Matt Taibbi: Roger Ailes Was One of the Worst Americans Ever

[Miles Archer]

Roger Ailes Was One of the Worst Americans Ever

Fox News founder made this the hate-filled, moronic country it is today



http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-roger-ailes-was-one-of-the-worst-americans-ever-w483013

On the Internet today you will find thousands, perhaps even millions, of people gloating about the death of elephantine Fox News founder Roger Ailes. The happy face emojis are getting a workout on Twitter, which is also bursting with biting one-liners.

When I mentioned to one of my relatives that I was writing about the death of Ailes, the response was, "Say that you hope he's reborn as a woman in Saudi Arabia."

Ailes has no one but his fast-stiffening self to blame for this treatment. He is on the short list of people most responsible for modern America's vicious and bloodthirsty character.

***

Ailes was the Christopher Columbus of hate. When the former daytime TV executive and political strategist looked across the American continent, he saw money laying around in giant piles. He knew all that was needed to pick it up was a) the total abandonment of any sense of decency or civic duty in the news business, and b) the factory-like production of news stories that spoke to Americans' worst fantasies about each other.

[Gravitycollapse]

1. Absolutely savage.

[Dustlawyer]

17. Absolute truth sometimes is!

[madokie]

2. I have to agree with Matt

[lindysalsagal]

3. Popular and rich all from hate and lies.

If anyone had it coming, this lower life form certainly did.

[mdbl]

4. Now to the real root of the problem...

....gullible ignorant Americans. How do we deal with that before another Roger is born?....

[DFW]

6. There is a legitimate chicken-egg question that could be posed here

Can the exploding percentage of gullible, ignorant Americans be laid at his feet, or did he get rich because they were there as low hanging fruit to begin with?

[mdbl]

7. As prophesied by the movie Idiocracy.....

it was the latter.

[DFW]

8. Not the choice most conducive to improvement, either. n/t

[mdbl]

9. So, the only way to deal with them is total manipulation

because common sense doesn't exist in their world. That is where we were going wrong. We've been trying to appeal to an intellect that wasn't there.

[DFW]

11. Ailes knew this from the 1968 campaign

Our problem is, we all know that the huge success of Roger Ailes came from appealing to people's basest instincts. Our dilemma is trying to find a way to succeed without appealing to those base instincts, and there are just too many people you can't reach otherwise.

[crazycatlady]

20. They were there all along

But he provided a venue for them and brought them out of the woodwork.

[HughBeaumont]

21. I'm going with "B" also.

The rise of Hate Media made being an asshole fashionable again. Long, isolated periods of time listening to nasty commentators playing to already-existing pet hates - a great recipe for a divided America.

Rupert and Roger weren't the only ones - but they were the most connected.

[bucolic_frolic]

12. In my bubble

the rise of Fox News began with the OJ Simpson white bronco chase

It was the first real media hype in my memory, with an honorable mention
to Bill Clinton's Bad Hair Day, which was years later learned to be fabricated
and for which there was no video to draw viewers

OJ chase had it all

Fox rode that horse into sports programming and fed news-sports one off the other

Yes it all appealed to the lesser mentally gifted, but also caught many ordinary people
with good minds who were just relaxed because it was recreation - sports

It was a marketing empire in my view

[BeyondGeography]

5. That's more like it

"Ailes was the Christopher Columbus of hate. When the former daytime TV executive and political strategist looked across the American continent, he saw money laying around in giant piles. He knew all that was needed to pick it up was a) the total abandonment of any sense of decency or civic duty in the news business, and b) the factory-like production of news stories that spoke to Americans' worst fantasies about each other."

[Chasstev365]

10. Couldn't Agree More! Rot in hell Roger!

[shenmue]

13. Yes

[Vinca]

14. My thoughts exactly. Ailes is responsible for the atmosphere of hate and division.

He almost single-handedly destroyed the notion of "one nation." He led the dumbing down of America and was proud of it. Thanks, Matt.

[zentrum]

15. Trivialized life and death issues.

From his wikipedia page:

"If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, 'I have a solution to the Middle East problem,' and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?"

What FOX does to facts makes it basically a criminal enterprise. Evil.

The harm inflicted by him on the country is incalculable.

[lambchopp59]

16. ding dong the warlock is dead

Problem is his idiotic spells resonate still.

[dreamland]

18. A wasted life

For all the good he could have done with the money he's made, he chose to grow rich and perpetrate hate. In the end, he takes nothing with him but a bad reputation.

[Nitram]

19. RIH

[volstork]

23. Amen!

[KG]

22. ailes is dead?

yay!

[WoonTars]

24. Superb..."i hope he comes back as a woman in Saudi Arabia"..

[Wednesdays]

25. Great article until the swipe at liberals

He just had to sneak in a little "both sides do it" drivel. Other than that, spot on.

[progressoid]

26. The air is already easier to breath.

[colsohlibgal]

27. No Doubt

This slime was in essence our version of a Hitler's propoganda master Joseph Goebbels....shoveling out right wing talk 24/7 while calling it fair and balanced.

The damage Fox has caused is incalculable.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

28. I'm usually not one to dance on people's graves but

Burn in hell Ailes.

[melman]

29. I thought we were supposed to hate Taibbi now