A.J. Bauer

@ajbauer

Researching conservative news and right-wing media. PhD in American Studies from NYU. I teach at but don't speak for the University of Alabama. News on the Right ( Making the Liberal Media (

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Website Website Bluesky

journalism politics

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A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· 29d

Today would have been my mom’s sixty-ninth birthday. Although academic, my book is a direct engagement with the political milieu she raised me in. That’s why I made her a character in my conclusion.

The morning of Wednesday, November 4, 1992, might as well have
been Christmas. Results from that year’s US presidential race were
tallied the night before—although well past my bedtime. Eight
years old and eager to learn who won, I woke early and rushed outside to
collect my family’s copy of The Dallas Morning News from the front lawn.
As I made my way back inside, I impatiently removed the plastic wrapper
revealing the headline: “Clinton triumphs.” I wept, rushing to my moth-
er’s bedside to deliver the news.
Yes, I was a dramatic little Republican back in 1992.1 My parents had
divorced the prior December, and my paternal grandfather had died that
February. I struggled with the overwhelming emotions that accompany
losses of all sorts, including, it turns out, by incumbent presidents. My
mom struggled too. A tired, working, single mother of two whose own
parents were both in declining health, she felt sentimental when she lis-
tened to music, so she turned the radio dial in our boxy blue Astro van to
the news/talk station WBAP-AM. There she found Rush Limbaugh, whose
political commentary and jokes at the expense of liberals kept her from
crying on long drives around the North Texas suburbs while running
errands with us kids.2 Raised in a Democrat household, my mom joined
the Republican Party in 1980—drawn in, as with so many of her genera-
tion, by Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign against Jimmy Carter. In

Limbaugh she found a lighthearted, conservative kindred spirit, and I
found a lifelong interest in right-wing political culture—back then it was
the air I breathed.
All research is therapy if you really think about it. This book started
as a dissertation that sought to tell the prehistory of Fox News. When Fox
launched in 1996 under the slogan “Fair and Balanced,” to whom did it
appeal and why? A lot happened in the decade it took me to answer that
question. When I started, Donald Trump was a failed real estate mogul
with a reality TV show and a side hustle slandering the country’s first Black
president. Now he’s in his second term as president, having rebuilt the
Republican Party, and much of the modern conservative movement, in
his own garish image. When I started, my mom was alive and still con-
servative, still half-jokingly asking me questions like, “You were raised on
Rush Limbaugh, what happened to you?” Now she’s dead from cancer and
Limbaugh is too.
The critical disposition toward the press that I uncovered while
researching conservative media activism, I’ve come to realize, taught
me how to search for it. Republicans (unsurprisingly, if you’ve made it
this far into the book) largely blamed the press for George H. W. Bush’s
loss in 1992—for focusing on his many gaffes and for taking interest in a
relatively young and charismatic governor from Arkansas. Bush cam-
paign staffer, and later George W. Bush FCC appointee, Robert M.
McDowell captured this sentiment in the form of a bumper sticker:
“Annoy the Media: Re-Elect Bush.”3 As a die-hard Bush supporter and
Limbaugh Ditto Head, I too cultivated a critical disposition toward the
mainstream press. I too believed in liberal media bias. I honed my youth-
ful conservatism not only by listening to Limbaugh but also by reading
The Dallas Morning News against the grain each morning alongside my
mom at our kitchen table. Not that the Morning News was particularly …

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jul 10

The Republicans on the other hand…

Ny times editorial board opinion the democrats can’t go on like this

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jul 9

Incredible.

Analysis. Does a sex assault claim kill a political career? It depends.

Ghraham Platner’s swift exit followed Eric Swallwell’s similar departure from the California governor’s race, but Republicans have taken a different tack.

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jul 7

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jul 6

Three years later, joke’s still fresh.

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jul 3

Hey @nytpitchbot.bsky.social, the Washington Free Beacon is stealing your bit lol

Jon Levine tweet

NEW from me

I called up David Duke to ask about Darializa Avila Chevalier's criticism of interracial relationships — He was a fan!

"I think that people have the right to preserve their particular heritage," Duke tells me

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jul 1

A perfect example of the absurdities of fact checking as a practice. The problem here isn’t whether or not Trump’s uncle mentored the unibomber, it’s that Trump thinks that’s something to brag about.

Although my uncle was at MIT one of the great professors, 51 years, whatever, he was the longest-serving professor in the history of MIT … Kaczynski was one of his students”

President trump in a speech July 2025

This lacks evidence

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 29

Update: the story I posted about 1819 News seems to be fake and possibly AI generated? If so this is all the wilder! Who is crafting AI conspiracy theories about real hyper-local right-wing media outlets?

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 29

BLEAK

The algorithm learns to write obituaries

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 23

Setting up the book’s main argument.

Critics of conservatism have long suggested that the “liberal media”
claim represents little more than an attempt to “work the refs” in the con-
servative movement’s favor or serves as “flak” designed to discipline the
mainstream news media against growing too critical of capitalism or US
imperialism.3 Such metaphors overlook the long-standing and entrenched
conflict between the modern conservative movement and the press, and
how that conflict has shaped the lived reality of conservatives at the grass-
roots. Making the Liberal Media shows how that conflict emerged. As we
will see, from the modern conservative movement’s earliest formations in
the late 1940s to Trump’s authoritarian return to power in 2025, belief in
structural liberal media bias has played a central and constitutive role
in the formation of modern conservative identity and movement strategy.
It has also profoundly altered our media culture, giving rise to a distinct
right-wing media sector that is actively competing with professional jour-
nalism over the cultural authority to tell the “true” story of public life

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 23

Pitchbot in intro.

Washington Post from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in 2024. And
in February 2025 he announced that the Post’s Opinion Page would be
adopting a new editorial stance oriented around supporting and defend-
ing “personal liberties and free markets.”1 Reacting to the newly emergent
right-wing mainstream media environment, The New York Times Pitch-
bot, a social media parody account joked: “The Washington Post and LA
Times editorial pages have gone full MAGA, MSNBC has purged all of
its anti-Trump anchors, and Twitter is owned by a literal Nazi. Here’s why
liberal media bias is still a problem

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 21

Yes fascism is ruthless and stupid. But it’s also pathetic.

Image of Donald Trump. One million true maga responses needed. Alert. Respond before midnight

Will you stand with me even if your friends told you not to? Yes. No.

What would you say to me right now if you saw me in person? [leave a message for President trump]

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 20

McNaughton does it again.

Drawing of Donald Trump by Jon Mcnahighton, “if it works out I’m going to take the credit; if it doesn’t work out I’m blaming JD!”

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 20

Actor-Network Theory ass headline

The reflecting pool appears to be rejecting its makeover

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 18

"The things we do aren't evil enough. We need to SMELL stereotypically evil."

Wall street journal: Everyone in Trump’s Cabinet Is Eating Sauerkraut
JD Vance, RFK Jr. and other officials swear by a diet of grass-fed meat and fermented foods, even when the sulfurous odors cause friction at home

photo of a fork picking sauerkraut out of a jar

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 18

Convoluted way of saying “Trump loses war with Iran.”

NEWS ANALYSIS
Trump Demanded Iran’s ‘Unconditional Surrender.’ He Got a Surprise Instead.
While the Iranians suffered substantial losses in the war, they emerged from a confrontation with the world’s most powerful military having proved they can use economic chaos as a weapon.

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 16

Happy pub day to @mishmoshk.bsky.social!

Emmaia gelman and Laura Whitehorn with books and Palestine flag

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 16

It’s like the universe knows I’m on my way to link up with @thrasherxy.bsky.social.

Subway ad for NYPD corrections officers featuring four police officers who appear to be people of color

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 14

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· Jun 4

Then you leave your hat at Spicy Village and they save it for you.

NYC vax champ hat in front of Spicy Village restaurant

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 27

Maybe if the Pope really let his freak flag fly those tech billionaires would stop playing god, but alas.

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 27

Here is more famous (Capital) grave. Not a labubu in sight.

Marx’s fancy grave with a giant sculpture of his head. Flowers and assorted tributes but no labubu

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 27

I brutally mogged Karl Marx causing his cortisol levels to fatally spike. (Pictured here at his original grave, his Grundrisse grave, if you will).

AJ Bauer wearing floral print shirt at Karl Marx’s original grave

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 27

My book talk at Goldsmiths was waylaid by senior management who abruptly decided to stop paying its faculty, who are engaged in a marking and assessment boycott against austerity. Had a nice chat about the book and US/UK politics at a pub instead. #FreeGoldsmiths

Goldsmiths students attending a protest outside the main building

Fuck future goldsmiths free radical education

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 26

On the one hand the literal Pope, on the other hand some rich idiot with a messiah complex. Who are we to say?

Nyt analysis: Leo pierces Silicon Valley’s messianic dreams: when the old religion challenges the new, who wins?

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 20

So proud of my dear friend @thrasherxy.bsky.social, who launched his latest book THE OVERSEER CLASS at The Strand last night!

Steven thrasher wearing a PRESS shirt signing copies of the Overseer Class in the Strand green room

Steven Thrasher at a podium in the Strand Rare Books room singing with his hand in the air

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 20

A memory from back when I used to mark up student papers by hand.

Shop their fingers off with the s crossed out and replaced with a c

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 15

Finances don't care about Ben's feelings.

Photo of a greying haggard looking Ben Shapiro in a tux. "Ben Shapiro's Media Empire is Collapsing" by Ross Barkan for New York magazine

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 11

My research assistant seems awfully confident for someone who can’t even read.

Grey cat with paw on white legal pad with smug look on her face, cradled in a human arm wearing light blue denim over shirt and purple t shirt, all on a grey couch

A.J. Bauer@ajbauer· May 11

Punditry’s fixation on parallelism between right and left creates the same conceptual error as does the balance imperative. It imposes symmetry onto real-existing asymmetry.