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The right-wing media is steeped in con culture

Laura Ingraham hawks gold by warning of economic disaster under Harris — but economists say Trump would be worse

Written by Matt Gertz

Published

When the going gets tough, right-wing commentators get grifting — though to be fair, they also rile up their audiences so they can profit off them in good times.

Take Laura Ingraham. On Tuesday morning, the Fox News host previewed the evening’s vice presidential debate between Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance by urging her X followers to buy gold and silver from her sponsor in order to avoid “a potential Harris/Walz disaster” to their personal finances. 

Ingraham linked to a dedicated landing page featuring her endorsement of GoldPro, a precious metals investment company whose right-wing sponsors have included Ingraham’s Fox colleague Sean Hannity and Stew Peters, a white nationalist and antisemitic streamer who has called for the execution of journalists.

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Ingraham’s LauraLikesGold.com testimonial states that “our current Administration has done nothing to make the lives of everyday American families better,” citing factors like “Rising Inflation,” “Increasing National debt,” and “a looming recession.”

“Will it ever get better?” she added. “Expert analysts are not hopeful, which is why I encourage you to learn how gold and silver can be a great way to hedge against these economic factors eating away at your nest egg.”

It is certainly amusing that in exchange for money, Ingraham is warning her audience both that former President Donald Trump may lose the 2024 presidential election and that even if he wins, his economic performance will prove so poor that they need to buy gold and silver as a hedge.

But Ingraham’s paid missive both defies what economists and other experts say about the relative merits of the plans put forward by Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump, and provides a stark example of how right-wing pundits enrich themselves on the backs of their followers.

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  • Analyses: Trump’s plans would lead to higher deficits, higher inflation, and lower growth than Harris’

    While Ingraham is urging followers to “protect yourself from a potential Harris/Walz disaster” by buying precious metals from her sponsor as a hedge against inflation, debt, and a recession, experts say that Trump is actually the bigger threat on all counts.

    More than 400 economists and policymakers signed a letter last month endorsing Harris and touting her plans to “build a strong, pro-growth economy for all Americans.” 

    By contrast, the letter stated, Trump’s proposed policies — which include plans for massive tariffs on all imported goods, mass deportations, and reducing the independence of the Federal Reserve — “risk reigniting inflation and threaten the United States’ global standing and domestic economic stability. Nonpartisan researchers have predicted that if Donald Trump successfully enacts his agenda, it will lower GDP growth and increase the unemployment rate.”

    The mass endorsement from economists came just weeks after 16 Nobel Prize winners released their own letter warning the American public of the devastating effects of Trump's second term agenda.

    A new study from the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that “Trump’s promises would spike inflation and wipe out jobs,” according to CNN. The study concluded that Trump’s proposals, if implemented, would trigger a decline in employment of 2.7% to 9% by 2028; a spike in inflation to between 6% and 9.3% by 2026; and 2.8% to nearly 10% lower economic growth as measured by GDP by the end of a second Trump term.  

    An assessment of the candidates’ plans from Bloomberg News found that Trump’s tax plans would lead to higher national deficits and debt and higher inflation than would Harris’, while his immigration and trade proposals would hammer growth. 

  • The right-wing media is built on grifting

    The financial model for right-wing media is built on what I’ve termed con culture: Outlets and commentators attract a loyal audience through political demagoguery, seal them into a bubble by attacking mainstream information sources that present contradictory narratives, and then bilk those marks for all they are worth. 

    They tell their audience that companies are liberal and corrupt — whether they sell children’s entertainment or razors or nicotine pouches — then offer their own alternatives.

    They tell their audience that they can’t trust medical experts — then sell them out to quacks hawking fake cures for real medical conditions and dubious brain pills. 

    They tell their audience that economic doom is imminent — then peddle them survival food, scammy financial products, and, in Ingraham’s case, precious metals.

    These arrangements can prove extremely lucrative for the pundits. 

    “Two media dealmakers who have been involved in negotiations between conservative media figures and the gold IRA industry said revenue from the companies can amount to as much as 10 percent of total earnings for some personalities … one said the biggest personalities stand to earn millions of dollars a year,” The Washington Post reported in an investigation last year into the right-wing media’s paid promotion of such companies.

    Indeed, Trump himself personifies this type of grift. While running for president, he is currently pitching his followers cryptocurrency, watches priced at up to $100,000, his own version of the Bible, an array of pricey branded shoes, digital trading cards, and much, much more.