Is Fox News killing the GOP?

Filed in National by on November 12, 2012

In view of the fact that the GOP is failing to attract ANY non-Fox News viewers, I think a fair case can be made that Fox News is the GOP’s main problem. Consider…

Watching the network actually damages the brains of viewers.
Fox News viewers know less about current events than people who watch NO NEWS WHATSOEVER.
Fox News’ non-stop hectoring make difficult for viewers to think clearly.
Fox News is designed to trigger emotional responses and to force viewers to make logical connections that don’t exist.
Fox News overloads the viewers brain with cognitive dissonance.
Fox News un-teaches viewers how to think. It tells them to rely in emotion alone.
Fox News acts as a gathering place for people who want to nurse feelings of anxiety.
It caters to the gold hoarders and doomsday peppers.
Fox News uses images of minorities to strike fear into their white audience.
Fox News helps viewers feel solidarity and gives them the sense that they are part of a movement.
It gives them specific points of outrage to organize around.
Fox News is more legitimate and potent than talk radio because it is treated no differently than CBS or ABC or CNN.

Fox News will help the GOP win mid-term elections as long as Democrats continue to be checked out every two years. But Fox News will never help the GOP win another Presidential election.

Fox News is a for profit venture that has zero regard for the well being of its viewers.
The Fox News viewers are the “product” that it delivers to its customers.
Fox News customers are its advertisers.
Fox News customers appreciate Fox News’ soft-headed, easily-duped product.
Fox news customers don’t mind one bit if Fox News viewers continue to boil down into a think, angry sludge.
The more they practice not thinking, the more they buy.

Taken, in large part, from BooMan Tribune

About the Author ()

Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (16)

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  1. Liberal Elite says:

    Well, for one night, at least, Fox got it right.

    But the read here is that not only is Fox News a drag on the GOP, it’s a drag on the entire nation. It has lead to much of the unhappiness from the right on this election. There are lots of people like Rusty who’ve been duped. It’s responsible for widely spreading division and racism.

    The fact the Fox News is foreign owned should lead to an investigation…

    “For One Night at Fox, News Tops Agenda”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/business/media/fox-newss-election-coverage-followed-journalistic-instincts.html

    “It has been suggested, here and elsewhere, that Fox News effectively became part of the Republican propaganda apparatus during the presidential campaign by giving pundit slots to many of the Republican candidates and relentlessly advocating for Mitt Romney once he won the nomination.

    Over many months, Fox lulled its conservative base with agitprop: that President Obama was a clear failure, that a majority of Americans saw Mr. Romney as a good alternative in hard times, and that polls showing otherwise were politically motivated and not to be believed.

    But on Tuesday night, the people in charge of Fox News were confronted with a stark choice after it became clear that Mr. Romney had fallen short: was Fox, first and foremost, a place for advocacy or a place for news?

    In this moment, at least, Fox chose news.”

  2. Dave says:

    I agree a fair case could be made that Fox News is one of the GOP’s main problems. But it takes two to tango and without the viewers Fox News is irrelevant. Viewers make choices (news you can choose). Regardless of the bias on the left and the right in the media, viewers must share the responsibility for buying into to those things they knew/know are patently false and failing to be discriminating in how much they accept what’s being fed to them.

    I recognize that maybe their key demographic is might be less educated (less discriminating) but Fox could choose to educate and inform rather than feed them red meat. Ultimately the consumer/viewer of Fox News is also one of the GOPs main problems.

  3. jason330 says:

    Excellent points: Fox News is a drag on the entire nation and is foreign owned. It should be investigated.

    In the meantime other news outlets and anyone else aware of the situation should stop treating it as a legitimate news operation.

  4. V says:

    I think the biggest damage Fox News has done to the GOP is that at some point they stopped remembering the network was doing their spin for them and actually started believing it was real reporting.

    I’m looking at you, Mitt “unskewed polls” Romney.

  5. cassandra_m says:

    David Frum is beating this drum — that Fox News and the conservative bubble is killing the GOP. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes have a really big problem here. Especially since their main audience skews pretty old and those guys are going away. Rush Limbaugh is steadily losing listeners and I’d bet that Fox is having the same overall decline. Both may still be the elephants in the room still, but the question is how long.

    One of the real difficulties for the Fox News audience is that they’ve somehow bought the idea that they are consuming reliable news. And that the reason that FOX might have different information is that everyone else presents a too liberal version of the day’s events. The news everywhere is much like the Internet — you have to be your own editor now. And Fox has taught a bunch of folks that no one will tell you the truth but them.

    More David Frum.

  6. John young says:

    Hmm.it does say here that Jason is a double agent working FOR the GOP, now I’m confused about whether about FOX is the problem or solution or the problem…

  7. kavips says:

    John: Write this down: Fox is always the problem.

  8. John Young says:

    I’m being silly kavips. Just enjoy Jason’s profile here at DL too much for my own good.

  9. cassandra_m says:

    And Joe Scarborough piles on. Pay no attention to the fact that Scarborough himself contributes to the bubble (Can you say Nate Silver?):

    “If I were a donor, my biggest problem would be that I was lied to. I was lied to by the, as David Frum said, the conservative entertainment establishment. I mean, the conservative media establishment. They lied to the donors, they lied to the base, they lied to everybody about how Romney was ahead and things were looking good in the Senate. The pollsters lied. Everybody lied! And so guys keep writing checks and find out the reason they went to Minnesota and Pennsylvania is because all of these people that were saying Romney was going to win Ohio, they knew he was not going to win Ohio. They knew all along!”

    Scarborough gets to be called a moderate because no one will remind him of his contradictory positions.

  10. pandora says:

    Scarborough spent every morning before the election lying about the polls. He’s not on FOX, so what’s his excuse?

  11. cassandra_m says:

    He is occasionally a vector to the bubble. But since he isn’t entirely in the tank, he gets a pass because he is a MODERATE you know.

  12. Fox is not foreign owned. Murdoch became a U.S. citizen in 1985.

  13. meatball says:

    Newscorp is publicly traded on NASDAQ and is incorporated right here in Delaware.

  14. Jason330 says:

    The only complaint Wingnuts have with this post is that Rupert Murdoch is still considered Australian.

    I find that telling.

  15. cassandra_m says:

    How rich is this — look who else is blaming Fox News.

    He [Frank Luntz!] complains that the polls Fox News told their viewers to ignore were correct. He says the polls being done for the Republican establishment were wrong and it’s a bad day for conservative pollsters.

    He goes on to say that Fox News viewers should be outraged at being lied to. (I know, the irony is exquisite isn’t it)? He says Fox viewers were told day after day that Romney was going to win big, but it was Nate Silver that was right and the Republican pollsters that were wrong.

    The man who makes his living helping Fox to lie to its viewers now complains that Fox is lying to its viewers.

  16. Jason330 says:

    Fox News: Fox News has been lying to you.

    Fox News viewer: Does not compute… bleep… blzurpt… bbzzt *head explodes*