Listen to Media Matters' Andrew Lawrence explain how the “conservative media bubble” drives the “weirdness” of Republican candidates
Lawrence: “To get on Tucker's show and Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast, you have to be weird ... And if you don't get on those shows, you're not going to be up for the VP nomination”
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From the August 27, 2024, edition of SiriusXM's The Dean Obeidallah Show
ANDREW LAWRENCE (GUEST): There’s this alternate universe that they’re living in and what I see happening, it’s sort of leading too – they’re really just confined inside of this conservative media bubble. And when they break out of it, that’s why they’re coming across as so weird because they’re not seeing these things that are happening, they’re not hearing about them. And Fox News is just hiding this stuff from their audience, they really are.
ALEX BERG (HOST): You mentioned the “weirdness,” I feel like every clip that I see of JD Vance, it’s just like, I don’t know, it’s like AI was tasked with making what they thought would be, like, a relatable candidate. You know what I mean?
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LAWRENCE: This is sort of the corner Republicans have painted themselves into. If you remember, JD Vance got the nomination because Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson wanted it. Along with Peter Thiel and a bunch of the donors and stuff like that. My point is that in order to be friends with Donald Trump Jr. and Tucker Carlson and to get on Tucker’s show and Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast, you have to be weird. Like, you have to say these things about single women. And if you don’t do that, you’re not going to get on those shows. And if you don’t get on those shows, you’re not going to be up for the VP nomination. But now, it all starts coming out.
I've been seeing JD Vance on Tucker Carlson's show for years saying stuff like that and then tweeting it out, saying stuff about childless cat ladies and, you know, essentially, women are just baby incubators, you know, that type of thing. And it never really breaks out of that conservative media bubble.
Now that he's on the national stage and this is, you know, this is such an issue for the Republican Party because if he starts coming out, if he starts apologizing for these types of things, well, then he's going to lose the hard right, the incels, the groypers, the white supremacists that are backing them, and then they lose that huge part of their base voters.
But without, you know, without becoming a little bit more normal, you're not going to get independent votes. And it's really -- they have really painted themselves into a corner with this. And I don't know. It's fascinating to see from my standpoint.