"In 2004 a senior advisor to President George W. Bush famously told journalist Ron Suskind that people like Suskind lived in “the reality-based community,” believing that people could find solutions to problems based on their real-world observations. But such a worldview was obsolete, the aide said. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.… We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
America’s right wing has been able to shape reality in large part because of the 1996 advent of the Fox News Channel (FNC), the brainchild of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Shows on the FNC used clear, simple messaging with colorful graphics that told a story of an America overwhelmingly made up of white, rural folks who hated taxes and an intrusive government, and would do fine if they could just get the socialist Democrats to leave them alone. To spread the new channel, Murdoch initially offered ten dollars per subscriber to each cable company that carried it.
That right-wing echo chamber has expanded until it is now so strong that nearly 70% of Republicans falsely believe Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, despite the fact that the FNC had to pay more than $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems for defamation after it lied to viewers about that election."
Letters from an American Historian
One obvious observation would be that a $787m defamation penalty, 3/4 of Billion dollars, charged to Fox was, apparently, an insufficient legal remedy if 70% of Republicans still believe the election was stolen from Grump. This resembles the prosecutions of Alex Jones and Steve Bannon in that they are convicted for defamations but don't stop the slanderous defamations, as they continue to broadcast from jail and stand on the stage at the Republican convention with Grump.
As I've said before, Grump did not invent fake news but he is the triumph of fake news. A final triumph, a regime changing triumph, we don't know yet but they're going to try hard to make it stick over the next four years, at least, and further degradation of the legal system and major media will be high on their priorities list to achieving their goals.
Maybe Fox will change course when Rupert dies as HCR explains, just as maybe the Republican party might when Grump finally goes, but I don't find much comfort in either prospect. They've already activated and networked millions devoted to destroying any promises of freedom and prosperity and enviornmental sustainability that doesn't guarantee their exclusive ethnonationalist privilege and power; as whites, Christian Nationalists, and capitalist bosses.
Empires create their own reality. For instance, I saw a billboard in Oregon yesterday that read, "Your neighbor voted for him," sponsored by the "He Gets Us" campaign, thereby fusing Grump with Jesus. He's got you alright!
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