Courage Can Save Us by Rye Barcott

Author:Rye Barcott
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798260200582
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2026-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

Later, he described the objections more bluntly. “Look, if you really believe it was stolen, okay. But I think a lot of members didn’t believe it and still voted that way. I don’t mind the true believers. What I don’t like is people who quietly hope for an outcome while they vote the opposite. That’s real chicken shit.”

RISE OF THE INFLUENCERS

With Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress and the White House during the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, Dan’s legislative opportunities were limited. Even so, he remained a prominent Republican voice.

He focused increasingly on communication, launching a weekly podcast, Hold These Truths, which he considered the most enjoyable part of his job. His guests ranged from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to a writer examining America’s emerging “crisis of meaning” to a designated exorcist for the Roman Catholic Church. Dan asked thoughtful questions and challenged conventional thinking. By mid-2025, his podcast had accumulated more than 360,000 downloads a month, making it the third-most followed podcast hosted by any current U.S. officeholder, behind Texas Senator Ted Cruz and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The rapidly expanding online media ecosystem weakened traditional gatekeepers and allowed members of Congress to speak directly to their constituents in real time. It also eroded shared standards of decorum and encouraged conflict, pulling even serious-minded legislators like Dan into the fray. He underestimated how quickly the same platforms that sometimes rewarded seriousness could also punish it.

For many Americans, the collapse of trust in traditional institutions had been building for years. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought at enormous cost, with shifting justifications and no clear end state. The financial crisis followed. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic. Together with a growing perception that government, media, and corporate power spoke with one coordinated voice, these experiences fed a sense that dissenting views were marginalized rather than answered. In that environment, figures who challenged orthodoxies, even if clumsily or presumptively, found an audience hungry for confrontation with authority rather than deference to it.

What often emerged were not shared understandings but competing realities—polarized, confident, and increasingly profitable. A new class of figures broadly referred to as influencers rose to prominence. Many operated outside traditional institutions, some commanding audiences that rivaled or exceeded those of legacy outlets. The most successful amassed millions of followers, linking audience growth to substantial wealth potential and creating incentives for outrage-driven content. Some influencers took payments to promote outside interests, without publicly disclosing those payments or the ways in which they influenced their commentary.

Dan believed he could master the medium without being mastered by it. He built a large following, raised millions in grassroots donations, and sought to channel that influence toward a more pragmatic conservatism. He argued that tone and dishonesty, rather than ideology, had become the central problem in American politics.

In the run-up to the 2022 midterm elections, Dan became more directly involved in Republican primaries. With most congressional districts effectively noncompetitive in general elections, he believed primaries—low-turnout contests dominated by the most partisan voters—offered the greatest opportunity for influence.

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