Cable Companies Should Dump FOX News
Plus: Legal Troubles Will Create Political Issues for Trump as Mystique Fades; AND: 'Abort the GOP' is a Potent Democratic Slogan in 2024
Cable Companies Must Stop Airing Fox News
Only moments before trial, FOX News Channel settled with Dominion Voting systems for $787.5 million. That’s a big payout for promoting the Big Lie and spreading conspiracy theories.
Dominion had initially sued for $1.6 billion in damages. The FOX begrudgingly admitted wrongdoing, saying that “we acknowledge the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.”
Martin Garbus, a veteran First Amendment lawyer told the New York Times:
“With the settlement, everybody wins. Fox goes its way. Dominion gets cash.”
I must admit, I fervently disagree with Dominion’s decision to settle. Why should FOX get a win when they lied to the American people and nearly destroyed our democracy? This noxious network of falsehoods and fabrications should have stood trial and answered to the American people.
FOX is a disgrace and disrespects its own viewers more than anyone. We already learned through discovery that FOX News hosts, such as Laura Ingraham, Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, are insincere phonies. Their viewers can’t believe a word they say. They occupy a world of contrived convictions.
They repeatedly promoted the Big Lie, that Trump defeated Biden, even though they knew it wasn’t true. These malicious right-wing mouthpieces lauded Trump on-air, but privately loathed him. These hacks thought Trump’s lawyers, such as Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, were insane. Yet, they provided them with national platforms anyway.
American cable companies have a patriotic duty to take FOX off the air. They have no business pumping their poison into American living rooms. At the very least, FOX should be downgraded to a pay-only channel.
The cable companies profiting off FOX would likely argue that millions of Americans enjoy FOX, that’s why they offer it. Okay, millions of Americans love S&M too, but Comcast and Dish Network aren’t offering free kink channels as part of their general cable packages. What FOX offers is far more insidious. It threatens the very foundations of our democracy.
It's not like this is the first time Rupert Murdoch has shown himself to be an unscrupulous and unethical snake. The New York Times writes:
Rupert Murdoch closed his popular tabloid News of the World in 2011, after accusations that its journalists had hacked the phones and voice messages of prominent public figures.
At least six agreements had been made by Fox News or its former star anchor Bill O’Reilly to settle harassment allegations against Mr. O’Reilly, before he was fired in 2017.
And let’s not forget the tawdry sex allegations against former FOX honcho Roger Ailes. After settling with FOX this week, a lawyer for Dominion said:
“The truth matters. Lies have consequences. Over two years ago, a torrent of lies swept dominion election officials across America into an alternative universe of conspiracy theories causing grievous harm to Dominion and the country.”
FOX did suffer some consequences for its lies – but it hasn’t suffered enough. They haven’t learned their lesson. Just this week, Tucker Carlson was duped into repeating Russian propaganda that “Ukraine was suffering a 7-1 troop loss ratio and was ‘losing the war.’” It was a lie – and just another day at the office for The FOX.
If cable companies persist on airing FOX, the fibs and fake news will continue. The Dominion settlement shows that it’s time FOX News is permanently shut down. Other than naked greed, there is no justification for cable companies to continue airing the deliberate disinformation spewed by FOX News Channel.
I don’t oppose airing FOX because it is conservative. I do so because they peddle propaganda and knowingly promote fallacies as facts. Until FOX News is closed forever, our democracy will forever remain at risk.
Has Trump’s Road Runner Strategy Hit a Dead End?
The media keeps telling us that the more Donald Trump gets in legal trouble, the more his supporters will rally around him. They are telling us it will help him politically.
They are wrong.
What these pundits don’t understand is that Trump’s superpower is that he keeps beating the system. The former president says the awful and offensive things that many MAGA supporters want to say, and he does the things they want to do. But if his fans behaved like Trump in real life, they’d likely lose their jobs and families, and probably be in prison.
So, they live vicariously through him – and they love the fact that Trump never pays any consequences for his actions. It’s like a miracle, “how does he do it?”
Of course, having a lot of money and an army of lawyers helps.
Over the years, Trump has offered countless soundbites. The one quote his cult followers love the most is when he said that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it.
That offered his followers, by extension, a feeling of immunity and a sense of impunity. Their man couldn’t be silenced or taken down – and this made them feel powerful.
Sure, Donald Trump plays to his base’s insecurities and grievances. He exploits their false sense of victimization. They identify with Trump when he whines and says he’s being treated unfairly.
His followers feel a strong kinship with “Trump the Martyr”. But what they worship is “Trump the Magician” – who always escapes the water tank like a political Houdini.
Trump has created a powerful narrative where he is the Road Runner. His revolving cast of enemies – the Democrats, the Deep State, the media and the liberals—are the big, bad coyote out to get him. It doesn’t matter if Trump earned his enemies or if he is guilty. What matters is that they are on Team Road Runner and the Coyote is chasing them.
Each time the Road Runner escapes and humiliates his tormenter his followers get an endorphin rush. That’s what they mean by “owning the libs.” Trump doesn’t play by the rules, no one can catch him and “there is not a damn thing you smarty pants, know-it-all liberals can do about it.”
That’s how they think.
But when Trump finally gets hauled into court or jail – it’s like the coyote finally caught the Road Runner. Instead of getting away with hypothetically shooting enemies on Manhattan’s 5th Avenue, he’s in a Manhattan jail getting fingerprinted.
When pollsters ask MAGA voters if they still support Trump, of course they say they do. But when Donald Trump pays the price for his actions, Superman has lost his cape. Then he’s reduced to Clark Kent and similar to how his followers perceive themselves: Just regular dudes getting the short end of life’s stick.
They might identify with Trump’s victimhood, but identification is not inspiration. A Trump brought down to earth and stripped of his magical powers is no longer inevitable. Once the cult leader has no clothes, his followers can put down the Kool-Aid and consider looking for new politicians to worship.
After all these years, much of the media still doesn’t understand Donald Trump’s mystique and the mindset of his supporters. I’m telling you, the more trouble he gets in criminally and legally, the more problems he will have politically. When the MAGA mob see him in court or jail, they finally realize—even if only subconsciously--he’s not the messiah they thought he was.
‘Abort the GOP’ Should be Democrats 2024 Slogan
If the Democrats want to win in 2024, they should adopt the slogan: “Abort the GOP”.
Marketing matters and this one phrase says it all in three words. It states the goal, which is sweeping the Republican Party out of power. It also highlights the Republican Party’s weakest issue, which is abortion.
The slogan “Abort the GOP” has the added value of fitting on T-shirts, lawn signs, bumper stickers and it can be chanted at Democratic rallies.
I’d love to know what viewers and readers think of my “Abort the GOP” slogan. I’d also like to hear what slogan you think would work best for the Democrats for in 2024.
In my view, “Abort the GOP” would resonate because the two most likely Republicans to win the presidential nomination are Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis. Trump’s anti-choice views are well known. DeSantis just signed a medieval 6-week abortion ban.
This issue is going to be an anchor that drags down the Republican Party. If they try to moderate, the anti-abortion zealots that dominate the GOP-base will rebel against them. So, they are stuck in electoral quicksand with no escape.
Republicans know this is a losing issue. That’s why Ron DeSantis signed his 6-week abortion ban at 11PM at night. Florida state Rep. Anna Eskamani called out the governor, saying:
“DeSantis is a coward who doesn’t want Floridians to know about his extreme anti-abortion platform, which is why he signed this bill as quickly as possible and with no press coverage.”
A University of North Florida poll found that 75% of Florida residents either somewhat or strongly opposed DeSantis’ six-week ban, including 61% of Republicans.
Washington DC pollster Celinda Lake explained how the county has shifted on abortion after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned—or some would say overthrew--Roe v. Wade:
“I don’t think Democrats have fully processed that this country is now 10 to 15 percent more pro-choice than it was before Dobbs in state after state and national data.”
Pollster Tom Bonier said that if not for the abortion issue, Democrats would have been wiped out in the midterms.
“When you look at where the Democrats overperformed, it’s in places where choice was most present in the election.”
In a brilliant New York magazine article, Michigan’s Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, explained the political salience of the abortion issue:
“We won all the constitutional offices; we flipped both chambers of our legislature for the first time in 40 years. It’s only happened four times in 130 years in the state.”
The genius in Whitmer’s approach was tying reproductive freedom to human rights, democracy and economic issues. She used the slogan, “Make It in Michigan”. New York Magazine explained the power of Whitmer’s catchphrase.
“Make It in Michigan,” suggests that prioritizing abortion rights and LGBTQ+ protections would help bring businesses and expertise back to her former manufacturing state.
Whitmer said, “Every parent, Republican, Democrat, or independent, wants our kids to stay in Michigan. Let’s give them reasons to stay; let’s … protect fundamental freedoms.”
Whitmer has created a roadmap for Democratic success in 2024. Reproductive choice is a Republican kryptonite. Given the potency of this issue, “Abort the GOP” is the perfect slogan to remind voters of Republican extremism and to energize Americans to vote for Democrats.