The right-wing freakout over Twitter banning Trump mirrors the broad arc of the myth of the "liberal media."

At the end of the day, despite decades of right-wing columnists, magazines, and radio shows, the right could never truly be satisfied until right-wing media became hegemonic.

Fox News came the closest to achieving this, but even then the broadcast networks outgunned it (and to this day continue to do so) in terms of sheer influence.

"Fake news," which was a term originally used by the media to describe false stories spread by the Trump campaign before Trump appropriated it himself after the 2016 election, was the next logical step.

Social media seemed to offer an opportunity to finally achieve that undisputed media hegemony once and for all.

And the American right has been dominant on social media for much of the past decade, out of a combination of their own media savvy, an eager and ravenous audience, and -- this cannot be overemphasized -- ideological and opportunistic sympathies from the social media platforms!

That's why anodyne steps like banning Nazis from these platforms has been met by such fierce resistance from the right.

One, it's effectively banning their own people. Two, it means that right-wing influence over social media is effectively conditional.

The past couple of months have been body blows to the right on social media.

Tech companies, as opportunistic as ever and fearful of Democratic retaliation -- thank God for those tech hearings last year! -- have shifted their loyalties.

At the end of the day, access to a mass audience matters. That's one of the reasons why right-wing media has never been content with just being "the alternative" to the "liberal media." It has to supplant it.

Because that mass audience *matters.*