Fox News is claiming that if President Biden is elected one more time, his power grab will ensure that Democratic policies will be irreversible and will end the power of elections to sway policy.
I can’t believe what I’m reading - it’s a joke right? It’s satire? How can they write this with a straight face knowing full well that Trump, along with a sizeable number of Republican counterparts, actively tried to steal the election. The only party we need to fear is the party of fear itself!
The article is filled with a substantial amount of Trumpist Dog Whistles such as the phrase “Freedom Loving” to refer to themselves. But this paragraph seems to highlight a big part of their issue:
" Think about it. To Save Our Democracy, we are told we must give government a bigger say in which cars we buy, what companies we invest in, what races of job candidates we hire, which demographic groups get targeted for ballot collection, which headlines get labeled as misinformation and what type of medical research gets funded.
The left just needs to change all the rules to ensure the ruling party can govern unobstructed by pesky voters, checks on power or partisan minority voices. But those changes don’t save democracy. They save Democratic majorities."
In other words: anything that promotes equal treatment under law; fair elections; factual reporting; or scientific rigor can all be labeled as benefitting the Democratic party. Unbelievable! Fox News is stating outright that Facts have a strong Liberal Bias!
I thought Fox News was going to try to clean up their act after the Dominion debacle, but it looks like we’re back to another season of disinformation and half truths.
First, this is on the Fox News site but is not Fox News. It’s labeled opinion. The right-wing has been saying this for years. Why should now be any different?
Fox News was never going to “clean up its act” on the opinion side. (The News side is a separate operation. Nobody on the News end takes this stuff seriously or even knows it’s on the site. ) The core MAGA crowd devotedly believes this stuff and opinion writers feed them fear and fantasy 24/7 to drive up their numbers. BTW, their numbers are wonderful. The left-wing can only wish they had those numbers.
This is a commercial for the guy’s new book. By right-wing standards what he’s saying is almost moderate. Go read what the pastors promoting Christian Nationalism say. Rightwingwatch.org is a good source.
The bubble on the right feeds on this teat every minute. Too much money is involved for them to quit. Expect ten times more of it for the next 18 months.
This might need it’s own thread elsewhere, but could the left-wing have gotten those numbers if they had started building a similar media network earlier? Or is the hate/fear engine of the right just too powerful?
One more Biden term will mean the end of elections? I think their autocorrect is malfunctioning.
American politics seems to have a deliberate gridlock baked in. So Biden can win the White House and may enjoy a majority in either the Senate or the Congress but not both. And two years into his second term, the Republicans will make gains in one or the other of these legislative bodies. I can’t see any scenario in which Republicans just go away and Democrats rule unopposed. That is comically absurd.
I wouldn’t have made a Pit thread about it, but I do find it interesting. It’s something that makes zero sense except that it’s something that was argued to be true about Trump. I have to think the point is to try and undermine that talking point in the future.
It’s not so much projecting, as neutralizing something by making it something people say about “both sides.”
I think this is what solost thought I was saying last week when I asked if Trump had come up with any new ideas. Solost thought I was wooshing him but I wasn’t. I’m just waiting for Trump to say something besides ‘wrong!’ or ‘you’re such a nasty little person’ to a moderator. I know Trump’s not able to.
The New York Times posts blatant right-wing propaganda in their opinion section all the time. It’s probably not reasonable to expect Fox to be better.
No one should ever read opinion pieces or op-eds in any media outlet. They are almost universally propaganda, pushed out by lobbyists or think tanks (in this case, the “Government Accountability Institute”). Utter tripe.
As you note, this particular dogwhistle has been around for a long time. My dad and his nutty friends went on and on about Obama’s third term. I’m not sure even they believe it. It’s more like a shibboleth than an actual position they hold.
Sure, you can start a thread, but the answers are no and yes, respectively.
It’s relatively easy to unite older, whiter, more male (and/or more accepting of chauvinsim), lower/middle class, less educated, predominantly Protestant/Evangelical Christian folks* by instilling the fear of the ‘other’ into them. There’s no similar large, unifying bloc on the left, nor a clear way to define some ‘other’ to fear for them (well, maybe you have them fear the MAGA crowd these days, but this wouldn’t have been clear 20-30 years ago in the pre-Fox News days).
And note this isn’t a purely American phenomenon. Rupert Murdoch has also had success in the UK and Australia along similar lines. But less so in several other countries where he’s tried to gain a foothold, possibly because they are not quite as diverse so less prone to ‘othering’ as a primary political strategy.
*That’s not to say Fox viewers are exclusively defined by those - there are younger, minority, educated, wealthy, female, non-Evangelical viewers, but I doubt many would be shocked by who the bread and butter viewers are.
I like it! Have you ever driven by a lighthouse when it sounds its foghorn? I have. Those suckers are LOUD! My meaning here is that Fox isn’t using a dog whistle with their comments, but rahter a foghorn.
