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Fox News continues to easily deal with its own internal conflict between the numbers that demonstrate what the majority of its viewers believe versus the message Fox broadcasts. After all, Fox News’s own polling shows that 90% of Americans favor the exact type of regulations currently on the table. This poll below is from 2019, and one has to presume that after another cycle of a few dozen or more mass shootings in the intervening period, the beliefs haven’t changed:
NEW @FoxNews poll:
90% of Americans support universal background checks
81% of Americans support red flag laws
67% of American support banning assault rifles & semi automatic weapons pic.twitter.com/5iw1f0EI14— Matt Rogers 🎙️ (@Politidope) August 14, 2019
But they are not holding meetings in the Fox executive suites to grapple with an existential question like “Can we continue to defend guns when most of our viewers want serious new regulations…” No. Fox doesn’t follow. It leads.
Fox News’ raison d’etre is to tell its audience what to think, not reflect its audience’s beliefs. And no one is currently working harder at it than “news” commentator Tucker Carlson, currently leading a dangerous effort to warm Fox viewers to the idea of a more Hungarian-like fascist state, which is only one step away from a Putin-like fascist state.
But last night, Tucker utilized an older mainstay, a savage partisan attack on Biden’s message of unity, saying that… Biden’s message was partisan because Biden wants to act in accord with most Fox viewers and use some common sense to prevent the never-ending massacres that only happen in America:
The President of the United States. Frail, confused, bitterly partisan, desecrating the memory of recently murdered children with tired talking points of the Democratic Party.
Dividing the country in a moment of deep pain, rather than uniting. His voice rising, amplified only as he repeats the talking points he repeated for over 35 years in the Senate.
Partisan politics being the only thing that animates him. Unfit to lead this country.
Remember, Tucker is fiercely shouting out his manipulative propaganda because (not in spite of) he knows that the majority of his audience disagrees. To see the power of Tucker’s manipulative propaganda, one has to juxtapose Carlson’s hideous and partisan remarks versus President Biden’s message:
The idea that an 18-year-old kid can walk into a gun store and buy two assault weapons is just wrong. What’s in God’s name do you need an assault weapon for, except to kill someone?
We can do so much more. We have to do more. Our prayer tonight for those parents lying in bed and trying to figure out will I be able to sleep again? What do I say to my other children? What happens tomorrow?
May God bless the loss of innocent life on this sad day, and may the Lord to be near the brokenhearted and save those crushed in spirit, because they are going to need a lot of help.
One has to be uniquely American to hear someone talk about what an assault rifle is designed to do and immediately think it is a partisan attack. Tucker Carlson is uniquely American, a special type of American, one willing to shed a lot of democracy in exchange for legacy power. Everything is partisan to this type.
Meanwhile, Mark Levin, a Fox weekend presence, took a different tack. Levin used his vast crossover radio audience to quell the gun conversation with a faux “response” that is dear to the Fox audience’s hearts. School prayer:
“You don’t have to be Jewish or Christian but facts are facts. It was founded on a Judeo-Christian belief system which embraces Western civilization and the Renaissance, the Reformation, and all these things.
“It’s not so terrible to have a prayer in school, is it? Even a silent prayer. To think about a higher authority, learn the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are common sense.”
And God shakes his head and rubs his temples with a sigh.
Fox News’s polling division might be the most widely respected department in the company and they’ve earned that reputation, it’s a good poll. Additionally, there is no doubt the poll was conducted as a pure news story. But whereas most commentators or executives at a network would see the results and act in accord with its audience, Fox News has been using such data since it was a baby in Roger Ailes’s arms to inform the executives and politicians on where to focus its propaganda to twist that 90% number. Or, at least distract that audience enough with faux solutions or partisan criticism such that the audience isn’t raging at the GOP to pass restrictions.
Dealing with values shared by only 10% of Americans? No problem for Fox. It is time to go to work. Have no doubt that guys like Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin are on a mission.
Jason Miciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, while also studying scientific philosophy, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.
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