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Stuck in the minority, Democrats may not be able to lead crusading congressional hearings to draw attention to partisan issues Republicans would never take up. But working with ideologically aligned podcasters and news influencers, they’re finding some online audiences for toothless “hearings” that look like the real thing.
In recent months, Democrats have held what they’re calling “shadow hearings,” essentially press conferences taped at the Capitol and staged to look like committee hearings. Footage from an event on the Trump Justice Department’s targeting of law firms, organized last week by California Sen. Adam Schiff and Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, garnered millions of YouTube hits across several channels, including from the anti-Trump online juggernaut MeidasTouch, as well as millions of views on social media from left-leaning news influencers like @Jolly_good_ginger and comedian DL Hugley.
The shadow hearings do not make policy and are little more than publicity stunts. But they serve as an opportunity for Democrats to demonstrate to angry supporters that they are pushing back against Trump, and for members to develop stronger digital media habits.
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As Semafor has chronicled in recent months, since losing to Trump last year, Democratic political leaders have been working to update their media strategies for the fragmented media landscape with occasionally mixed results.
While the results have occasionally yielded some cringey moments, some Democrats, like Schiff, have found it much easier to build online audiences than others. With over 300,000 YouTube subscribers, the freshman California senator, known for his work on the first impeachment of Donald Trump, already has the second-highest number of followers on the platform among members of the Senate. (He’s behind only Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent whose 1 million subscribers vastly dwarfs any other member in the upper chamber.)
Schiff has adopted some of the tricks from accounts like MeidasTouch, churning out nightly videos with flashy art and titles like “Schiff & Raskin Join Forces to Destroy Trump,” a 13-minute clip from the hearing that garnered over half a million views.
“We know that people are getting their information, and their news, from a far more diverse group of channels than ever before. Understanding that, I have been working with these creators to ensure the work I’m doing – from oversight to travel around the state – is visible to the maximum number of people through these creators,” Schiff told Semafor in a statement.