How Fox News may be destroying Trump's reelection hopes

[brooklynite]

Washington Post

It would be a peculiarly apt form of poetic justice if the entity that has done so much to help President Trump run this country into the ground — Fox News — ends up playing an outsize role in helping destroy his chances at reelection.

Yet that may be exactly what’s happening.

This possibility is thrust upon us by two remarkable new reports: one in The Post illuminating Trump’s unsettled mental universe as he grapples with the new coronavirus surge, and one in the New York Times reporting that his law enforcement crackdowns are only accelerating more protests in response.

For Trump, Fox News has two functions: With some exceptions, it largely functions as his “shameless propaganda outlet,” as Margaret Sullivan put it, aggressively inflating his successes and faithfully pushing his messages. When Fox occasionally departs from this role, Trump rages at it as a form of deep betrayal.

Yet for precisely this reason, Fox also functions as a kind of security blanket: It persuades Trump that he’s succeeding, which provides an effective reality distortion field against outside criticism.

[empedocles]

1. As Covid and the economy hit closer to homes, more fox viewers may notice

fox doesn't cover the news that actually affects them.

[Stuart G]

2. K and R..Thank You for posting, Outstanding..

[crickets]

3. FOX News kills.

When the coronavirus death toll approached 100,000, this fact was largely absent from Fox prime-time programming. Now that it’s approaching 150,000, Fox personalities are claiming the original lockdowns were a plot to harm Trump and that things are actually going far better than expected thanks to his towering leadership.

Indeed, studies suggest misinformation from Fox and other right-wing media outlets might be making audiences more prone to believing coronavirus conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, even as too-rapid reopenings are a big reason the coronavirus is surging again, his Fox propagandists continue to push the idea that hesitation to reopen schools is pure politics.

[RDANGELO]

4. The typical Fox viewer is probably becoming increasingly disconnected from the rest of society.

There has to be people connected with the cable news network that realize that continuing to play to these people hurts the Republican Party. It seems that most of the times the ratings win out. A good indication of this is that fact that Biden is winning the suburbs handily.

[ScratchCat]

5. That Chris Wallace interview last week

I was wondering if that interview was Fox's way of asking its viewers, "Are you sure this is the guy you want running for POTUS?". Because it sure came across as if FNC was trying its best to show their viewers that he's out of his mind. Otherwise, they don't have that interview period.