Crooked Shepherds
How the founders of Crooked Media hope to mold the grassroots response to Trump
The founders of Crooked Media are all mostly adept political operatives. All of them are directly connected to the Obama campaign or administration. While the Obama administration had several missteps, the 2008 and 2012 campaign were masterful as they beat out the establishment Clintons in the primary and veteran John McCain in the general and trounced Mitt Romney after a disastrous 2010 midterm election. Their creation of Crooked Media in response to the 2016 election has revolved around mobilizing Democrats, the creators blurring the line between media company and political activism.
The four main personalities, Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer, all have largely better politics than those from the deeply committed Hillary orbit like Philippe Reines, or pre-face turn Peter Daou, but they also are shrewd and have an exact idea of what their role is. They want to harness the massive backlash to Trump and funnel it towards electoral wins for the Democratic party. It doesn’t matter what type of Democrats win, just if they win. Rather than take a deliberately antagonistic and oppositional view to the left like some former Hillary staffers, they seek to walk the line between addressing concerns of progressives and defending Democratic leadership as much as they can. While having the appearance of looking better, it’s ultimately more insidious and more effective at accomplishing the goal of preventing a left insurgency in the party.
Across Crooked Media’s different podcasts, the spectrum is limited from center right to ‘progressive’ left. While you do see Symone Sanders, CNN commentator and former Bernie Sanders campaign spokesperson, and occasional appearances from Keith Ellison there is very little representation from the left flank of the party or outside of the party. Often, differences are played down as minimal between the left and center left. In a recent conversation about Democratic strategy for 2018 and beyond, the differences between Democrats in favor of a public option vs a Medicare for All single payer program was downplayed because they have a similar message and Jon Lovett specifically said parsing between those two things is a “waste of time.” But they also largely tried to push against left criticism of the party as best they can. There are times when they’ll push the party themselves, calling for Democrats to hold firm on the DACA negotiations earlier in the year, but never in a way that is outright hostile. When Democrats didn’t hold the line, it wasn’t a watershed moment that fundamentally changed their views on the party, it was a shrug. It gives the impression that there’s nothing the Democrats could or couldn’t do that would be too much for them.
They won’t even call to primary red state Democrats after their votes for Trump’s nominees, Neil Gorsuch included, or legislation like bank deregulation. They just take it as a necessary evil, that any Democrat in a mostly red state must be a reactionary. It calls into question what other right-wing votes would be justified just by having a D next to the name? This is never really answered or discussed. They do critique Democratic leadership on messaging and politics but would never conclude that leadership needs to change. They walk a tight rope of addressing grievances and frustrations that left and even center leaning listeners might have, but always bring them back to the core set of allowed functions: voting, registering others to vote, volunteering for Democrats, or marching (although these usually encompass the mainstream, respectable protests). The dynamic always involves serving the Democrats and their interests more than the Democrats serving ours.
Their politics is based around only doing what can be done in service to power, rather than truly making those in power serve us. Institutional upheaval, breaking the rules, thinking outside the parameters of traditional politics is not a part of their repertoire, partially because of their own bubble, and partially because they don’t want it to be. When talking about Obama and Merrick Garland, they say there was nothing Obama could do, because Mitch McConnell controlled the Senate. There was no thought of Obama just putting Garland on the court and getting into a court fight over the Senate’s “advise and consent” power. These types of moves are inconceivable to them, because it’s something Obama himself would never do. He cared more about safeguarding norms and institutions than making them bend for good policy or outcomes. Considering their connections to these institutions is a primary reason for their success, it becomes clear why they put up nothing more than light challenges to these structures.
Being part of Obama’s circle, it gives them connections to every major Democratic senator, congressperson, and operative you could imagine. This is a type of access even more extensive than most news operations and it’s one of the primary reasons it has become the largest liberal media platform outside of MSNBC. Calling for Democrats to be challenged or making people doubt the fundamentals of serving the party would no doubt harm their access to at least a sizable section of the party apparatus. It’s why when presented with a situation like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ousting Joe Crowley, they talk about it is a good thing to appease the more left flank of their listeners but remove the ideological components and mostly try to pretend there is no broader insurgency among the party.
As countless former Obama officials are cashing in after the end of his Presidency, we see the former Obama staffers at Crooked Media making sure the Democratic Party doesn’t fundamentally change. They don’t see anything wrong with Democrats like Andrew Cuomo, Joe Manchin, or the way leadership like Chuck Schumer is acting. They provide lip service to those critiques, but the conclusion always ends up being “support the Democrats no matter what.” They make excuses for Democratic leadership and constantly say there’s little Democrats could or can do about the problems we face. All of it contributes to subservience to a party that still is aligned with the ruling class. So, while they are more outwardly benign and less hostile to the left than those like Joy Reid, Neera Tanden, or Phillipe Reines, their approach is much more insidious and deceptive about defending the Democratic Party. There’s a question as to how much can they truly guide a grassroots force that is mostly beyond their control, but as the largest liberal media platform, it carries enough influence to make any left takeover of the Democratic Party far more difficult.
