Why Republicans love Fox News so damn much

Fox News has always played a pivotal role in the Republican Party, especially during the presidency when it is held by Republicans, but under Donald Trump that relationship has been taken to a new level.

Trump doesn’t just rely on Fox to promote his ideology, personality, and policies, but under Trump the network has been used—for two terms now—as a source to hire key administration officials and as an instigator of policy decisions with worldwide import.

Trump endlessly promotes Fox, clipping videos of Fox News segments and pushing them out to millions of followers. He also grants most of his interviews to his allies at the network, and Trump even uses his position to browbeat their competition as “fake news” while bolstering his preferred network.

In exchange, Fox is almost always at Trump’s side. They turn their fire on his political enemies and get their audience to follow through for them (sometimes violently) and they play a central role in cleaning up Trump’s mistakes and missteps. On Fox News, Trump and the Republican Party are always winning and advancing, meanwhile liberalism and the Democratic Party are always losing (even when they win).

But it isn’t just Trump. Fox News has spent every day since it launched in 1996 operating as a de facto arm of the Republican Party and the largest cultural bullhorn for the conservative movement.

This was always the point of Fox. Fox was created by former Richard Nixon aide Roger Ailes. Before Ailes was exposed as a serial sexual predator and ousted from Fox a few years before his death, Ailes wrote a memo entitled “A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News.” This was the master plan for Fox even before Ailes linked up with Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch to launch the network.

Nearly thirty years later, Fox is now a well-oiled machine central to the Republican Party. The network works to promote the GOP and conservatism while demonizing the left and the Democrats, even when that demonization and demagoguery hurts the elderly demographic who is most in-tune with the network.

Fox dominates the Republican Party like no other force, and they are beloved for it.

Foreign policy

Fox is probably at peak operating capacity when the network is in pro-war mode.

While Fox was not the premiere outlet for advancing the George W. Bush administration’s lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (that was The New York Times), it began beating the war drums for the invasion of Iraq within hours of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Fox was happy to push disinformation about WMDs for years, long after legitimate outlets and the public at large were aware that the so-called weapons were a myth.

Fox also plays a vital role in pushing the right’s false narrative that the left is weak on fighting terrorism and other national security threats. In Fox world the victory in WWII under Democratic presidents and the capture of terrorist Osama bin Laden under former President Barack Obama don’t account for much.

Fox is able to pivot from decrying military action under Democrats like Obama and former President Joe Biden, and immediately begin pushing for war under a Republican like Trump. They believe in rallying the country but only if it goes a certain ideological way.

Race

Fox News is arguably the most prolific promoter of racism in modern America aside from the conservative movement and figures like Trump. On Fox, police brutality against minority communities, especially Black communities, is not criticized but cheered.

In recent years, Fox has led the conservative charge in opposing migrants. The network took the mantle from openly white supremacist organizations and waved the flag of white supremacy via hosts like Tucker Carlson. Fox would have its audience believing that every Latino person who has ever lived in America is connected to street gangs, rampant crime, and even terrorism.

When Trump engages in racist rants about migrant communities, he is reading from the Fox News playbook nearly verbatim.

Elections

Within the Republican Party there is an almost 1:1 correlation between exposure on Fox News and political success within the party. No figure has capitalized on this symbiotic relationship like Trump.

Trump transitioned from reality TV show host and promoter of the racist “birther” conspiracy by becoming a Fox News political commentator. When he launched his first presidential campaign he showed up on the network far more often than his Republican rivals and cruised that wave to his eventual victory as the party’s nominee.

The other key function Fox serves is as a spreader of election disinformation. Fox keeps up the drumbeat for Republican political campaigns every day. The network’s content is focused on winning elections for Republicans, even in off years. And that frequently takes the form of blatant lies related to elections.

Sometimes this costs the network dearly. After Trump lost in 2020 to Biden, Fox made the active choice to push his phony claims that the race had been stolen from him. 

Fox’s devotion to Trump and desire to hold on to his supporters as viewers led them to push the lies that formed the basis of multiple lawsuits against Fox and its parent company. In the most notable instance Fox paid out nearly $800 million to Dominion Voting Systems for its election lies.

One particular Fox-involved election “scandal” involved a few seconds of footage of members of the “new Black Panthers” standing near a voting location during the 2008 election. This footage was amplified by Fox into a purported conspiracy involving Obama, even though the Department of Justice had pursued action against one of the men. The footage was used to argue that Democrats were in league with the group to intimidate Republican voters. None of this was true.

Fox also fearmongers over statistically nonexistent “election fraud” in the hopes that amplifying discussion about the topic will push conservative voters to turn out.

Health care

Conservatism wants Americans (at least those in the middle and working class) to die without health care, and Fox News is here to help.

Fox News has spent decades attacking any and all ideas, policies, proposals and the like meant to expand health care access in coverage in America.

The network loves to demonize health care plans, ranging from those proposed by the Clintons to Obamacare and beyond, as socialized medicine. This tactic is meant to specifically trigger opposition from the network’s core demographic, many of whom grew up during the Cold War or in the immediate aftermath and are primed to oppose “socialism.”

Existing, popular government health care options like Medicaid are always under fire on Fox. The network invents problems out of whole cloth or amplifies existing problems beyond their true scope with an eye toward advancing conservative ideas.

The network’s older audience was particularly susceptible to infection during the COVID-19 pandemic but Fox nevertheless promoted years of medical misinformation on the virus, because it could be weaponized against Democrats.

Economics

An economic system that favors the protection of extreme wealth while cutting off avenues for the middle class to prosper is a near-biblical article of faith on Fox.

Every notion, large and small, that is supposed to address economic inequality and hardship is demonized on the network. Figures like New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and beyond are portrayed as architects of American destruction for merely championing progressive economics.

On the other hand, conservative economic policies that have been shown time and time again to be massive failures—like trickle-down economics—are promoted and championed. These policies preserve and sometimes worsen the lives of the poorest people but on Fox News they always are spoken about like massive successes.

Smears

Fox News traffics in endless smears of progressive/liberal figures. The network is happy to air blatant lies about Democrats, even ones that are easily fact checked. For instance, in 2014 the network edited a video clip of Obama calling for immigration reform and instead portrayed it as advocating for the release of criminal immigrants. The facts don’t matter as long as Fox gets its smear in circulation.

The words of leaders like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi are twisted beyond all recognition to further Fox’s narratives, or it just outright makes up falsehoods about policy initiatives from key figures like Biden. In one instance, progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders had a town hall on Fox’s own airwaves—and Fox still lied about what he said in subsequent segments about the event.

Culture wars

Fox relies on culture wars to keep the conservative base engaged. This involves a constant search for a new hate object, usually a person or group affiliated with progressive ideas so Fox can demonize them and increase political participation (on the right) and feed television ratings.

A major flashpoint in recent years has been applying the label “woke” to everything under the sun. Fox’s audience is told “woke” means upending their lives, when in reality it has meant addressing past bigotry and injustices against minority groups. Those arguing in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusion are turned into right-wing boogeymen, eventually leading to a figure like Trump who pushes back decades of societal advancement or just eliminates historic racial and gender achievements.

When Fox isn’t hammering at ethnic groups they are demonizing people based on their gender identity, with an increased focus in recent years of attacking transgender people—even as suicides increase among targeted transgender youth.

The group that Fox prefers to promote culturally? Conservative Christians. The right-wing branch of Christianity is portrayed on Fox as the only real faith in America and the world, and the grievances and perceived slights and persecution that the right-wing Christian movement cares about become front and center on Fox.

The bottom line

In 2010, failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin advised Republicans to “speak through Fox News.” They were already doing that but, in the decade and a half since, the edict has taken on a life of its own.

Fox isn’t just the communications wing of the Republican Party, but it is the backbone of the entire conservative movement. The network is the right’s public salon, where heroes are praised and promoted and enemies are demonized and attacked.

There truly isn’t any serious divide between the Republican Party and Fox News. Where one ends, the other one begins. To be sure, sometimes there are moments of tension between the two entities that spill out into public view, but thes

rss@dailykos.com (Oliver Willis)مصدر