The Fascists Call Us Fascists
And they have the megaphone
After my second book, The Reckoning was published I started paying attention to the New York Times and Amazon bestsellers lists to see how it was doing. After the first couple of weeks the answer was “not very well.” :)
What was really disturbing, however, were the other titles on the list alongside mine and the staying power they had. Week after week during August and September 2021, books like Mark Levin’s American Marxism, Tucker Carlson’s The Long Slide, Ben Shapiro’s The Authoritarian Moment, and Jesse Watters’, How I Saved the World dominated the top fifteen.
As the Right in this country continues its slide to outright fascism I think its worth keeping track of who is exerting influence over the political conversation and where they’re wielding it. So every week I check top ten lists for Facebook posts and news podcasts, as well as The New York Times and Amazon bestsellers lists.
It’s worth noting that currently there don’t seem to be any voices on the Left that are as consistently influential as those on the Right.
1/09/22 - 1/15/22
Facebook
Looking at the the top ten posts daily, Ben Shapiro had 13 of the 70 top ten posts. Dan Bongino had 12.
Only two individuals on the Left scored a top ten spot (and they each only got one out of 70): Barack Obama and Rachel Maddow.
NYT and Amazon Bestsellers Hardcover Non-Fiction
Thankfully, the top ten is blissfully free of right-wing propaganda this week. In fact the first spot is taken by Unthinkable, the new book by brilliant pro-democracy advocate Rep. Jamie Raskin, directly followed by the great The 1619 Project edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Lurking at 12, and already on the list for two months, is the anti-vax screed, The Real Anthony Fauci, by entitled purveyor of misinformation Robert Kennedy, Jr. and, for its 21st week, Mark Levin’s American Marxism (a title that doesn’t even make sense).
Things over at Amazon are considerably worse. Glenn Beck’s The Great Reset: Joe Biden and the Rise of Twenty-First-Century Fascism is number 1 on the list — not of non-fiction books — but of all books sold on Amazon. On the same list, Kennedy’s book comes in at #4.
News Podcasts on Apple
4. The Ben Shapiro Show. Shapiro is an anti-Muslim, anti-choice, homophobic bigot. He is, in other words, a mainstream Republican (which is pretty much what can be said about all of the others on these lists).
5. Steve Bannon’s War Room. Bannon is an anarchist who seems hell-bent on destroying America.
6. The Dan Bongino Show. In November 2020 Bongino was listed by The New York Times as one of the top 5 election "misinformation super-spreaders.”
12. The Charlie Kirk Show. Kirk is founder of Turning Point USA, an organization that recently invited Kyle Rittenhouse to speak and hailed the double-murderer as a hero.
15. The Megyn Kelly Show. Kelly is former Fox flunky and black face apologist.
16. The Matt Walsh Show. Walsh is a white power transphobe whose podcast is hosted by Shapiro’s Daily Wire.
18. The Glenn Beck Program. Beck is a long-time conspiracy theorist.
20. Michael Knowles Show. Knowles also co-hosts a podcast with Ted Cruz (what more needs be said?).
Joe Rogan comes in at #5 on the Society and Culture list. Rogan is the guy who ingested ivermectin and spreads COVID disinformation on an almost daily basis to his 200 million monthly subscribers. He has the #1 podcast on Spotify.
The only progressives in the top 20 that are counters to these right-wing extremists:
7. Rachel Maddow
8. Pod Save America
We really have our work cut out for us.
The podcast line up is TERRIFYING! Thank Gawd you are in the top 20, Mary, in Culture!
It can’t be easy to research that and find such disparaging results. Don’t dwell on it too much. As someone else said, those numbers are inflated by the writers and even the RNC buying those books in bulk to do just that. Please take good care of yourself. My cat Stella Bean just flopped onto the keyboard, requiring about 40 corrections to this short post. I think she’s telling me to suggest that petting Linden and Cap will help 😸. My best to you.