Some thoughts:



"I've seen your future and it is the internet">



Brietbart was an immeasurably important political figure, mostly due to his style and focus on polemical, confrontational and bombastic opinion pieces. Assertiveness is a trait that is very much respected in the American political scene. The ethos can be summed up by the chorus of Bruce Springsteen's song, "No Surrender":



We made a promise we swore we'd always remember

No retreat no surrender

Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow

Some thoughts:



"I've seen your future and it is the internet">



Brietbart was an immeasurably important political figure, mostly due to his style and focus on polemical, confrontational and bombastic opinion pieces. Assertiveness is a trait that is very much respected in the American political scene. The ethos can be summed up by the chorus of Bruce Springsteen's song, "No Surrender":



We made a promise we swore we'd always remember

No retreat no surrender

Like soldiers in the winter's night with a vow to defend

No retreat no surrender



The entire political landscape massively changed due to Brietbart's focus on social media and blogging. Breitbart understood and was able to take advantage of the decline of mainstream cable news and television culture that dominated American life from the middle of the 20th century. He was savvy in being cognisant of the benefits that grassroots blogging brought in being able to change and challenge dominant philosophical and political ideas. In being a pioneer, he helped establish the Huffington Post and was an editor at the Drudge report, alongside his own website Brietbart.com. In a Machiavellian way, he tried to bring his political enemies all together and under the same space (the Huffington post) as a way to showcase their inadequacies. The internet and Brietbart's political views found a unity. The internet especially in the early days, was like a technological wilderness; a digital wild west. The individualism and liberty that was apparent there attracted him. The alternative media online offered divergent opinions. The suffocating rules of the 'complex' were no longer enforced. Authenticity seemed like the future. Freedom of speech was really freedom of speech. The individual had the power all of a sudden to take on powerful interests.



Blogging opinion pieces allowed for a longer and more detailed conversation to develop and soon it started to seep into the dominant cultural narratives that typically were bounded and untouchable previously. The attachment of localism to globalism and the considerable depth of argument that was displayed by writers on both sides of the political game was groundbreaking. We often talk of a decline in the quality of political discourse, but we are more informed now than we have ever been before. These points alone make this book interesting and necessary for anyone wanting to understand the mind of someone who had a considerable part to play in our current political landscape. Brietbart was an addict. He was an addict to the internet and was an addict to talk radio, which fused themselves together. He was a firebrand, someone who was constantly fighting and often fighting a losing battle against mythical forces that he created in his head. It is somewhat ironic that someone who innovated the entire political landscape in his lifetime was brought to that point by AM radio, which was in and is still in massive decline, considered obsolescent and traditionalist.



With all that said, Brietbart held a number of premises that informed his thinking that I do not agree with and believe are entirely misguided based on my understanding of the media. Given Brietbart's experience with the media, I am not suggesting that my view trumps his, I just do not see the evidence for his claims. Brietbart's view of the media informed his entire approach to news journalism and his approach to political activism. He was of the opinion that intersecting elements of American culture such as Hollywood and television were liberally biased and that the news networks were liberal. He described this as the 'democrat media complex'. The country is naturally center right according to Breitbart, but people are pushed to the left by these forces. Part of the issue with Brietbart is that his political compass is spectacularly narrow. What Brietbart refers to as far left, is in the minds of most people a form of moderatism.



It is ironic that Brietbart was so critical of cultural Marxism, but yet uses the same argumentative structure that the Frankfurt school used when examining the culture industry. Brietbart merely switches the focus from left to right. The media dupes their gullible viewers into leftwing propaganda and culture shapes them. He effectively has taken the arguments of Adorno but situated them in a right wing context. He even has a glimmer of Althusser in his thinking as well. He effectively rails against the superstructure of society which is left wing, which effects the economic base. He has elements of Gramsci too, for the left wing maintains a hegemony in Breitbart's thinking. In short, Brietbart and the Frankfurt school are both wrong.



I do not believe, based on the available evidence, that the mainstream media in the United States is to "the left" and therefore sympathetic to the views of the Democratic party. Even if it was, people are not immediately duped by everything they see on television or on the media, especially in the internet age. He also argues that "liberal" was a default label, but it is geographically specific. Liberal is indeed a default label in New York, but is a dirty word throughout the south of the country. A good part of the book is when he parrots the Thomas Sowell argument concerning unconstrained visions of society vs the constrained view. Sowell in his work is meticulous at crafting this argument and Brietbart attempts to use it (without credit). Brietbart is sociologically illiterate (and wrong) when describing Karl Marx's view of human nature. It is clear that he did not read anything on it.



When describing his teenage years, we get the impression that Brietbart was a typical privilleged teenager. From a middle class family, he rebelled against the values and stuffiness of his parent's respectable lifestyle and became friends with people who read philosophers like Alan Watts. Decadence and debauchery is attractive to curious people and he lived up to and encouraged a Hollywood like portrayal of himself. Soon getting into gambling his parents monthly 300 dollar stipend. Despite his curiosity, his academic performance and educational interest was poor. He chose his major, "American Studies" two months late and on the whim of a conversation. He liked it mainly due to the interdisciplinary focus which meant he could play professors in different departments. His grade point average of 2.0 was and is horrific. He equated getting his degree with getting his "release papers". Certainly not an academic role model. His value system which was previously "profound" only returned after he left college. This is why he can call Rush Limbaugh, "professor" without any sense of comedy and have no sense of self awareness when he says, "what is the point in trying if you are not going to be the best". Howard Zinn, a genuine evidence based scholar is referred to as a "fake" in this book. Let that sink in.



Breitbart also effectively lionises Anne Coulter, whose entire ammo is being an outlandish provocateur. She stood up against people trying to tear her down according to Brietbart but this assumes that Coulter is a serious and genuine voice. She is the best wrestling heel of all time and the left wing pundits and academics who debate and challenge her are playing into her trolling game. She is a sophisticated performance artist who has chosen the political scene as her stage. Christopher Hitchens stood up to the same people as Coulter, but with intellectual argument and facts.



Breitbart was of the strange opinion that the left (particularly those people in New Orleans who were his friends and college professors) were moral relativists, with little guiding principles "other than intellect". It is a way for him to pretend as though the academy was and is aimless. Left wing activism at least from my experience of it in opinion pieces, academic advocacy research and so on, is usually motivated by a strong sense of ethics and principle. Often left wing activists are angry at what they see as unjust, or unfair social situations. Despite this, Breitbart tries to paint the left as being nihilistic as they do not have strong values.



Whereas his father had a strong moral compass that was virtuous, his left wing friends growing up were supposedly vacuous. His view here is equating nothingness and emptiness onto others, when really the focus should entirely be on him. He equates moral relativism onto the left in general and the view is misguided. While there are subsets of leftwing academia that believes in the maxim that all cultures are equal, it is scarcely a widely held view in those who believe in classical liberalism or those who might be classed as moderates. It wasn't true when Brietbart wrote this text and it is not true now. Left wing politics has recently saw a split over what it means to be a liberal and part of this debate is over the ways in the left should treat political correctness, an issue dubbed by some the issue of the authoritarian regressive and the cultural libertarians. Chomsky once said that moral relativism does not even exist as a serious position in academia, as it quickly becomes preposterous once it is taken outside the theoretical gates. His view of the left wing is thus tainted by a falsehood, which makes him believe for example that the democratic party are not patriotic. Brietbart for example noted that after 9/11, the democrats expressed artificial unity. Their politics of "personal destruction" was incongruous with national tragedy. This position is patently absurd, considering how eager the democratic party were in supporting all of George W. Bush's actions in consequence of 9/11 and the media blackout that anti war voices saw. When you view your political opponents as nihilistic, moral relativists, you end up with a skewed and conspiratorial perspective on their views and ambitions. It also means you fill in blanks with nefarious assumptions. Coincidences become orchestrated plans of conquest. The actions of your own party, or side become exalted and important as it is framed as restoring and reorienting traditional moral mores. Brietbart wrote and thought like a glorified conspiracy theorist.



His turning point away from 'liberalism' was Clarence Thomas being nominated to the supreme court and the ways in which the media was covering the Anita Hill sexual harassment claims. The assassination of character, the spurious claims, the ad hominem attacks, all contributed to a shift in thinking. The turn that Brietbart experienced was the cronyism of establishment media, instead of the principles of liberalism, or what constitutes the democratic parties core principles. Establishment media has outside interests that shape the content on their screen, from share holders, from corporations and from outright favouritism. The establishment corruption that Brietbart experienced here as a viewer, was the same experience that many Americans of his generation felt in different political moments, at different times and places, and with the internet providing an outlet, this sense of injustice frothed a type of fervent populism on both sides of the political aisle. It took a few more years for him to label himself an originalist and a conservative this is because, despite this being a turning point in his thinking, he was still aimless. He wanted to be a comedy writer in Hollywood first (this would later become important to his cultural persona). His experiences there reinforced his view, which was being nurtured by AM talk radio that the left culturally controls America. He did not want to be a comedy writer anymore (His other book goes into Hollywood in more detail).



His political conversion explains the way he felt the need to proselytise his views to others. Radically shifting positions politically from one side of the compass to the other often turns you into someone who wants to 'save' and convert sinners onto the right side. You have a sympathy for the misguided opinions of your new enemies because you once said those exact same slogans. David Horowitz is his intellectual equal in this regard.



The book gives a thorough historical account of various important political events that happened in last couple of decades from a populist conservative view point. In particular, he takes the reader through Clinton's various misdemeanours and corruption. The Drudge report's impact on the Lewinsky scandal showcases an important political turning point. Breitbart equates the reservedness of the mainstream media's refusal to run the story for several days, to a liberal media bias. A more plausible thesis could be that they did not take Drudge seriously as an internet source (especially at the time) and that there was more legal restrictions to consider on cable television and the mainstream press than online. The murkiness of the changing news media is significant. Brietbart's narration is very bystander like. You feel as though he is watching but not actively taking part. The book is not so much an autobiography, than a retelling of the political story we have already experienced through a 'conservative' frame.

