How Right-Wing Media Ate the Republican Party
About this episode
Klein and historian Nicole Hemmer trace how conservative media grew from a movement-building project into the central power center of the Republican Party. They discuss how figures from William F. Buckley to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News turned media into a profit-driven enterprise that rewards conflict and anti-establishment performance. Hemmer argues the GOP's weakness — visible in the Tea Party era and under Trump — reflects a party subordinated to media incentives: politicians perform for cameras rather than govern, and obstruction becomes more profitable than legislation. Klein and Hemmer debate whether the dynamic is top-down manipulation or a feedback loop, concluding that the media's commercial logic has made the party hard to govern and reshaped American conservatism around grievance rather than policy.