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For over 70 years the Left had defined the terms of the narrative. We can start with the denigration of supporters of removing Communists and other leftists from public life, who were accused of McCarthyism, after the Senator who was focused on Communist subversion of the State and Defense Departments. We can move a few years, when Southerners who supported states rights and racial separation were equated with the Klan and the Nazis. The pattern repeated itself with the term, conspiracy theorist, used to denigrate those who disputed the Warren Commission Report. Your citation of the 1990s shift from red to blue to describe the left wing Democrats fits the pattern.

The term, legacy, often refers someone who deserves honor, such as legacy athletes or military. However, you would not expect ex-athletes or ex-soldiers above 60 years old to perform on the playing field or military operations as they would have in their 20s. Can Michael Jordan or Troy Aikman compete in the NBA or NFL in 2025? Obviously not, as they retired two decades ago.

The term, legacy media, is synonymous with old media, since its roots date to the mid-20th Century consolidation of the broadcast and print news media by liberal conglomerates. It was the conservative, libertarian, and alt-right alternative media sources that brought the term to prominence, not the old media sources. Use of term indicates that the TV networks and the well known news sources like Time or the Washington Post are no longer the mainstream. The facts that Trump is in the White House and Republicans are in the majority in both houses of Congress and a majority of state legislatures are evidence of their declining influence. Despite the 24-7 "Orange Man bad, sexual perversion good, whites and Christians bad" narrative, a majority of voters rejected their tales.