Conservatives Can Defeat Big Tech. Here’s How.

Dear big-name, successful conservative media figures: you hold the power to defeat online censorship.

With Google’s recent demonetizing of commentator Steven Crowder’s YouTube channel, the question of how to take on the Big Tech Industrial Complex has been resurrected.

Perhaps, however, we on the America First/Republican/conservative/true liberal side, bound by our unwavering love of the right to free speech, irrespective of how loathsome the speech may be, are going about this the wrong way.

I always make mention of the DMIC (Democrat Media Industrial Complex). There’s also a CMIC (Conservative Media Industrial Complex).  The CMIC has gained strength thanks in large part to the internet.

There are tens of thousands of political content creators who live in fear that what they produce, whether for commercial or hobbyist reasons, will be subject to the arbitrary and baffling speech standards of Big Tech.

I am not looking to put tech companies out of business.  What I am looking to do, and what I hope CMIC personalities will consider, is to leverage, at unprecedented levels, the free-market principles our side claims to hold so dear.  This is the opportunity for those who have built immensely visible and influential brands within the CMIC to operate as their own YouTube, where freedom of speech and opinions will thrive, rather than be subjugated to authoritarian-minded arbitration.

See, this is our own self-inflicted error.  We in the CMIC think on a one-dimensional level: we have our little niche, we’re territorial, we all talk to the same people, have the same guests on our shows and programs, and never consider promoting up-and-coming content-creators who have narratives hundreds of millions would benefit from hearing, watching, and seeing.  None should expect his content to be distributed for free, since there’s no such thing as free.

Democrats and the DMIC, conversely, who control the vast majority of what laymen refer to as the “media,” are usually several steps ahead of us; they won’t redistribute their wealth to you and me, but they do redistribute among themselves, in efforts to indefinitely eliminate our rights and infinitely raise our taxes.

Are Conservatives Afraid of the DMIC?

What is the CMIC afraid of?  Criticism from Democrats and the DMIC?  We get that no matter what we do.  Fear of losing market share?  I thought we unequivocally rejected Marxism — the economic lie that capital and money are finite, hence the zeal against “capital”-ism.  If one is good at what one does, one doesn’t worry about losing market share — only gaining it.

The generals who win wars win because they know how to select and motivate their soldiers.  I will always tout individualism, but the CMIC has always struggled, even in the Trump era, with selling and marketing.  Our mindset has long been (gulp) very Democrat-y: we have the rugged individual right to be right, and losing is OK, as long as you’re right.  The Trump disruption within the GOP was mostly due to his alien assertion that America First should not only win, but should expect to win big and should always fight, because the goodness and freedoms of America are worth fighting for.  This is why, last year, I publicly pitched the president and his family on forming their own Trump-branded suite of internet browsing, digital, and social media offerings.  Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, is a bona fide tech campaigning expert, but what I suggested will require additional brainpower and know-how.

The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission will soon begin an antitrust probe of the tech giants, to gauge how monopolistic they may be.  There are several challenges the federal government will have in any attempts to regulate.  First off, the First Amendment specifically prohibits government, not private enterprise, from abridging speech.  If a tech company removes from its platform a video, or a podcast, or an article, based on political ideology, would the SCOTUS side with the company, given its ruling in last year’s Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, which established that business-owners do have some protections from state compulsion that violates their religious liberty rights?

Are tech companies subject to the same public accommodation laws as any business?  Does the Constitution’s Commerce Clause provide a legally viable avenue to regulate Big Tech?  The clause’s intent was to grant Congress authority to regulate commerce interstate.

Our use of a tech company’s platform isn’t free; our personal, valuable data are exchanged for use of the platform.  This bartering is mutually agreed upon, thereby rendering the relationship contractual; if a piece of content isn’t inciting violence, then is the tech company in breach of contract?

The market for free-market content creation and production has never been riper.  As gargantuan as the big tech companies are, they don’t own the internet.  I in no way defend what was done to Crowder, Prager, etc., but if our fallback stance is “woe is me” victimization, our defeat is guaranteed.  Conservatives prattle on ad nauseam about how Democrats always stick together.  That’s true.  So why don’t we?  It’s not that we never; it’s that we don’t nearly enough.

Democrats and the DMIC always focus on beating our side into submission; they often play chess, while we play bocce ball.  Within the CMIC, I read, hear, and view very little red-meat reciprocity against our opposition.  The war to reform our republic back to the country our founders envisioned — nationalism, constitutional liberties, free markets, and common sense — is going to be long and arduous, and it is just getting started.  I implore esteemed CMIC pundits to consider leading the charge to build up our winning army. 

Rich Logis is host of The Rich Logis Show, at TheRichLogisShow.com, and author of the upcoming book 10 Warning Signs Your Child Is Becoming a Democrat.  He can be found on Twitter at @RichLogis.

Dear big-name, successful conservative media figures: you hold the power to defeat online censorship.

With Google’s recent demonetizing of commentator Steven Crowder’s YouTube channel, the question of how to take on the Big Tech Industrial Complex has been resurrected.

Perhaps, however, we on the America First/Republican/conservative/true liberal side, bound by our unwavering love of the right to free speech, irrespective of how loathsome the speech may be, are going about this the wrong way.

I always make mention of the DMIC (Democrat Media Industrial Complex). There’s also a CMIC (Conservative Media Industrial Complex).  The CMIC has gained strength thanks in large part to the internet.

There are tens of thousands of political content creators who live in fear that what they produce, whether for commercial or hobbyist reasons, will be subject to the arbitrary and baffling speech standards of Big Tech.

I am not looking to put tech companies out of business.  What I am looking to do, and what I hope CMIC personalities will consider, is to leverage, at unprecedented levels, the free-market principles our side claims to hold so dear.  This is the opportunity for those who have built immensely visible and influential brands within the CMIC to operate as their own YouTube, where freedom of speech and opinions will thrive, rather than be subjugated to authoritarian-minded arbitration.

See, this is our own self-inflicted error.  We in the CMIC think on a one-dimensional level: we have our little niche, we’re territorial, we all talk to the same people, have the same guests on our shows and programs, and never consider promoting up-and-coming content-creators who have narratives hundreds of millions would benefit from hearing, watching, and seeing.  None should expect his content to be distributed for free, since there’s no such thing as free.

Democrats and the DMIC, conversely, who control the vast majority of what laymen refer to as the “media,” are usually several steps ahead of us; they won’t redistribute their wealth to you and me, but they do redistribute among themselves, in efforts to indefinitely eliminate our rights and infinitely raise our taxes.

Are Conservatives Afraid of the DMIC?

What is the CMIC afraid of?  Criticism from Democrats and the DMIC?  We get that no matter what we do.  Fear of losing market share?  I thought we unequivocally rejected Marxism — the economic lie that capital and money are finite, hence the zeal against “capital”-ism.  If one is good at what one does, one doesn’t worry about losing market share — only gaining it.

The generals who win wars win because they know how to select and motivate their soldiers.  I will always tout individualism, but the CMIC has always struggled, even in the Trump era, with selling and marketing.  Our mindset has long been (gulp) very Democrat-y: we have the rugged individual right to be right, and losing is OK, as long as you’re right.  The Trump disruption within the GOP was mostly due to his alien assertion that America First should not only win, but should expect to win big and should always fight, because the goodness and freedoms of America are worth fighting for.  This is why, last year, I publicly pitched the president and his family on forming their own Trump-branded suite of internet browsing, digital, and social media offerings.  Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, is a bona fide tech campaigning expert, but what I suggested will require additional brainpower and know-how.

The Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission will soon begin an antitrust probe of the tech giants, to gauge how monopolistic they may be.  There are several challenges the federal government will have in any attempts to regulate.  First off, the First Amendment specifically prohibits government, not private enterprise, from abridging speech.  If a tech company removes from its platform a video, or a podcast, or an article, based on political ideology, would the SCOTUS side with the company, given its ruling in last year’s Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission case, which established that business-owners do have some protections from state compulsion that violates their religious liberty rights?

Are tech companies subject to the same public accommodation laws as any business?  Does the Constitution’s Commerce Clause provide a legally viable avenue to regulate Big Tech?  The clause’s intent was to grant Congress authority to regulate commerce interstate.

Our use of a tech company’s platform isn’t free; our personal, valuable data are exchanged for use of the platform.  This bartering is mutually agreed upon, thereby rendering the relationship contractual; if a piece of content isn’t inciting violence, then is the tech company in breach of contract?

The market for free-market content creation and production has never been riper.  As gargantuan as the big tech companies are, they don’t own the internet.  I in no way defend what was done to Crowder, Prager, etc., but if our fallback stance is “woe is me” victimization, our defeat is guaranteed.  Conservatives prattle on ad nauseam about how Democrats always stick together.  That’s true.  So why don’t we?  It’s not that we never; it’s that we don’t nearly enough.

Democrats and the DMIC always focus on beating our side into submission; they often play chess, while we play bocce ball.  Within the CMIC, I read, hear, and view very little red-meat reciprocity against our opposition.  The war to reform our republic back to the country our founders envisioned — nationalism, constitutional liberties, free markets, and common sense — is going to be long and arduous, and it is just getting started.  I implore esteemed CMIC pundits to consider leading the charge to build up our winning army. 

Rich Logis is host of The Rich Logis Show, at TheRichLogisShow.com, and author of the upcoming book 10 Warning Signs Your Child Is Becoming a Democrat.  He can be found on Twitter at @RichLogis.