jumped head-first into the podcasting world.
The Houston area Republican congressman released a 12-episode podcast this week titled “Hold These Truths.”
The first episode features Ajit Pai, the loathed FCC chairman best known for repealing net neutrality. In the next episode, Crenshaw and his guest take turns praising Trump’s escalation with Iran.
So what?
Politics increasingly is about who has the loudest and largest content machine. Trump understands this, as does the rest of his party, whose North Star is FOX News.
Crenshaw now joins the growing conservative media operation in Texas, which towers over progressive media channels. Last year, former state Senator Konni Burton launched “The Texan,” a conservative news site with another podcast that features a parade of Republican lawmakers invited on to fearmonger about border apprehensions and praise Trump’s every move.
Also of concern, Sinclair, a pro-Trump media giant, owns and operates dozens of local TV news stations in the state that frequently expose viewers to Republican-friendly content.
And of course, conservatives in Texas control the political talk radio circuit with numerous shows per day that push a unified message.
“What keeps me most up at night is this media advantage the Republicans have built up,” Dan Pfeiffer of Pod Save America and President Obama’s communications director, said on a podcast in 2018. “You think about: In 2016, Donald Trump says something. Then you have Fox, Breitbart, these Twitter personalities, all pumping that in the most viral way possible, because they understand the benefits of outrage and the Facebook algorithm, to amplify his message and flood the zone.”
Pfeiffer urges progressives to build up media power.
“My point for Democrats is … we need to build a progressive media infrastructure that is the bizarro version of the Republicans’,” he said. “It has to be the things that work best for Democrats: inspirational, hopeful, fact-driven. But we need these nodes of amplification to carry the Democratic message, otherwise we’re going to get swamped again.”
Photo: Rep. Dan Crenshaw
