Bruce Bartlett is an apostate. He worked for Dubya but is now much more independent minded in his politics.
He has written a fairly authoritative history of how Fox News has not only taken over conservative news, but how it essentially took over the Republican party.
He notes extensively and with great care how malinformed Fox viewers are about the news. He then notes how that has an effect on both candidates and electorate. Simply put, Fox news creates conservatives who are trying to fight imaginary problems. The Benghazi nonsense or the birth certificate nontroversy are good examples of this.
He begins - interestingly - by describing the liberal tilt of journalism prior to Fox and talk radio. Part of the liberal tilt of both journalism and historians is that we reward change with our attention. And liberal embrace change.
But as Fox falls down it's own rabbit hole of bullshit, it diverges further and further from facts. And facts - as Stephen Colbert reminded us - have a well-known liberal bias.
Fox viewers are older. Their average age is 68. That's Nixon's Silent Majority generation. And they are leaving this earth. Just recently, our town budget passed on its first try, which is unusual. Too often the elderly residents vote down the school budget.
As the Fox demographic dies out and is replaced with more and more Millenials in the electorate, how will Fox react? Given that they are high on their own supply of lies, I can't imagine it will be pretty.
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