- When first we practice to deceive -
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I have been an enthusiastic supporter and promoter of the independent news service known as "Tangle"
since I first learned about them on a "This American Life" podcast a couple of years ago. I
purchased their paid subscription and bought several gift subscriptions for friends and families.
Here is how founder and editor Isaac Saul describes "Tangle":
Whether these news and information sources are regarded as liberal or conservative, none of these publications have a serious goal of fact-finding, investigating, doing deep comparative research or challenging the status quo. So what Tangle does is compare the thoughts and opinions of legacy news sources on the east and west coast, written by people with strong opinions based and built upon their own Ivy League education and experience, and association with the media elite along with like-minded politicians, and then Isaac or one of the Tangle staff writers give THEIR opinion and seek to find balance between those two opposing views. Which brings me to my more recent thoughts and concerns about Tangle and their lofty and high-minded, but short-sighted goals. Out of the 85 news sources referenced in Tangle over the past few months (some sources cited multiple times) 25 were from the east coast, 3 were from the west coast, one came from London and only ONE came from what the legacy media likes to call "flyover country" and blogger Bob Lefsetz calls the "Hoi Polloi":
Why this matters for media and politics
People on the coasts have significantly greater incomes and wealth: A large share of the highest income/wealthiest Americans live in coastal metros where national media, finance, and tech are clustered. The median American, though, lives in a place with lower income but cheaper housing, and with economic structures (agriculture, manufacturing, logistics, smaller service firms) that look quite different from the coastal professional services economy. Coastal median income: maybe 15-25% higher than interior. Average wealth: coastal households likely have substantially higher net worth on average (because of high home values and financial assets), but also more debt and higher costs. Meanwhile, more people actually live in "flyover country": East Coast (Atlantic + Gulf) Ballpark: on the order of 75-85 million people. That's roughly 22-25% of the U.S. population. West Coast (Pacific) Ballpark: on the order of 40-45 million people. That's roughly 12-13% of the U.S. population. Flyover/interior population: roughly 205-215 million people, or about 60-62% of Americans. |
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And all of this reflects upon, influences and impacts business decisions and policies, along with
politics, legislation, and decisions made within state and federal governments. So even though
60-62% of U.S. citizens live in flyover country, they are generally ignored and disregarded. Donald
Trump won the 2024 election by a large margin, specifically because he spoke to all of the people in
"flyover country", and they liked what they heard!
In spite of the coastal mainstream media, the liberal CNN and MSNBC networks, the wealthy Hollywood elites, the late night talk show hosts like Kimmel, Colbert and Meyers, Bob Lefsetz, cable news pundits such as Rachel Maddow and "Morning Joe", "The View", and Don Lemon, Americans were hearing someone address THEIR concerns for once. Then he won the election and actually started to DO some of the things he promised to do during his campaign, in spite of two assassination attempts by people who believed the cries of "Hitler", "Nazi" and "gestapo" echoed throughout nearly every national media outlet. - All statistics from Perplexity AI On this map you can see all of the red counties across America who voted for Donald Trump. |
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And this is the "flyover country" which Tangle ignores. |