From WNYC Studios.

I'm Brian Lerer.

This is my daily politics podcast.

It's Wednesday, July 24th.

WNYC's weekly program on the media probably needs no introduction to Brian Larishol listeners, but a brand new

co-host maybe does. You OTM fans already know the name, but the station is officially announcing

today that Michael Loinger is now Brooke Gladstone's official partner in the host chair. They both

join me now to talk about this new chapter. Hi, co-host and managing editor

Brooke. Hi. Hello, co-host, Micah. Congratulations. Hi, Brian. Thanks so much. This is a great day, Brian.

This is almost as much as asking for money during the pledge drive. Ha, which we will not do today,

we promise. Micah, on your OTM bio page, it says a great piece of advice you got when you were starting out was become an expert in something.

And the thing you decided to become an expert in was how Internet culture was transforming our politics, particularly in the far right corners of the web after the 2016 election.

I want to remind people what you were seeing in 2016 because here we are eight years later,

and that's obviously a story that's still with us.

Yeah, so back in 2016, what I was seeing was the rise of the so-called alt-right.

This was a convergence of writers, policy, far-right policy people, trolls, outright white

supremacists, and forum dwellers.

And the alt-right at the time felt like this shiny new thing for the press and for the public.

And they helped arguably meme Donald Trump into the White House.

But they were also just kind of the white supremacist, trolls, misogynists, reactionaries that had been

present in American politics prior, but were now marching under this new banner. Eight years

later, the alt-right, many of the characters associated with it, some of the outlets associated

...