Why are we discounting the Fox factor?
A steady stream of deliberate propaganda is working
Jeffrey Denny
As 2024 Election Day draws nigh, a disturbing question still seems to confound even our best and brightest pundits:
Why would anyone vote to reelect Trump?
But few mainstream political experts dive into the impact of how “FOX News Channel is the #1 Network in all of Cable and has been the most-watched television News channel for more than 22 consecutive years,” as the FOX ad sales website proclaims.
Perhaps the liberal-leaning opinionaters feel bad about suggesting the minds of Fox-fed MAGAs are so Play-Doh pliant and imprinted that they’re succored and suckered by the obvious, deliberate, pandering propaganda. And Fox is poised to pounce faster than a triggered Ivy student on any hint of liberal MAGA-victimizing, real, imagined or exaggerated.
Plus, Fox fans believe it’s the libs who are brainwashed by the mainstream media. We don’t help our case when our silly base hands Fox raw vegan meat to char.
Cowed, we condescend and coo that MAGAs, poor dears, are understandably acting out their resentment against our coastal elite who hurt them with our wokeness and border-fluid trade and immigration policies. As they gorge on any offal the Fox News coastal elites cook up and feed them to blame and bully us.
Then there’s why mindful Republicans support Trump.
Fox comforts their cognitive dissonance with GOP talking points dissociating his regrettable “style” from his superior policies, however indiscernible or incoherent they might be.
They’re mostly betting on the Trump promise to renew his 2017 windfall tax package, set to expire next year, to further enrich the rich and sugar the economy. Not caring if it’ll fuel inflation, the national deficit and debt.
Republicans used to fret about fiscal fecklessness. But now they Alfred E. Newman “what, me worry?” because they can spin and pin the wreckage on Democrats. Who then clean up the mess like a clown with a push broom following an elephant.
Fox ignores how the GOP is now outed (we all knew) that the grand old “family values” stance was just classic felonious Roger Stone sinister slick political dirty schtick to win however ugly. Trump laughs like Marx — Groucho and Karl — about principles. Millionaire Christian evangelical pastors and their fleeced mutton for Trump are values-fluid while hating the gender-fluid like Jesus wouldn’t.
But Fox helps the Trump party to continue milking the tired old family values sow with scary tales of progressive terror — Black cities and elite colleges in flames and hurricane floods of illegal criminals swamping “the most open border in the world” to eat our taxes, crap jobs and pets.
Surely the border is a problem, one that Republicans refused to fix so they can continue to rile their bigot base. Forget that Fox confuses — surely not deliberately — border-crossing “illegals” with Customs and Border Protection encounters, many legally seeking asylum or detained and sent back.
But to Fox MAGAs who hate college, that’s liberal word-nerding. Most important is that these new immigrants are destroying instead of building America like our European parents and grandparents did. But it’s not racial — you’re racist for making this racial!
This is the world according to Fox.
And it’s swept the nation like Covid denial illness and deaths, also thanks to Fox.
Fox News crows it’s “the most watched network in all of cable, dominating total day and primetime viewers.” At this writing, a top story on my Fox News app is how it “dominates CNN, MSNBC in third quarter as ‘The Five’ makes history.”
In case viewers don’t know, Fox News — like the man it bootlicks — loves to ensure they know it’s great.
Fox also has spent millions trying different branding slogans that doth protest so much they practically confess deliberate deception. Fair and Balanced. Real News. Real Honest Opinion. We Report, You Decide. Most Watched, Most Trusted. Standing Up For What’s Right. Opinion Done Right.
When someone declares how real, honest, trusted, fair and right they are, we check under the hood. “Trust but verify,” Reagan said. Especially if, like Fox News, they admit to lying for money. And conspire with a pathological liar for more money.
Yet Fox fans are sure, as gott in himmel, that mainstream news media are the liars. Why? Because Fox says so. It constantly hammers how CNN, MSNBC, the networks and the newspapers are nothing but liberal propaganda fake news. Fox knows its fans won’t see and objectively judge for themselves.
Also funny is how you never see real top professional journalism like The New York Times or even the supposedly conservative The Wall Street Journal bragging on their front pages how they beat The Washington Post in ratings.
Sure, real journalism is imperfect.
It admits it. And loves to hold itself accountable. Editors thrill to torture reporters who fail to nail the facts and make assumptions. (Been there.)
But that’s not the biggest difference with Fox.
Real fair balanced honest trusted professional reporting done right at least has a goal of objectivity. Not deliberately pumping barely veiled press releases for chosen politicians to plump ad coffers. The old cause to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” still drives real reporters.
Fox News is like AI journalism mimicking the free press without understanding it. It doesn’t even try to be objective. Its mission is to undermine real journalism. Toss chaff at uncomfortable facts. Bleat GOP talking points. And comfort the comfortable and the bigoted by afflicting the nonwhite afflicted. Most of all, elect Trump and Republicans. While dodging accountability for the truth by calling its lies “entertainment.”
So next time your Trumpy uncle shares obvious Fox political propaganda, don’t get riled — laugh that it’s just entertainment.
But we do need to worry that Fox viewers overexposed to its Clockwork Orange Trump Ludovico Technique might blur the difference between truth and their Fox-curated reality, and vote for their own destruction — and the nation’s. Then blame someone else.
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
