It has now been a week since Elon Musk took over Twitter, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth is still audible across the legacy media landscape. In one sense, that’s rather shocking: why, precisely, should members of the media be so apoplectic about a billionaire taking over a social media company from other millionaires, pledging to loosen restrictions on dissemination of speech? In another sense, the outrage is perfectly predictable: the legacy media oligopoly is now under threat.

To understand the angst of the legacy media and the Democratic Party over Musk’s takeover of Twitter, it’s important to understand the oligopolistic history of legacy media dominance. Until the 1990s, virtually all Americans had to rely on just a few major legacy media sources: the three networks, The New York Times, WaPo, and the like. A huge number of Americans relied on local newspapers, but these newspapers in turn relied on wire services like the Associated Press, AFP, Reuters, or McClatchy. 

This oligopoly meant both market share and control of the narrative.

The rise of the internet changed everything.

After Drudge Report broke Bill Clinton’s Monica Lewinsky scandal, the nature of the media changed entirely. There had been hints of a brewing dissent in the works – talk radio, the rise of Fox News. But the internet shattered legacy media dominance entirely. People began diversifying their news diets en masse. The legacy media were suddenly being called out and fact-checked by outlets that people actually read.

In the early stages of the new media, people accessed their favorite websites directly. They bookmarked these sites, and they clicked on them each morning.

Then came major social media. Social media re-centralized the mechanisms of distribution for news. Instead of bookmarking ten websites, for example, people followed ten accounts on Twitter, or added them to their Facebook newsfeeds. This was highly convenient – and it was good for a lot of non-mainstream news outlets, who suddenly had access to billions of eyeballs. A thousand flowers bloomed.

And, for a time, there was stasis: because Democrats maintained political control, these social media sites were praised for their free speech principles, and clever use of these services – a la the Obama campaign in 2012 – was considered good and worthy.

When Trump was elected in 2016, however, legacy media outlets and the Democratic Party panicked. They thought they had forged an unbeatable electoral coalition; there was simply no way Hillary could have lost legitimately. Someone had to be blamed. The answer was obvious: right-wing “misinformation” and “disinformation,” spread by social media, was the culprit.

The legacy media and their Democratic friends now began to blame Facebook and Twitter. Pressure was put on the social media sites to stop acting as free platforms for dissemination of a broad variety of views; instead, the social media platforms – which had monopolized news traffic – could be used to re-establish Left-wing legacy media oligopoly. Pressure even came from the Department of Homeland Security, as The Intercept reported this week: DHS engaged in “an expansive effort…to influence tech platforms.”

“Misinformation” would be fought by shutting off the traffic spigots on non-legacy media; legacy media would be promoted and elevated. And because virtually all news traffic to sites now came through these social media sites, the oligopoly could once more take hold.

People were banned for saying the obvious: men were not women; mass masking was not an effective solution to COVID transmission; vaccine mandates were ineffective because vaccines did not stop transmission; black Americans were not being systemically targeted by law enforcement based on race. By simply claiming victimhood, the Left leveraged social media into restricting the flow of information.

This is why Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter presents such a threat.

Musk will presumably again allow a thousand flowers to bloom. And the oligopoly can’t handle that, which is why they have declared all-out war on Musk.

But it won’t work. Because all he has to do is say “no.” We can only hope that other social media bosses follow Musk’s lead and find again the mission that led them to found their companies, rather than cowering in the corner at the behest of the Democratic-legacy media complex.

I knew the media were finally, reluctantly and somewhat sadly coming to grips with the reality that Republicans will win the House, and possibly the Senate, when I saw this front-page New York Times piece:

"For President Biden, the Dreaming-of-F.D.R. phase of his presidency may end in little more than a week. If Republicans capture one or both houses of Congress in midterm elections, as polling suggests, Mr. Biden’s domestic agenda will suddenly transform from a quest for a New Deal 2.0 to trench warfare defending the accomplishments of his first two years in office."

The "if" is a formality. You don’t publish that story unless you think the Republicans are a lock to take over the House; the only question is by how many seats.

What’s more, "Biden and the Democrats are privately… pessimistic and bracing for two years of grinding partisan conflict." That’s a pretty clear media signal. So is Axios running a "Red Tsunami Watch."

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In its poll with Siena College, the Times found Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly with a six-point lead over Blake Masters (though the Libertarian candidate just dropped out and endorsed Masters). Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is tied with Republican Adam Laxalt at 47%. Herschel Walker, who’s endured an avalanche of negative coverage – and the second abortion accuser went on camera yesterday with "Good Morning America" – is trailing Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock by just 2 points, a statistical tie.

And in Pennsylvania, the poll gives John Fetterman a 5-point lead over Mehmet Oz, but most of the survey was taken before the disastrous debate. The paper notes that Fetterman was still ahead on the one day of post-debate polling, but I’d be surprised if Oz isn’t ahead in the next poll.

The Times followed up yesterday with governor’s races in those states. While hard-right Doug Mastriano has never gotten traction and trails Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania by double digits, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is ahead of Stacey Abrams by 5 points (other polls give him a larger lead).

In Nevada, Republican sheriff Joe Lombardo has a 4-point lead over Gov. Steve Sisolek. And in Arizona, Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs are tied at 48 percent.

But Lake is widely expected to win – Hobbs is refusing to debate her – and she’s a classic example of media myopia. Arizona’s Democratic Party meddled in her primary by taking a whack at her opponent on the theory that she was such an extremist she’d be an easy mark in the general election. Now the Times is describing her as "a telegenic former local news anchor with a missionary zeal to promote her agenda." And some conservatives are talking her up as Donald Trump’s running mate for 2024.

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Lake has embraced the Trump argument that the last election was stolen. She wants to ban abortion with no exceptions. She loves to slam the media as hopelessly biased. She made a joke about the seriously injured Paul Pelosi the other day and the audience laughed.

Yet she has a reservoir of trust from 25 years as a Phoenix anchor, and that is why the media that were so quick to write her off badly underestimated her.

Needless to say, gubernatorial contests are especially important this year because of abortion and because their secretaries of state, some of whom are election deniers, including in Arizona, can challenge the 2024 outcome.

For the media to mock and minimize the likes of Lake, Masters and Walker, all of whom may win, was a monumental blunder of the first magnitude.

The earlier Times report on Biden’s agenda also mentions the prospect of multiple GOP investigations – which the White House must be bracing for. Remember that simply by controlling the House, Kevin McCarthy’s lieutenants will chair committees, issue subpoenas and launch endless probes. Hillary Clinton and Benghazi comes to mind. 

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As Matthew Continetti writes in National Review:

"The Republican Congress will fight with the president over spending, immigration, the IRS, aid to Ukraine, and the debt ceiling. And it will open investigations into Biden’s personal and professional life. Divided government in a polarized America doesn’t simply halt a president’s legislative agenda. It saps energy out of the executive branch by forcing the White House into a defensive crouch."

Continetti recalls that every president from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump has been aggressively investigated by an opposition Congress. He concludes: "The job of president has been hard for Joe Biden. It’s about to get a lot worse."

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One of the weird things about this final stretch before next Tuesday’s midterms, in addition to Biden’s low-key presence, is that Democrats are assigning blame in advance – adding, of course, to the party’s gloom. Predictions about the Senate don’t make much sense because in off-year elections, turnout is everything.

But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, with the shot clock winding down, these midterms are breaking in the Republicans’ direction.