it has to do with confirmation bias. Fox and RW talk radio have spent three decades conditioning people to believe the absolute worst about liberals, and to believe that any news media that isn't parroting whatever is bouncing around their little bubble is fake news. Your analysis doesn't apply because unlike Breitbart fans, you know that it's manipulative bullshit.

who do not have decades of RW brainwashing?

Trouble is, that very often simply isn't the case, whether they've been paying attention to media or not, because they have grown up in an environment that very likely has been shaped by those decades of RW brainwashing. I speak from experience here. I was already molded to despise Democrats well before I was old enough to vote. I grew up hearing about Vince Foster and all that shit. It wasn't until Bush 43 vetoed funding expansion for SCHIP that I began to recognize the disconnect between rhetoric and reality.

What's so insidious about the likes of Breitbart is that they have so successfully cornered a market in which reality is what they tell you it is, despite any amount of evidence to the contrary. It's a lot harder for people to recognize the disconnect between rhetoric and reality like I did when they've been conditioned to reject verifiable reality.

and sites like Breitbart.

Older people grew up with newspapers, and we naturally gravitate toward sites connected with familiar MSM -- and then learn which of the online sites are also fairly reliable (or at least what their biases are). To young people, all the sites might look the same.

Basically it is the main website for the Trump faction of the American conservative movement. That makes it different from say Town Hall which is more mainstream conservative.

That is my understanding of the situation.

RW media is a confirmation that your family*, friends*, church members* and even colleagues* say is true. To argue against that means an uncomfortable Thanksgiving at minimum, former friends...some even life long, spiritual disillusionment and job issues. So, ones motivational values can easily override one's goals, logic, rationality, etc.

And wasn't there a thing where they got a press room pass?

(self diagnosis)... it's the reason I spend so much time on DU and other sites that make me feel that what I believe is good and right and proper. But I learn things at these sites. And there have been occasions where the facts as presented, clashed with my belief and therefore required me to change my belief. That doesn't seem to happen on the other sites. And I do visit sites representing the other side, and (try) to read completely through posts there to get the flavor of what the other side is thinking. If you can call it that....

Why do people in Washington consider Brietbart influential? Does it actually reflect at the ballot box?

Seems every wingnut has to be propped up by oligarchs. Free market my ass.