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Roger Ailes is grinning in his grave

Fox News finally conquered America

Jeffrey Denny
5 min readJan 7, 2025

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Jeffrey Denny

Donald Trump said Adolf Hitler “did some good things” and liked Nazi generals.

Hitler heiled his Reich Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, for spinning the masses unto destruction and doom.

Trump should hail the late Roger Ailes, the notorious political fixer and sexual abuser, for building Fox News into a powerful Republican propaganda machine to fool the foolish, feed believers, please the greedy, dictate the country and laugh all the way to riches.

Ailes lived to see Trump elected to his first term before dying in May 2017. But now he can truly rest in peace as his life’s crowning achievement was Trump’s re-crowning along with nearly complete control of our government — the federal executive, legislative and judicial branches plus the majority of states.

Slathering the cake, Trump has nominated at least 10 Fox News hosts or contributors to lead his 2.0 government. To date: Pete Hegseth, Sean Duffy, Janette Nesheiwat, Mike Huckabee, Tulsi Gabbard, Sebastian Gorka, Mike Waltz, Tom Homan, Pam Bondi, Karoline Leavitt, Kristi Noem, Mehmet Oz, Matthew Whitaker, and Marty Makary.

Many of course have little to no qualifications to run large federal agencies except to run them into the ground.

Never mind that Fox’s MAGA fan base, while hating government and handouts, often grabs the most government handouts. Like Nosferatu, poor MAGA whites who despise poor nonwhite “welfare queens” can’t see themselves in the mirror.

You have to hand it to Ailes — he pulled off the greatest mass hypnosis in recent history.

Fox made millions of Americans believe outright lies. Not just Trump’s cumulonimbus cloud of lies stretching across the horizon. Its own lies. Even after Fox warned not to trust Fox.

You may recall that Fox paid nearly $800 million for its admitted false election claims. Before that, Karen McDougal sued #1 host Tucker Carlson for slander for claiming she was extorting the president by outing their entanglement. In Carlson’s defense — his defense — Fox lawyers argued that nobody believes anything its star says.

Fox has long boasted that it’s the most-watched cable news network.

Reportedly now with 1.5 million total daily and 2.4 million primetime viewers, Fox has been the #1 basic cable network for almost a decade and the most-watched TV news channel for over 20 years.

Fox now holds nearly 50% of the cable news viewing audience. And cable news is America’s leading source of what’s happening and how to think about it.

A consistent Fox theme is that the mainstream media — its corporate competitors, especially CNN, MSNBC and the surviving big newspapers — lies to push a liberal agenda. Even a dumpster rodent can see that’s classic corporate rat-fucking, like Popeyes saying Chick-fil-A contains rat hair.

But at what point is being America’s #1 source of news and views for decades not the mainstream media?

Yes, we know all news is slanted to some extent. Nobody is completely objective. The difference is intent. True professional journalism at least seeks to inform first. Real reporters avoid getting involved in politics and often refuse party affiliation. (I witnessed this gathering signatures to run for local office and national reporters on my street said they couldn’t sign.)

Snort if you’re Fox-stupefied, but real journalists — most making meh money working to report and explain the news — are still inspired by the old professional “afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted” mission. Which means holding Trump and his regime accountable whether his flock likes it or not.

In contrast, conservative Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch hired Ailes — who started in politics as a media and political consultant to Presidents Nixon, Reagan and Bush ’41 and was notorious for the cynical, money-making, divide-to-conquer strategy— specifically to create a right-wing spin operation.

As we all know, Ailes did just that. Especially for Trump — pushing his wildly false claims and a litany of horrors about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Democrats generally. Hosts Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro regularly advised Trump. Murdoch testified that yes, indeed, Hannity, Pirro and Lou Dobbs endorsed Trump’s stolen-election lies.

Any sentient squirrel knows Fox has been Trump’s consistent Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda. And even Fox knows it’s spinning — witness its ever-shifting and defensive slogans insisting it’s not spinning: Fair and Balanced. We Report, You Decide. Most Watched, Most Trusted. Real News, Real Honest. Real News, Real Honest Opinion. Standing Up For What’s Right. Opinion Done Right.

For next, I’d suggest being completely honest with: Trump Is The Only Truth.

Ailes’s assignment has exceeding his wildest ambitions.

To deny that Fox played a powerful role in Trump’s reign is to deny reality and insult the network’s efforts.

Its relentless blast of pro-Trump, anti-Biden coverage, commentary and messaging led even sensible viewers to question their own reality. As if Groucho Marx was on Fox & Friends declaiming, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

For instance, on the economy, the #1 election issue, polls showed most Americans believed the Biden economy was in the toilet. But personally they were doing fine amid the record stock market and spending on travel, vacations and holiday shopping.

On immigration, Fox viewers were treated to breathless coverage and shocking footage of swarming caravans and illegal gangs crashing across the border and bringing violence, drugs and rape to small-town USA. But when you ask many anti-immigration voters if they’re personally affected, well, you know the answer. (No, not really.)

It’s also interesting that farmers who depend on immigrants and families who need affordable food still voted for Trump. As he also pledges tariffs that will jack prices. And also that proud Christian Trump voters have closed their hearts to poor, desperate people — not unlike many of their grandparents — that Jesus teaches to love and help.

It’s gotten weird when I talk with otherwise intelligent, accomplished, decent conservative friends.

They sometimes, without prompt, raise obscure news stories that are obviously hyped and don’t hang together. Or rage against the latest obscure radical lib nonsense that doesn’t matter. Or repeat what clearly are Trump GOP talking points nearly verbatim.

And when in genuine curiosity to learn, engage and understand, not argue or trigger, I gently ask why they think what they think, they can’t or won’t go deeper. They get huffy and dismiss you as a clueless lib that’s swallowed mainstream media propaganda.

Yes, it becomes clear, they get their news and views from Fox.

You gotta hand it to Ailes and Fox:

They made a lying cheating loathsome treasonous billionaire convicted felon and his private-educated, wealthy, privileged coastal talking heads the voice of poor, uneducated, working-class whites.

No question Trump’s unofficial Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment will cheer his abuses — against fellow Americans, no less — and jeer anyone who dares to question his greatness. And unleash hoards of Trump zombie trolls to send righteous hate and death threats against their infidels.

I’ve tried, but it’s hard for folks who fear Trump to watch Fox. But now we need to watch it like a hawk.

Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.

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Jeffrey Denny
Jeffrey Denny

Written by Jeffrey Denny

A Pullet Surprise-winning writer who always appreciates free chicken.

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