History will determine that there was perhaps no more disastrous event than when Ronald Reagan dismantled The Fairness Doctrine in 1987. The prohibition on one-sided, advocacy-driven broadcasting formats served America well for almost 40 years. Its end presaged the poisoning of our national discussion… with ruinous results. The most disgusting irony that now insults us every day is how Fox News hijacked the doctrines’ principle requirement… that broadcasters present news and information in a “fair and balanced” manner.
Fox charlatan Roger Ailes, along with a failed disc jockey named Rush Limbaugh, were visionary in understanding the market share that could be mined from White grievance and resentment with The Fairness Doctrine gone. The rest will be remembered as one of American history’s greatest tragedies, a stake plunged into democracy’s heart.
Fox and its AM talk radio accompanists ARE the original and primary tumor responsible for the civic cancer that is destroying us. Future scholars will be as flummoxed as to why this critical cause-and-effect connection was so discounted in real-time as post-war students were about how Hitler was able to beguile his minions.
The record is clear on the culpability of both of America’s major political parties in the warping of our civic discourse. They allowed Rupert Murdoch, a foreign tycoon with a well-deserved reputation for Machiavellian pursuit of profits, to transform informing the American public from a revered duty to strictly an opportunity for profits. He and Ailes introduced and relentlessly enhanced a national news network founded on the premise that America’s entire news and information ecosystem was evil and corrupt, fully servile to the political well being of the Democratic Party and its sinister “elite” masters.
If Democrats were cluelessly neglectful of the danger Ailes and company posed, establishment Republicans were seditiously complicit in their efforts to harness Fox/AM’s hate to their electoral advantage. The bottom was reached when, after Trump insulted and slandered the entire 2016 Republican Presidential primary field, the GOP’s establishment leadership congealed to promote the full plethora of his first term outrages and twice direct rank and file to acquit patently impeachable conduct. Such craven opportunism turned out to be suicide as the McConnells, Cheneys and Bushes were devoured by Fox/AM’s rabble.
Now the Republican Party is dead, in its place is the monster Fox/AM’s evolution was certain to end up with. The Democrats lay mortally wounded, still unable to summon the political will required to call MAGA what it is. And every minute of every day Fox/AM rejuvenates the fanatical ardor of its totalitarian mob.
The beasts that now fully control American power are racing to implement one sick Trump imagining after another, destroying any constructive governance while creating everything required for a determinitive clampdown on opponents. Meanwhile, Democrats cling to the hope that the electoral system MAGA gratuitously assaults on the hour will deliver them the “Blue Tsunami” required to “put the brakes on Trump’s extreme agenda.” This despite the regime promising again and again to ignore the legitimacy of such a majority if not arrest its membership.
This is the state of affairs we currently endure What can be done? More than 30 years of 24/7 fixation on White bitterness and the lie of Lost Cause nobility created a unifying political narrative that has brought us to the abyss. And while we may have less than one year to figure out how to save ourselves, certainly the rage felt while witnessing this regime commit crimes against humanity and plunder our national treasure at will, not to mention trample our precious liberty, provides the high-test fuel required to power a movement.
But the spark will never ignite without clear-eyed leadership that recognizes our circumstance and is willing to message accordingly. If we can’t unify around a righteous narrative of saving America from the evils Trumpism now pursues without accountability… well, as Lincoln, the leadership standard a now deceased GOP abandoned made clear from within the wreckage of our last conflagration, we will perish.
Fox/AM packaged lies and manipulations to successfully sell ruin as salvation. This is a moment to demand leadership determined to sell the truth… that time is short for saving a democracy the world depends on as much as we do. What could be more important? BC
Bill, I think you give Fox too much credit. The problem goes back more than 100 years, to the end of the Civil War. We should have hanged the leaders of the Confederacy following a military trial. That might have prevented the Jim Crow era laws and the continued suppression of Black people. Frederick Douglass could have done everything that MLK did if the federal government had finished the job properly in the 1860s. White supremacy, as an ideology, lies at the heart of Vance’s nonsense about “heritage Americans.” It’s still with us. The entire history of 20th century racial politics in this country is because racist White people were allowed to continue to believe in their own superiority. Why didn’t that reckoning happen during Reconstruction? Perhaps because the Whites in the Union were almost as racist as the Confederates, and they wanted to return to business as usual as soon as they could. My main point is that the trouble’s cause goes back quite a bit further.
I do hope that you are noticing the fracturing the MAGA coalition. There is big trouble in TrumpWorld, and his panicked address from the White House this week showed him shouting at us to love him and believe his lies about all of his success, especially with the economy. But reality actually exists, and will not be commanded by Trump, no matter how hard he tries or how many he has murdered at sea.
What a lazy intellectual blog post. Blame Fox and Rush for what you perceive as today’s problems? You still don’t get it. Your boy Biden let in 10million plus illegals, many of whom are criminals. You all lied about Covid, then being the true fascists that you are, tried to get everyone jabbed, shut down schools and doled out trillions of $$ unnecessarily. And all of this with the full assistance of the main stream media. Cable, TV and Print were all in on whatever the Biden fascist decided big government should be doing to taking control of. And let’s not forget about Russia collusion and Joe Biden’s mental decline. All covered up or assisted by the left Media. Fox was the only outlet that chronicled Biden’t decline and now the rest look like fools. But being a far lefty means never having to say you are sorry. I’ll bet my best Tennessee stud that you went to a NE liberal arts school (that is probably strapped financially while it graduates dolts) and live in some leafy, Lilly white suburb of Philly, New York, etc. you speak of white bitterness. Look in the mirror. You sound like one bitter white dude.
I understand why you don’t like me letting fat-ass Limbaugh have it. I’m sure he took you through all of your formative years of Fox/AM indoctrination. Failed DJs and former O’Reilly gofers have taught you to believe empathy and basic decency are “libtard” maladies. But we will just go in circles if I spend time pointing out the obvious.
Perhaps we can find some common ground. You mentioned a Tennessee stud; does that mean you love horses? Would it surprise you to find out I am a thoroughbred horse racing master. I know more about the Triple Crown over the last 40 years than most anyone alive. Do you love the Kentucky Derby? Lexington Race Course? All things Louisville? Not as much as me. Whether that’s a real world basis for something more than mutual recrimination I’m not sure; but perhaps it’s a start. Small steps.
Suicidal empathy is the best term I’ve heard lately that describes most on the left. Look at all the clowns on the left who previously were critical of Trump for being soft on Venezuela, but now they have empathy for Maduro? The sheeple protesters out there calling for his release. At least some folks like Fetterman and Debbie W. Shultz had the guts to tell the truth. I wake up every morning thankful that Kamala and Timmy boy are not in power. They would be making the USA weaker by the day. At least Timmy is not running again, as he is now being run over by his billion $$ fraud problems. Do you actually listen to this guy and think he is a credible? He makes Sarah Palin look like a Rhodes Scholar. And if your party is lucky, Kamala will not run again., so as to save you all the embarrassment of having to throw her in the ditch. I’ve followed politics for 40 years and a more vapid politician I cannot remember. You all need someone that is not beholden to the progressives. I’m guessing you are a big Bernie and AOC supporter and probably cheered Mamdani.’s election as mayor of NYC. Could a normal democrat like Josh Shapiro emerge from the cesspool of current so called candidates? Unlikely given the current state of the party. You’ll let all the blue hair, underemployed barista’s pick the candidate.