Are we frustrated with those Trump voters yet? Or perhaps the question should be: are we frustrated with the way the press covers this conundrum?
When did you start tuning out all those articles about the bereaved Trump voter? Let’s review:
Nothing will persuade evangelicals to stop backing him. Trump voters are digging in their heels. Supposedly, no one cares enough to change their minds. And most recently, a snapshot of independents moving away from impeachment in Wisconsin.I could spend all week compiling and annotating all the articles of the press’ breathless, tenacious coverage of loyal Trump voters (as well as the apathetic center). Reporters keep asking the same questions and getting the same answers: nothing sways the Trump voter to stop backing him. Meanwhile, the rest of us are supposedly weary and cynical.
It’s enough to believe that America has collectively lost our minds as we plain as day have a Russian asset in the White House. It’s much simpler than that, however. It’s that our minds have been hijacked – by more than twenty years of propaganda. And yes, I’m referring to Fox News.
One article last week was not like all the rest of them. Finally, an acknowledgement of the elephant in the room – that a huge chunk of our fellow Americans is living in a different universe. This article from the Washington Post flew under the radar, but it is worth your time. In fact, you can skip the intro and just scroll down to the closing argument: the three options to click on to see their headlines during the impeachment process.
You think you know what you’ll see – that Fox News is off topic. But the difference is still shocking. The news network is lying by omission; and obviously gas-lighting their viewers. No wonder that Trump voters are so devoted. They are kept deliberately in the dark.
And so, it’s clear to the rest of us: constantly polling rural voters and expecting different results is the very definition of insanity. They might as well just ask: “are you still watching Fox News? Yes, you say? OK, that’s a wrap.”
Why won’t the press turn its gaze to this fact? Propaganda was a key element of the Nazi Party’s hold on power; and it was initiated as they gained absolute power just a few years before WWII. Fox News has been spewing its gaslight for decades already. And yet, the Fourth Estate just keeps shoving its microphones into faces at truck stops and small town diners everywhere wanting to know if anyone has changed their minds about their beloved Trump.
To be sure, there have been independent reports on the rot at the center of our Fourth Estate. The documentary The Brainwashing of My Dad for instance. An earlier documentary, Outfoxed, that was the first to shed light on the intentional manipulations of this network. But these would be considered a “leftist opinion”. The Washington Post article was the first I’ve seen of its kind by the mainstream media pointing out the misinformation campaign by a major “news” source in our country.
The spin machine has grown, of course, since Fox News went on the air in 1996. Sacha Baron Cohen made news Friday with his excellent and absolutely must watch speech at the Anti-Defamation League. He identifies the “Six Billionaires” control of our world’s messaging via social media; and eloquently talks about the idea of needing a universal truth for a free democracy to survive.
The only universal truth we all seem to agree on is that there is no more universal truth. Fox News provides both the historic context and current fodder for the idea that everything is fair game. Propaganda was normalized within a few years of their first 1996 broadcast in other words. And it was made possible only because the FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine, a policy that required balance in broadcast reporting of news and current events.
And this was a bipartisan abolition that allowed the Limbaugh’s of the world to flourish. The rest of the nation has just adapted to this constant checkers game of dueling narratives. This reality can not sustain a republic. As Cohen said in relation to Facebook et al: “There is such a thing as objective truth. Facts do exist.” Additionally, he said:
Zuckerberg speaks of welcoming a "diversity of ideas," and last year he gave us an example. He said that he found posts denying the Holocaust "deeply offensive," but he didn't think Facebook should take them down "because I think there are things that different people get wrong." At this very moment, there are still Holocaust deniers on Facebook, and Google still takes you to the most repulsive Holocaust denial sites with a simple click. One of the heads of Google once told me, incredibly, that these sites just show "both sides" of the issue. This is madness.
To quote Edward R. Murrow, one "cannot accept that there are, on every story, two equal and logical sides to an argument." We have millions of pieces of evidence for the Holocaust—it is an historical fact. And denying it is not some random opinion. Those who deny the Holocaust aim to encourage another one.
As the original perpetrator of denying shared facts and truths, Fox News is an entrenched propaganda machine that the rest of us resigned to a long time ago. Our collective acceptance of this reality and dichotomy frames our current constitutional crisis.
As most of us know, it is why you can’t talk sense into your Drunk Uncle or Mother-in-Law’s brainwashed mind. They do not know the facts because Fox News — and all the branches of right wing propaganda — does not report them. There is no universal truth. If you try to counter any argument with a source of your own, they can dismiss it out of hand as “fake news” because as they are sure, their source is the only “fair and balanced” one.
And the rest of the Fourth Estate that tries to fairly report the news but ignores this obvious disease in their midst? I guess just like the police, or any other tribe, they protect their own. Their own job may depend on keeping up the subterfuge. (It makes me wonder — are they cynical or true-believers? Do any of the Fox’ anchors that manage to maintain a shred of professionalism — do they sleep at night?)
I know of no other reason Fox News gets to spoon-feed bullshit with immunity from any beltway scrutiny. To this very day, no less, when an obvious conspiracy to hijack our federal elections by the President of the United States has been exposed. All that the press reports are the political horse-races of “both sides of the story” — never mind the why there is no shared reality.
It is imperative if we do indeed manage to save ourselves, through free elections in 2020 apparently (as the press just shrugs off a Senate acquittal as inevitable without any sense of outrage) we need our representatives to pass reform laws to address the Fox News and social media monopolies’ propaganda machine.
The Fairness Doctrine, so effective for so long, was trashed. And in the age of the internet, this old standard may be out of date. However, there has to be a way to instill a new one, updated for our times.
A democracy cannot survive if the press is not fair and factual. The only reason Trump has this support is because the right-wing has caged their viewers by their false narratives. I can only hope that we can survive to end its reign over our fellow American citizens caught in their web of self-serving-billionaire lies.
In the meantime, we can only hope that the rest of us will wake up from any apathy. That may mean taking it to the streets (www.impeach.org/...). Our republic – and personal freedoms – depend on it.
”In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell