Tucker Carlson is the Symptom

Liberals, befitting their historical origins, have an intense attachment to the ideology of the Enlightenment. They tend to see the people who vote for their opponents of having been misguided or mislead, and that if they knew the true facts they would have to acknowledge their error.

Of course, it's a ridiculous outlook, but it colors liberal opinion on a lot of things, especially the conservative media apparatus. The liberal Enlightenment take says that if we can somehow shut down Fox News or push it in a less extreme direction, its followers will surely moderate. Once the Fox blinders are lifted the truth shall miraculously set them free. 

Yesterday's news that Fox let go of Tucker Carlson was met with some rejoicing in liberal circles, but the wise heads were not moved. In the first place, this fits a larger pattern. Fox has dumped Beck, O'Reilly, and Dobbs, and their message has not moderated a wit. A new demagogue will surely take Carlson's place. Liberals also fail to understand that the audience has the agency here. 

People like Tucker aren't just radicalizing their audience, they are also responding to their audience's radical demands. He says crazy shit on TV because his audience WANTS him to say crazy shit on TV. Just take the revelations about Carlson's private castigations of Trump. He may loathe the man in his heart, but when Trump comes on his show he bends the knee because that is what his audience expects. 

After January 6, Fox was concerned about losing their core audience to Newsmax and One America News, and had to compete with the crazies. Carlson served them well in that purpose, and I am sure they will find someone else to fulfill the same role.

Of course, if liberals are finally able to understand that their opponents' supporters are reactionaries because they WANT to be, and not because they are tricked, that will be hard pill to swallow. They want to pretend that their conservative neighbors and acquaintances are "good people," and if they have horrible politics, well, they just haven't heard the right message. It's much harder to understand that many people you like and respect quietly support a politics meant to destroy you. It's easy to blame radicalization on Tucker Carlson, it's harder to accept that he is much more the product of his viewership, a viewership that includes people in our own lives. 

Warning Signs That Your Elders Are Watching Fox News

Be on the lookout for pushers like this!

[Editor's note: I am giving over my blog today to Dr. WH Bear, an expert on the scourge afflicting our citizens in their golden years. Be vigilant, and don't forget to report seniors with dilated eyeballs.]

As we all know, the so-called "golden years" bring all kinds of emotional adjustments. Elders may start acting out for the first time, they may change so much that you barely recognize them anymore. I know that this can give many young people anxiety, and they never want to believe that the elders in their lives, perhaps even their parents, are using and addicted to Fox News.

Now you may want to dismiss this, and see it as just a phase they'll outgrow. After all, you'll say, "don't all old people need to have some time to experiment?" Or you might say, "I dabbled a little in Fox News, and it didn't hurt me!" You may say that now, but soon enough your sweet aunt will be talking your ear off about "chain migration" and will be ruining family events by going on about president Obama's birth certificate. You might think that your neighbors are harmless when you hear Sean Hannity's voice coming out of their windows, but soon they will be putting "Blue Lives Matter" signs on their lawn. You also might not be aware that the current strains of Fox News are five times more powerful and addictive than they were twenty years ago.

While some elders loudly proclaim their Fox News addiction, others may try to mask it. Here are some warning signs to look out for:

They use strange new lingo, like "Benghazi" and "Solandra"
One notable effect of Fox News addiction is that its victims become passionate about obscure issues embedded in larger contexts they don't understand. For example, most of them do not know that Benghazi is a city in Libya, or can even locate Libya on a map. However, they will use it in conversation as much as possible.

They have a sudden interest in buying gold
Fox News conditions its viewer to lose their sense of reason and to accept whatever claims, no matter how outrageous, are made on that channel. Many unscrupulous types know this, and like to peddle all kinds of rip-offs to Fox News viewers whose minds have been weakened. Those promoting the buying and selling of gold seem to be especially active, so beware.

They lack of awareness of major news events
If people watch news all day, you would expect them to be very well-informed by what they are watching. However, a Fox News addict will be strikingly ignorant of major news events, especially those that present the president in an unflattering light. If they talk at length about "Operation Fast and Furious" or "Solandra" but don't know about the latest Trump scandal, they are likely Fox News addicts.

They are scared of Antifa, the New Black Panther Party, and the "knockout game"
Now it is normal for elders to have heightened fear and anxiety about the changing world in their old age. However, Fox News addicts seem to show peculiar fixations on very minor and insignificant left-wing organization or moral panics with a subtext of violence committed by young people of color. Addiction to Fox News has been known to trigger increased levels of paranoia.

Once you know that your elders are addicted to Fox News, it can be very hard to know what to do. This is not the kind of thing any child imagines that they will have to deal with. Remember, the parental controls on your television are for your use, and your elders will likely not be capable of changing them back. They may protest, but some "tough love" is needed to save their minds and souls from the hell of addiction.

The Nixon Ad That Was Roger Ailes' Ur-Text

I hadn't talked about Roger Ailes' death because his body wasn't in the ground until yesterday, and there's no point in spitting on an empty grave. 

Well now I can have at it. Plenty of people have been writing his obituary, and if you want a really good one, read Matt Taibbi's. No, I am just going to play historian here, and discuss an artifact of Ailes' that embodied his worldview and tactics. In 1968 he had his big chance when Nixon made him the head of his campaign's television operation. Ailes responded by making inflammatory commercials intended to excite the resentments of white middle and working class voters who might otherwise be inclined to vote for Democrats. 

They are not subtle. While the completely insane "Convention" ad might be the most egregious example, it was so far beyond the pale that networks wouldn't run it. "The First Civil Right," on the other hand, used similar techniques in subtler ways. It used a sinister-sounding soundtrack, which accentuated the pictures of violent and even bloody protests shown in rapid succession. Nixon starts to intone about the need to address "the problem of order." We never see his face, only these images, which get increasingly heavy handed. For instance, it ends with what looks like the wreckage from a riot, and a coin machine reading "CHANGE" on it. The message is clear: protest groups calling for change are merely violent anarchists, and the iron hand of law and order must be brought to bear against them. As Nixon says, "Peace is the first civil right," implying order trumps any calls for social justice.

This ad does so much. The images and music are designed to turn off the brain and feel threatened. It treats "law and order" as a positive civil rights issue in the language, while using the music and pictures to jar the viewer into responded to their fear reflex in their lizard brains. It so expertly combines a well-cloaked lie in subliminal messages, the kind of thing Ailes brought to bear on Fox News. I still remember coming back to my apartment on 9/11, and my roommate (who at the time was politically naive) watching the coverage on Fox News. It just showed the towers getting hit and collapsing, over and over and over again, but interspersed with images of Palestinians celebrating the attack. The message was clear: go out and kill those people. In less than two years, we'd invaded Iraq.

I have witnessed the human effects of this strategy first hand. People who were once merely conservative in their viewpoints start spouting insane conspiracy theories once they become regular Fox viewers. Ailes mastered Nixon's message of the "silent majority" ie "real America" versus "them," the anti-America. Not only did that message twice win Nixon the presidency, Ailes then used it to preach to an audience in our current day and age frightened by change and resentful of others. Nixon is long gone and Ailes is in the grave, but their political style is never going away. Almost fifty years on, Ailes' ads for Nixon are still remarkably and sadly relevant. 

Ailes, Murdoch, and The Real House of Cards

I've been reading Gabriel Sherman's Loudest Voice in the Room, a new biography of Fox News impresario Roger Ailes.  It makes for fascinating reading, in the way that I find reading about Richard Nixon to be fascinating.  Ailes has much of his former boss's paranoia, resentment, bigotry, and unscrupulous Realpolitik.  It also got me thinking about the real nature of political power in our world today.

We are much too inclined to ascribe political power to government officials, when they are mostly beholden to much more powerful people who do not hold office but pull the strings.  The revelations about Tony Blair this week are a case in point.  When News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks was in hot water over phone hacking, the former PM quickly came to her rescue, trying to find ways to mitigate damage to her and her boss, Rupert Murdoch.  (Until recently Blair and Murdoch were chums.)  For three decades now it has been impossible for anyone to get elected prime minister without Murdoch's backing, so powerful is his media voice in Britain.  The recent information reveals without a doubt that it is Murdoch, not Blair, who holds the real power in their relationship.  After all, Murdoch owns a massive chunk of the global media, and has used this power in the past to destroy his enemies and promote those he has anointed.

This brings me back to Roger Ailes, who as head of Fox News is one of Murdoch's most prominent employees.  For the first time in America's television history, there is a popular network that acts primarily as a propaganda arm for a political movement.  As Sherman's book reveals, Ailes is a die-hard Nixonian conservative who thinks that liberals are out to destroy America, and this fundamental belief drives the content on Fox's shows.  Fox has played a large role in thwarting president Obama's ambitions by putting fringe conspiracy theories into mainstream political discourse, and essentially creating the Tea Party movement out of whole cloth.  (Let's not forget where Rick Santilli's rant was broadcast, or who he was working for at the time.)  Beyond that, the Republicans are now beholden to Ailes.  No GOP candidate for president can possibly get the nomination without Fox's endorsement.   In the larger scheme of things, Ailes has remade political media into a highly partisan game where reportage is meaningless and ideology triumphant.

In light of the media's power to shape narratives and build up and tear down whomever it pleases, I am rather surprised that anyone watches a show like House of Cards thinking it reflects political reality.  Politicians are not evil geniuses, that would require intelligence.  No, they are venal, petty, and incompetent, ready to kiss the butt of whatever corporate sponsor or media mogul can help keep them in office.  In the grand scheme of things, the politicians themselves are usually weak, and almost always serving others.  For example, the media turned a two-bit bullying jackass of the kind who has often held the governor's seat in New Jersey, and turned him into a celebrity before his craven behavior showed the real Chris Christie.  The GWB shutdown is not a work of masterful political manipulation, but a stupid act reflecting the aforementioned venality, pettiness, and incompetence.  Christie was able to ride out his string a lot further than he should have because he had the backing of Ailes and Murdoch.  Now they have taken a step back, and MSNBC has turned him into a nightly punching bag.

With that knowledge, isn't it about time we transferred some of our paranoia from the government to media conglomerates?