In this insightful exchange, Chris Hayes and Angelo Carusone peel back the curtain on a fascinating shift in how modern political media interacts with power. Referencing research from Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz, the conversation highlights a surprising restraint currently being practiced by Fox News. Despite the network’s reputation for being the go-to megaphone for Republican electoral strategy, it has chosen not to amplify certain narratives with the massive, all-consuming intensity we might expect. Hayes notes that even among those most deeply invested in the party’s midterm success, there is a quiet acknowledgement that dwelling on these specific controversies is a strategic misstep—a distraction that ultimately hurts their long-term goals rather than helping them.
Carusone offers a compelling perspective on why this “quieter” approach is happening, suggesting that the network is still nursing the wounds from past controversies. He points directly to the 2020 election cycle, where the relentless peddling of debunked claims led to significant blowback and loss of credibility. By choosing not to dive headfirst into those same “retread” lies, Fox seems to be attempting a self-corrective measure to avoid the firestorms that burned them previously. There is a palpable sense that the internal calculus has changed; they have learned that constantly carrying water for every fringe attack is a liability rather than an asset, especially when it turns off the very swing voters they need to entice.
However, the most chilling takeaway from their discussion is that Fox’s relative silence no longer signals a lack of momentum for these agendas. In past eras, a media blackout on a topic often meant the ideas would wither on the vine, as the feedback loop—where the media spurs the party which then spurs the public—was the primary engine of political influence. Today, that old-fashioned gatekeeping mechanism is essentially broken. As Carusone explains, the lines between media commentators, campaign operatives, and government insiders have not just blurred; they have completely evaporated. Power no longer needs to wait for a cable network’s blessing to move forward.
The example of John Solomon serves as the perfect illustration of this new, flattened reality. Solomon occupies an amorphous space, simultaneously running a task force, hosting a podcast, and appearing as a guest on segments with figures like Steve Bannon, all while maintaining access to the highest levels of political power. Because these individuals are now the architects of their own media environments, they can manufacture and validate their own talking points without ever needing to rely on a traditional news desk to legitimize them. The “feedback loop” has been replaced by an integrated, self-sustaining ecosystem that functions independently of mainstream media approval.
This structural shift suggests that we have moved past the age where party leaders look to cable news to tell them what to do. Rather, the people creating the content are now the same ones crafting the policy and executing the action. When the person pushing the narrative on a podcast in the morning is the same person walking into a federal building to implement it by the afternoon, the dynamic of political debate changes fundamentally. It creates a state of perpetual engagement where the goal isn’t just to win an argument in the public square, but to operationalize the narrative directly into the machinery of government.
Ultimately, Hayes and Carusone are describing the end of an era where media criticism or “de-platforming” held significant weight. When an agenda is so thoroughly insulated from the need for traditional institutional support, pointing out its flaws or highlighting its retreaded lies becomes less effective. We are left with a political climate where the most dangerous narratives don’t just appear on our screens; they are woven into the very fabric of political operation itself. It is a sobering reminder that while we continue to look for changes in the headlines, the real shifts have already occurred beneath the surface, inside the closed-loop systems that now operate with total, unchecked autonomy.