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Nexus X HumectressEpisode 121 with Daniel Nichanian
Brandon Johnson’s election, far-right candidates losing school board elections, TikTok censorship of the Marianne Williamson left: these are the things we’re covering in this week’s episode with “election lifeline” Daniel Nichanian. Daniel founded the political magazine Bolts, where he’s currently editor-in-chief; you might know him, as we do, from his truly indispensable coverage of local elections across the country. That’s why we were so thrilled to sit down with Daniel and look at a political phenomenon that defied our expectations of the right gaining ground by spending big on small elections. (Plus a lot more.) Watch below:
We start off by checking in on an issue that’s quickly taking shape at the level of grassroots social media: is all press good press for left-wing candidates, and how are those candidates actively stopped from receiving any kind of press at all? That’s what happened when two large TikTok accounts supporting Marianne Williamson’s candidacy for the 2024 presidential election were banned recently, following no obvious breaches of TikTok’s platform policies. We comment on Marianne’s following on that platform, where centrist politicians like Biden (especially given his role in defeating the rail strike) get little love from the online Generation Z. While the phenomenon of Trump’s far-right rhetoric gained him tons of press coverage in past election from liberal outlets, left-wingers tend to get disregarded there, their names and platforms left out of the discourse entirely. How will mainstream media cover Marianne’s campaign, and if the answer to that is “not at all,” how can that campaign build grassroots support through social media outlets?
We also dive into the recent trend of GOP “culture warriors” failing to make successful bids for school board seats in recent Midwestern elections. Krystal points out that given the relatively large pool of resources these candidates often have to draw upon for smaller local elections, many expected the far-right strategy to win these elections through virulent anti-trans and anti-CRT platforms to be more successful. But in fact, these candidates have fallen short, and Daniel’s analysis reveals that while right-wing candidates are still using anti-LGBT messaging to win elections elsewhere in the country, progressive candidates’ focus on issues immediate to the improvement of learning conditions may well be helping them pull ahead. Learn more and join us for the full episode above.
You can listen to the audio of this conversation tomorrow as a podcast when it’s released on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Podcasts, and more.
