X, and US Federal Politics

A Change in Human Events

At a luncheon among Republicans, some of the personal conversations mentioned Matt Gaetz and Trump scandals, as well as the role of “dark money”. I tried to explain the New York Trump charges were partisan garbage and not based on any legal merit. The person was a bit taken aback by my stance as he refused to believe people could be so corrupt as to frame someone. Also, my call to have Trump’s appointment of Gaetz approved generated much ire from some readers. They have bought into the smear campaign against Gaetz, and were still upset with his opposition to McCarthy. Yet, Gaetz successfully pushed for reforms in Congress which have yet to be appreciated.

The smearing is simply the process of Federal elections have taken over the decades, but it is now challenged by those who can tell their Congressman is reading a script to please well paying lobbyists instead of the interest and emotions of the people. Many will call it populism but it is the result of existing structures created by Congress.

Politics has always had smear campaigns but at the Federal level, this started to become worse when Congressional members were capped at 435 representatives by the Reapportionment Act of 1929 when the United States had about 121 million people. Today, the US population is well over 330 million. This means today’s Congressman represents twice as many people as they did in 1929. This results in many more efforts and tactics for such congressional seats. The end result has meant more money in politics and more smear campaigns. People forget how Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich brought Republicans into control of the House in 1994 after four decades of Democrat control, only to be deposed four years later (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newt_Gingrich). This is the reality of modern politics at the Federal level.

But with the fall of legacy media, and the emergence of digital media such as Glen Beck, Ben Shapiro, and Tucker Carlson, such narratives and smears have lost their power. Elon Musk’s X is crashing the narratives with community notes. And Walter Cronkite would crave and envy Joe Rogan’s nearly three-hour interview with Donald J. Trump.

Musk actually interviewed Trump on his X platform. This change is real and is having a broad impact.

Often people worry about money influencing elections. In fact, a Nebraska State Senator who spoke at the luncheon referred to such a study (https://www.neilanstrategygroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/2024-Local-Candidate-List_General-Election-Results_11062024.pdf). While this may have more impact on local elections, realistically money does not buy an election. Organization and personnel matter in winning an election.

In this last presidential election, Harris outspent Trump and still lost. There are so many articles you can find on this matter (https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-11-15/trump-harris-and-musk-how-money-did-and-didnt-affect-the-election). Lies and money do not work, at least not over the long term. Engaged citizens and personnel do. X makes the engagement broad and real.