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For the past 3 weeks I have been inundated with ads paid for by USAFacts, a non-profit founded by Steve Balmer. In its own words, it's a "...not-for-profit, nonpartisan civic initiative making government data easy for all Americans to access and understand. We provide a data-driven portrait of the American population, US governments’ finances, and governments’ impact on society."
Some of these videos have a considerable number of views. The videos below have 10 million views each in less than a month, indicative of a large budget and a major media push. YouTube ads targeting the US are not known for being cheap, given that it's a high-SES audience. YouTube counts a view as someone who clicks the link and watches at least 10 seconds of the video, at a cost of roughly 10 cents a view. By my estimation, he has spent $2-4 million in promoting these videos, among others, in just a month alone. This is pocket change for him, but my question is, what does he hope to accomplish with this?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=JXKLoDXmZNo
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Bl1HRu18X0Y
Although it describes itself as non-partisan, this does not preclude some sort of agenda or motive by its founder.
The 2028 US presidential election is still years away. The content itself is not outwardly partisan and it's hard to shoehorn it into any specific agenda. Perhaps he hopes viewers will become better informed about trade, to dissuade them from voting for the presumptive GOP nominee, that being JD Vance, who supports tariffs? But the ads are broadcast everywhere, not just battleground states. Or he's trying to cement a legacy as a lecturer and public intellectual , similar to Milton Friedman or Ray Dalio, who also have popular economics videos. Between this and Bill Gates' philanthropy, it shows that the ultra-wealthy tend to also be workaholics. They are not content just retiring with their money. The last thing I would want to do is get all dressed up and read for hours scripts for many videos. Sounds really tedious and boring.
I don't think it will work though. The era of the 'TV public intellectual', as exemplified by Donahue and Crossfire which pioneered the format, peaked in the 80s and 90s, before the internet.
I don’t think tariffs are a central Vance belief at all. If you oppose them it would be easier to lobby him personally in 2028 as presumptive Republican nominee than to convince people to oppose any Republican candidate on that basis.
My guess is that this is an entirely personal project in which Ballmer, who is a centrist liberal, wants to ‘make an impact’ for the usual combination of civic and personal pride reasons, and has possibly been conned by one of the usual media grifter types into pouring a huge amount of money into it (but a pittance for him). The producers or other organization producing these can claim a comfortable $250k salary for “video production” or whatever, which Ballmer personally probably doesn’t know or care about, and do some light work and get taken out to lunch and invited to parties by cool ad agency people who want the spend.
The videos also star him personally, which again is less “influence operation” and more “I want the people to know who I am and feel like I’m sharing my wisdom with the world”.
It's possible he personally thinks they are a bad idea, but he has to signal protectionism,, as that is what is popular with voters and necessary to win the primaries. Trump has shown the winning playbook and I cannot see his successor deviating much from it, at least not during the campaign.
The public aren’t interested in the nuance of trade policy. Vance can be pro-tariff in the primaries and then after taking office sign various “incredible deals” that lower rates.
Trump style isn’t Vance’s forte, Vance’s forte is talking like Obama- you know, where he always seemed like a reasonable person talking directly to you, even if you disagree with him. I can see Vance saying ‘now let me be clear, we’re going to keep America great’ much better than ‘we’re going to make America even greater- the best it’s ever been, you’ll be tired of winning’.
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