Trump and Fox
Nina Burleigh has written a great piece for TNR about Joe Biden’s other opponent in the 2024 election: Fox News. I urge you to read the whole thing if you can. It will be worth your while.
It opens with this:
On October 6, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report for September. The numbers were extremely positive, with 336,000 jobs added, almost double the forecast. Most media outlets were reporting the numbers as a sign of improvement in the economy—which they are. But Fox reported otherwise. On his prime-time show that night, host Jesse Watters called the report “a straight-up scandal.” He accused the Biden administration of “cherry-picking and double counting the numbers.” As he babbled, chyrons drove home the point in capital letters, for anyone watching with the sound down, in, say, a bar or a gym: “Biden’s Jobs Numbers Scandal” and “Biden’s Economy Is Smoke & Mirrors.”
That day, the network flooded all its zones with the same shade. A Fox Business segment hosted Strategic Wealth Partners “investment strategist” Luke Lloyd, who opined that the good numbers merely proved Joe Biden’s socialism. “My reaction? We are becoming a more socialistic country, and these job numbers prove it,” he said. “We’re taking jobs from the private sector and creating them in the public sector. And who’s financing those jobs? Me, you, and the viewers, through inflation…. Government spending is going to keep inflation in the game.”
All that was just Day One. For the next week, the network served up a chorus of boos for the unemployment numbers. The next morning, hosts of Fox & Friends Weekend discussed the U.S. employment data over a chyron announcing, “Biden Criticized Over Handling of Economy.” Host Will Cain reported that the good jobs numbers were actually very bad news in a period of “runaway inflation,” and that more people working was simply going to drive up prices even further. “I got to tell you, when I’m out there talking to friends who are either in real estate or financing, there’s a great amount of fear about this economy and what could happen over the next 12 months … inflation goes high and interest rates goes high.”
As we head into the 2024 election, this is the messaging tone we can expect the nation’s most-watched cable network to spew hourly. No matter who the Republicans run, Fox will exist as an open adversary to Joe Biden—his other opponent. The network has always gone after Democrats—it did this to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Kerry, and Al Gore. But this election year is different. It is a crisis for American democracy, a crisis that is in no small part Fox’s making. And it’s not clear that Democrats have any plan for how to handle their other—perhaps even the stronger—2024 adversary.
[…]
Is the Biden campaign, are the Democrats generally, ready for this? A debate rages right now in Democratic circles about how the party and its officials should deal with Fox—to refuse to appear on the network and instead expose the corruption at its heart, or to play ball with it and try to outsmart it. There are good arguments on both sides. Wherever Biden and his people come down, they need to do so understanding that Fox isn’t merely an unfriendly media property. It’s an opponent, and one with a press pass and the First Amendment to shield its lies.
It’s straight-up lies and propaganda. And you wonder why people are so uninformed in this country. But it’s that last bit that’s immediately concerning.
Most media observers and critics say that unless you are as skilled as Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom it’s probably best not to go on at all. It’s very important to know how to parry their narrative and not everyone can do it. Others disagree pointing out that 40% of independents watch Fox and that the messaging around social security and medicare needs to be shared with the seniors who are watching Fox non-stop.
I honestly don’t know who’s right on this. “Better media training” has been the mantra for as long as I can remember but I’m not sure it’s ever made a difference. And do those seniors who watch Fox will ever believe that Trump and the Republicans will do anything to harm them. Fox blames everything on the Democrats and the hippies no matter what the truth might be!
It is possible to persuade them but the question is how to get it done
A 2022 experiment bears that out to some extent. Researchers paid Fox viewers to watch CNN for just a month—and they changed their minds about things like the government response to Covid and Democrats’ attitudes toward police. But in the real world, with such experiments impossible on a large scale, Democrats in 2024 face the profound challenge of meeting a moment of fascist authoritarian descent at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to messaging.
Burleigh correctly observes that Fox and the Republicans have discovered how to make politics “entertaining” whether it’s as theatre or sporting competition (or maybe lynching?) for the GOP voters who prefer this way of experiencing politics. According to various studies, Democrats apparently prefer to have their political entertainment more policy oriented. The result is that Fox viewers are extremely uniformed. Surprise! And the MSM is more boring…
We’ve all talked about this for years and I’m not sure there are any good answers for it, even now. When I think about it, it’s kind of a miracle that Democrats have managed to win all these elections in the last few years. Maybe that’s a hopeful sign?
Burleigh takes a long look at some of the long term work the Democrats are doing from building local news infrastructure (which sounds very interesting) to legal strategies, boycotts and carriage fees, all of which point to some clear signs that Fox, for all its power, is actually a very “wounded beast.” and may have actually reached the apex of its power some time back. That’s the most optimistic take I’ve seen and it does have a ring of truth. The problem is that they are still massively influential, dedicated to Donald Trump and they aren’t going anywhere before this next election.
So, add Fox to the list of Biden opponents, along with Trump, RFK Jr., Jill Stein and Cornell West. It may be the hardest one to beat out of all of them.