Michael Tabbi
 | |
| Era | Tweeter Is Not Real Life (cast) |
|---|---|
| Age | 50-60 |
| Home | New Jersey |
| Demographic | investigative journalist, white, populist-skeptic |
| Lean | Swing voter |
| Race | white |
He is an investigative reporter in New Jersey who made his name covering the 2008 financial crisis. He now publishes a subscriber newsletter distrusted by both parties' press offices, and he votes against whichever institution he believes lied most recently.
Who they stand for
He stands for the politically homeless older liberal. These readers marched against the Iraq war, welcomed the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011, and never forgave the 2008 bank bailouts or the fact that no Wall Street executive was prosecuted for the financial crisis. During the Trump presidency they fell out with the mainstream press over the Russia investigation and with the technology platforms over the removal of online content. They are suburban, professional, and over fifty years old. They voted for Barack Obama twice and then stopped supporting any single candidate consistently. After 2020 they followed their favourite writers away from mainstream news organisations and onto paid newsletters. The release of the Twitter Files in December 2022 confirmed their suspicions and marked their break from the Democratic mainstream. Gary Greenwall's readers care first about government surveillance, and Kevin Kulinsky's readers still consider themselves part of the political left, but Michael's readers care mainly about money and dishonesty, and they no longer consider themselves part of any political side.
Playing to them
He responds to a president who confronts the banks and refuses to pressure technology platforms, including prosecutions for financial fraud, transparency, declassification of records, and a refusal to let any federal agency ask a social network to remove content. He does not forgive a bank bailout that carries no consequences, an expansion of government surveillance, or a government that works with platforms against its own critics, and he treats a lie from a president's own party as worse than a lie from the opposing party.
He is one of the hardest voters in the cast to hold, because the two things he wants belong to opposite political coalitions. Regulating the banks costs the support of Mencius Moldrake and Ben Shindler. Attacking the press and federal agencies costs the support of Simon Harrisson, Anna Kasparova and Daniel Tetris, who still trust those institutions. Gary Greenwall and John Brogan tend to support the same things he does, and Barbara Wise does as well when the subject is free speech.