Legacy media wraps reality in velvet, right-wing media lights it on fire.
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A headline is more than just a summary — it is the lens through which the public perceives reality. Indeed it is often enough the only thing that is actually read.
In this context, legacy media outlets have largely abandoned their journalistic responsibility. They cloak hard facts in innocuous headlines, masking the truth and obscuring the dangerous rise of Donald Trump and his extremist movement.
This manipulation doesn’t just distort reality; it has enabled dangerous figures to evade accountability, deepening public confusion and division.
Media Malfeasance
Trump’s Lies Disregarded
The January 6 Capitol riot is a glaring example of media dereliction. Major outlets downplayed the violent insurrection, using misleading headlines like “Violence Erupts at Capitol” instead of calling it what it was — a deadly attempted coup. Even after the attack, The Washington Post refused to call Trump’s actions “sedition,” instead rebranding his treasonous behavior as a mere political dispute.
Trump’s deceit about the election were framed as “baseless claims,” while the media refused to confront the threat to democracy head-on, allowing outright lies to be labeled as “misstatements.” When Trump launched attacks on the press, outlets like The New York Times and CNN minimized it as a petty feud, never acknowledging the profound assault on truth itself.
Trump’s Violent Rhetoric Ignored
Even more alarming, the media downplayed Trump’s violent rhetoric. His infamous “stand back and stand by” comment to the Proud Boys was buried under headlines like “Trump Declines to Condemn White Supremacist Groups,” never calling it what it was — an open invitation to violence.
This consistent softening of language isn’t a mistake; it’s a deliberate dereliction of journalistic duty. By downplaying violent mobs as “protests” or dismissing lies as “unsubstantiated claims,” the media misleads the public and shields Trump from accountability. This isn’t negligence — it’s a conscious choice to avoid confrontation and possible retaliation at the expense of truth.
Oligarchs of Manipulation
While legacy media sidesteps uncomfortable truths, right-wing media intentionally distorts reality with hyperbole. Networks like Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax don’t just report the news — they specifically create headlines and narratives that serve the interests of their billionaire backers.
These networks are not driven by profit alone; they are powerful tools for advancing a specific ideological agenda.
This is not happenstance; rather, it’s the outcome of a carefully orchestrated effort to shape public discourse and political policy in ways that align with their interests. By manipulating both the media headline narratives and the institutions that inform them, these key players exert significant influence. The primary figures and their affiliations in this ecosystem include:
Agenda Media Moguls
- Elon Musk ($328.5B): Owner of Twitter (X), SpaceX, Tesla, and the Nazi salute; creates and spreads disinformation, amplifies hate speech, and promotes far-right propaganda.
- Sheldon Adelson ($29.8B) (deceased): Las Vegas Review-Journal, Preserve America PAC, Senate Leadership Fund, Congressional Leadership Fund.
- Rupert Murdoch ($23.1B): Fox News, New York Post, The Times, The Sun, the Heritage Foundation.
- Smith Family ($19.8B): Sinclair Broadcast Group, the Heritage Foundation.
- Peter Thiel ($16.4B): Parler, The Federalist Society, The Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute.
- John Malone ($9.4B): Liberty Media, Discovery Inc. (these include SiriusXM, Live Nation, and TLC); the Heritage Foundation.
- Timothy C. Draper ($2.5B): BitChute, the Reason Foundation.
- Wilks brothers ($2B): Newsmax, the Heritage Foundation.
- Chris Pavlovski ($1.6B): Rumble, JD Vance booster.
- Robert Mercer ($900M): Breitbart News, Cambridge Analytica owner, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society.
- Rebekah Mercer ($200M estimated): Breitbart News, Cambridge Analytica owner, Heritage Foundation board member, the Federalist Society.
- Robert Herring Sr. ($200M estimated): OANN (married Russian national Tatiana Valeryevna and claims he has Alzheimer’s to avoid Dominion defamation case deposition).
Agenda Donors
- Larry Ellison ($141B): The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, Americans for Prosperity, the Reason Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, and the Committee to Defend the President.
- Charles Koch ($125B): The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity, Newsmax, The Daily Caller, Blaze Media.
- James Simons ($63.2B) (deceased): The Cato Institute, the Manhattan Institute.
- Jeffrey Yass ($27.6B): The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, the Cato Institute.
- Chris Rufer ($12.5B): The Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation.
- Harlan Crow ($2.5B): American Enterprise Institute board member, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and Clarence Thomas booster.
- Thomas Kaplan ($1.4B): The Electrum Group chairman and chief investment officer, American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the Federalist Society.
An alarming new addition to this ecosystem is the growing influence of new foreign players like the historically pro-Hitler Harmsworth family — aka the 4th Viscount Rothermere, aka Jonathan Harmsworh ($1.3B) — owner of the Daily Mail Group, which has expanded into the US through MailOnline, further pushing a right-wing agenda and ensuring editorial lines reflect Trump and Vladimir Putin’s politics.
The ‘Soros-Funded Media’ Myth
For years, these GOP uber-wealthy self-proclaimed “patriots” have perpetuated the false narrative of being under siege from a “socialist, Soros-funded mainstream media” to divert attention from their own vast media manipulations.
While financial magnate George Soros (net worth $6.7B) donates only a fraction to media funding (less than $200 million in the US since 2003), these right-wing plutocrats pour billions into warping the media landscape. This calculated misdirection conceals the far-reaching influence of conservative elites across the media spectrum.
The Ecosystem of Misinformation
Headline manipulation is just the tip of the iceberg. These billionaires haven’t simply exploited the system — they’ve built it. They’ve engineered social media algorithms to amplify outrage and division, leveraging right-wing outlets, social media platforms, think tanks, and other institutions to turn sensationalism and controversy into profit.
Now, they benefit from the chaos they’ve created, using their wealth and influence to control the headline narrative, often without challenge from traditional outlets — all for their own gain, not out of any sense of actual patriotism.
Fake Patriotism Hides Dark Curriculum
Through philanthropic donations and political influence, these billionaires have shaped curricula in key areas such as economics, climate science, and history, promoting “American” ideologies that just happen to align with their interests. Key areas of influence include:
- Free-Market Economics: Embedding free-market and anti-government conservative principles in university courses, sidelining alternative economic perspectives.
- Climate Change Denial: Curricula that downplay or omit climate change, pushing industry-friendly views instead.
- Censoring Race and History: Critical race theory is banned, and textbooks sanitize American history, omitting systemic racism and colonialism.
- LGBTQ+ Censorship: Banning discussion of LGBTQ+issues.
- Ideological Conformity: Forcing conservative values in curricula while rejecting actual scientific consensus on evolution, human health, and the environment.
These structural shifts are no accident. They are part of a broader agenda to shape the next generation’s worldview, ensuring that their vision is passed down, cementing their control over public thought for years to come, echoing the Third Reich’s Hitler Youth and Putin’s operation to “Russify” Ukrainian children.
The Dangers of Oligarchic Control
By controlling media headlines under the guise of patriotism, these entities distort public discourse and undermine the free-thinking, democratic principles that sustain the nation.
Their unchecked power extends beyond the media, infiltrating education, the judiciary, and the legislative and executive branches, manipulating key institutions to consolidate their dominance. In controlling these sectors, they replace objective truth with self-serving narratives that threaten the very essence of democracy.
As their grip tightens, a society molded to serve their interests becomes an increasingly reality. The critical question now is whether we will allow this oligarchic stranglehold to define our future or rise to defend the foundational principles of democracy.
