Society will never progress while Fox News is allowed to remain on the air. Fox News creates digital walls to segregate the audience from reality.
I remember a time when news for most people came from the local paper and/or a 30 minute network evening TV show. Both were written by real journalists who attempted to be unbiased.
Read up on roger Ailes and Reagan destroying ‘The Fairness Doctrine.’
Back in the day, you could only own two radio stations in one town [AM and FM] and any editorial had to provide time for rebuttal.
Yup. You can take nearly a modern “bad thing” and trace it back to Reagan policy.
Nixon too. Particularly around the state of insurance in the US.
And cancelling Apollo. The Saturn V was the greatest engineering achievement of the human race. If the Wright brothers had done their first flight and 8 years later some group flew a 747 across the Pacific ocean it would have been by multiple measures a less impressive achievement.
He cancelled the remaining missions and shelved the rocket. Within 2 years it could no longer be built and the country that went to the moon could not put a human into space. In the 50 years since then no rocket has come close to what it could do.
And he did it all for tax cuts.
I think even that stuff could be said to be results of stuff like Aisles working with Nixon, and Justice Lewis Powell’s memoranda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell_Jr.?wprov=sfla1
That is, until Sinclair and Clear Channel started gobbling up local affiliates to push their own narratives.
This is extremely dangerous to our democracy
This Is Extremely Dangerous To Our Democracy
This Is Extremely Dangerous To Our Democracy
Fox News tapped an audience which was already open to such bullshittery. Removing Fox News does not remove that audience. We need to better understand why a significant proportion of the population (not just of the US, but of the world) embraces fascism and the structures that drive towards it. Then, to identify how to convince fascists to abandon fascism.
Agree with the point that Fox News tapped that audience, disagree that removing them wouldn’t help.
Media literacy must be included as part of primary education. How do we know things? How do we find out things? What does it mean to “create a podcast”? etc.
Ideally, yes, it would be better if we lived in a world where there was not a niche for Fox News to fill. But again, removing Fox News would not remove that niche. Something else would fill the vacuum created by its absence.
They (GOP) created the audience over decades by gutting education, social support programs and encouraging racism.
By the time fox came around people were ripe to be abused.
Mostly agree, but I think that’s just one step removed. It’s not like the GOP (more correctly, conservatism) erected everything out of whole cloth, against a social democrat utopia that already existed. There has always been a very overlapping and sizeable Euler diagram of populism, conservatism, nationalism, and fascism, extending back into the tribal fog of prehistory.
It’s easy to point the finger at the primary bogeymen of today, and that over simplification is a major way that these horrible political and social views propagate. Their messaging is wrong, but it’s easy, and generally speaking, people prefer easy to complicated, with disregard to what’s more accurate.
The technology that allows powerful people to make war with each other and oppress the weak has vastly outpaced the advancement of more inclusive social and political philosophies. We’re going to need to come to a better understanding that we humans are all together one tribe. We need to be dedicated to the common good, not only of people like us, but of people unlike us, too, on the basis that we are all people.
Well said
Maindrivers of fascism are the insane people fearmongering and stoking nationalism in a bid for more power and money. It’s corruption and nonsense all the way down only made possible by poor education and voter participation. FPTP and lax campaign laws make it easy for the super wealthy to influence elections behind the scenes too. A lot of democracies are still run with systems designed by ancient wealthy romans for the benefit of ancient wealthy romans and are left unchanged. It’s to the surprise of noone when billionaires act like emperors in modern times with inequality on the rise everywhere and with news indistinguishable from entertainment given how the fairness doctrine has been long abolished even if that was precisely why it existed in the first place.
Do we? Hasn’t there been lots of books written by Europeans who lived thru the 1930s documented step by step how their nation fell.
Books that the majority of Americans are too apathetic, ideologically poisoned or just busy to read, much less take concrete actions as a result.
I wish it wasn’t so, but that’s the current reality. Telling your average Faux News viewer to read and honestly reflect on objective history books is a fool’s errand.
We have to fight intolerance not with the information of the tolerant, but with vilification, exclusion and other severe consequences for their misanthropic words and actions.
I’m sure there are. I couldn’t name a single one, and I am quite certain that there are zero US secondary schools that teach any of them. When I was in high school, we didn’t even get into WW1 in history class, and there’s been 35 years more history since then. We didn’t even get to the rise of fascism in the 20th century; no wonder it’s on the rise again.
If people weren’t as stupid, they’d already be ignoring fox news.
The solution to misinformation isn’t censorship, it’s for people to be better educated. Are we supposed to ban every conspiracy theory website? If so, who gets to decide what is the truth and what is “misinformation”? The same type of government organization that is now banning books in florida? No thanks.
Educated fascists abound.
Not that anyone should take you seriously, with that inane conclusion. ‘Oh, arresting kidnappers? Like the kidnappers did? No thanks.’
There is a negative correlation between education and support for Trump.
And yet: “education” is never the panacea people pretend it is, when they scoff at DIRECT solutions to visible problems. ‘Don’t take action! Let’s opine about a generation-long project to prevent this from happening again.’
Because if there’s anything safe from the meddling of disinformation-pushing conservative bastards, it’s school.
I believe when people talk about education and schooling it’s about the future, not the present. The current generations are already set in their ways.
So to take ‘direct action’ would depend on what actions you’re actually able to take.
For example… the actions that dolt was specifically poo-poo-ing?
Probably but I bet the correlation is weak. Do you have a study that shows otherwise? I know engineers generally are more conservative compared to the other science-y white collar professions but I know several engineers who have the same level of education as I do who are total redhats.
I don’t discuss politics at work. That is my safe place from that bullshit.
One thing, I know fantasy, I would like to see is editoral being labeled as such. Yes, that includes those round table talking head things. Just a banner on the bottom that said “editorial, not news”.
“91% of Fox viewers conditioned to never say anything bad about someone with a R next to their name, regardless of what they actually believe”
FTFY
Ronald Reagan famously said that the “eleventh commandment” was: “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”
The phrase was coined in the 1960s by Gaylord Parkinson, who was the state chairman of California Republicans at the time: “Henceforth, if any Republican has a grievance against another, that grievance is not to be bared publicly.”
Gaylord Parkinson
Is that… is that really a name?
Yeah but we call him Dick.
According to Republicans, a terrible disease and a bad disease
Semi spoiler but haven’t watched Meet the Parents? That’s actually the first time I found out it was an actual name but it’s older now I know. Sorry if that spoiled it for anyone but it’s literally the last joke of the movie. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it, not outstanding but solid comedy, plus has the best nipple joke.
Not that it ever did Trump’s ratings any harm, calling them traitors, losers and everything in between.
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They’re torn. The intelligent pragmatists don’t want a repeat of the 2020 election. The emotional loyalists are doing that thing where you consider loyalty to be a pretty high virtue all on its own, and thus don’t abandon your boy when he runs into trouble, regardless of how much it may or may not be deserved.
You could consider, if he was a family member, or if you were all members of the same mafia, would you turn on him or stick around and watch his back when he starts getting into trouble?
That poll probably fucked with. That our Fox viewers and fucking morons. Most likely Fox has all it’s viewers blind to the crimes that he has committed and they watch nothing else.
From the Fox (and Newsmax) news I’m exposed to, there were zero mentions of Trump indictments that weren’t tinged with “corrupt FBI” sentiment over the last 2 weeks.
It’s been wall to wall Hunter tax evasion bullshit.
I am not the biggest Biden supporter but that Hunter stuff has made me support him more. If this is all they got on a man who has been in office longer than I have been alive that is pretty freaken impressive. Positive if I held high office for a fraction of that time I would have made way more mistakes.
Oh wow his son is a screw up. Big wow. I didn’t vote for his son.
Just like Clinton and the blowjob. Clinton and Benghazi. It is a nothingburger the far right is trying to push and waste taxpayer money on.
Your point is taken. There was a local leader in my area that was R but soft-R and again local leader. When Trump won the primary he sent out an email to me and I guess everyone else on his list basically saying that it was our duty to support him.
I told him that it was his duty not mine and I vote how I choose. Wish I had said something more witty.
I doubt this describes most Fox News viewers. I suspect a majority of them fall into a third category of “blind believers”. Fox News tells them the indictments are a sham, they believe it’s a sham. Especially when it’s sandwiched between two things that make them angry.
Intelligent pragmatists aren’t too well represented in the Fox News demographic
You’d be surprised how few of them actually are brainwashed enough not to realize the flow they’re going with is pretty dark. They just tend to think the world itself is dark, and is supposed to be dark. So things like cheating and corruption are signs of health, not bad things.
They’re very backwards in some ways. Good is bad, bad is good.
Does anyone remember this?
STUDY: Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All
Conservatives lie to pollsters
There’s probably more truth in this than everyone in this discussion would want to admit.
They secretly want Trump, but they’re embarrassed in public to say that.
I’ve never been contacted for a poll. I didn’t even consider this. Lying to a poll jfc. Imagine being ashamed of what you believe.
That’s the only way you can reconcile still being in the cult with seeing yourself as a smart and kind person: constantly lying to everyone including yourself.
Society/peer pressure is real.
Propaganda works.
When I was in school and learned about propaganda, I thought how do people believe in crazy lies. Like a Korean dictator having a divine birth, walking at 3 weeks of age, or not pooping. It is because propaganda works if that is all the info you have.
This really hit me hard once I had a kid.
The degree to which those small early lessons will stick in their mind, much less something that’s ingrained in their heads every single day.
I think I get it now - if kids are hearing this stuff day in and out from the moment they can talk - that they absolutely could be convinced that Trump or Putin or Xi are some kind of divinity. Even when they later learn otherwise, there will be some kernel of that propaganda remaining in their head.
Some people reach a phase where they’re really ready to question these things, but I met plenty of people in college for whom that dissonance was just too unexpected and painful. They simply retreated into what they already identified with.
This is what peak propaganda looks like.
It only took 36 years.
That’s how long ago the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine was abolish. It should come to no one’s surprise that it was abolished under the Reagan Administration.
For those that do not know, the Fairness Doctrine essentially forced TV News to present BOTH sides to a story in an unbiased manner. There are many people reading this who were not even alive when this was abolished which means they have always had biased news in their lives. It amazes me how rarely the Fairness Doctrine is brought up when it comes to the destruction of our news media and ways the Right has tried to undermine our democracy and shift this country’s attitudes toward the Right.
What is equally infuriating to me is when I hear people on the Left endlessly waffle from one rather insignificant topic to the next that they should focus their efforts on, and ultimately never getting anywhere. Enacting some type of new Fairness Doctrine should be near the top of the list of things the Left should be pushing for. An unbiased news media is the foundation that a democracy is built on. The news media is how the general public becomes educated on what is happening and that simply can’t happen when they lie endlessly like FOX News so famously does (other stations do as well, but few do it as well as Fox does). But the Left doesn’t focus on things like the Fairness Doctrine because it admittedly isn’t a “sexy” topic. It doesn’t get people’s attention. And it isn’t something that can get solved in a few weeks. The lack of focus is frustrating.
Anyways, this topic put me on a tangent that nearly no one will read, but people love to react to what is happening this instant, but rarely ever think about how we got to this point. These bamboozled Fox News watchers didn’t simply wake up one day and believe all the shit that network spews out. The Right plays the long game on things and having an army of brainwashed listeners takes years and even decades to develop. The Left needs to learn this strategy.
Sorry for the rant.
Fairness Doctrine reinstated and enforced on anything claiming to act as news would definitely go a long way towards fixing the political hellscape fascist billionaires have created in their endless greed. Their strategy works off of fear and nationalism, you won’t be able to replicate it on the Left and still retain an audience of freethinkers, the propaganda is designed to wear people down and make them dumber than when they initially tuned in. Only authoritarians seek to erode the meaning of words for their own gain like the Right does on Fox, the best longterm strategy the Left has is education and voter-participation. - Things the Right undercut and underfund every chance they get.
Lol he admitted on tape he committed crimes.
They don’t read good
They don’t read
Remember, Fox Entertainment is not a news source.
Makes me think of the old Mr. Show sketch - “85% of supporters think he didn’t do it, even if he did.”
Watching too much TV in general causes mental disorders, but watching Fox “News” clearly causes severe brain damage. You’d be better off sniffing glue.
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We are really losing a generation of elderly and it is depressing. I had to deal with a few like that once and bite my tongue. One day I had it and just demanded to know why I didn’t know how many grandkids each of them had.
How is it I can hear you guys talk for hours a day for freaken weeks and not one of you has bothered to tell me about your grandkids? You can’t talk to me for a half an hour without knowing about my kids. There is no way the subject won’t come up. And yet you 3 just go on and on and on about politics.
They didn’t have an answer and I am not completely proud of myself for snapping like that. Still bothers me. Is this my future? An old grumpy shit ranting at other old grumpy shits with my family, career, hobbies, dreams, memories forgotten and not worth mentioning?
These are not smart people. You can ignore their opinions. They are lizards. They hate failure and weakness. As soon as Trump falters, they will pretend that they never supported him. These people would have died for George Bush, and he became a laughing stock within a couple years.
Only 42%? That’s more than enough to win the primary if Fox news is a comparable sample of primary election voters.
42% of Fox News viewers
That were actually sampled. Coulda been a whole 200 people.
Well, people who actually believe what Fox “News” provides are lost to humanity, anyway. I don’t think that the court gives a shit about the believes of Fox “News” disciples.
Wait, so, people who get their news from a biased entertainment company believe something biased and non-factual? I for one am flabbergasted.
