Fox News Might Be Destroying Our Country

Here is a nice interview with Mark Lilla who makes a lot of points I agree with.  His argument is that leftist identity politics can't win across the broad expanse of the country.  It can win the presidency, but not the necessary number of statehouses, Senate seats and House districts to create a viable majority.  He argues that Democrats need to find a unifying philosophy and articulate that.

I think those awful, neoliberal sellouts in the Democratic Congress actually have found a good message (not the slogan) around some economic issues.  But they need a compelling spokesperson to make the case that we are still a society.  That is Lilla's important insight, that both the post-Reagan Right and Left have abandoned the idea of a common destiny.  The Right is all about the individual, the Left is all about your affinity group.

Except, I think that last part is largely a construct of the Right Wing Wurlitzer, especially Fox News.

When you read things like this, you have to ask where such a unique take on reality comes from.  How is Obama responsible for Charlottesville?  How is BLM like the Nazis?  That is, you can ask, but the answer is obvious: It comes from Fox News.

Fox has been consistently peddling the same fucking lies and distortions for years.  The Trump Administration is a patrimonial kleptocracy.  Lost in this weekend's violence is the fact that Mueller is looking into Wilbur Ross for money laundering.  Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, wasn't on anyone's radar, but of course he's corrupt.  Yet, once the indictments come down, Fox will be filled with outrage that Ross is being indicted, but Obama wasn't for Solyandra.  Solyandra isn't really a thing, it's just a magic word like Benghazi or BLM to shield wingers from the fact that their ideology is bankrupt, their governance is non-existent and they are at best fellow travelers with a bunch of Nazis and Klansmen.

Fox spends countless hours harping in the threat of radicalized Muslim extremists, while simultaneously radicalizing angry white boys.  Since 9/11 - over a decade and a half now - it has been these angry, radicalized white boys who have killed more Americans that the scary brown Muslims.  In other words, Fox is the ISIS internet of white terrorism in this country.  Do you think this guy watches MSNBC? How about this guy?

As I wrote about the demonization of BLM, it's a case of projection and deflection to blame black people for white supremacists.  If you think black people are the reason we have white supremacist, then you might be a redneck racist.

And at the nexus of this bullshit information ecosystem sits Fox News.  And the target audience for Fox News is a seventy year old white guy from Queens who inherited a bunch of money (and privilege) from his dad and yet thinks he's been oppressed.