What caused it, Fox, Trump or Facebook?

 

I came across a Twitter question recently asking, “which is worse and created the current political atmosphere?”  a. Fox News  b.  Trump  c. Facebook

You must immediately strike Trump as he is the “result” not the cause.

While FB operates on two levels, a connection to family, friends, and old High School cohorts but also the dark side which is a venue for the Republican right to post misleading and in a huge percentage of cases flat out false information regarding all sorts of information.

The acceptance by Mark Zuckerberg to allow it and do nothing about for so long, allowed the right to anchor their position to the point that it’s virtually impossible get the toothpaste back in the tube as they say. While Twitter, Snap, and Instagram as opposite examples took a position that they were going to try and monitor and delete posts that were spreading false information. Evan Spiegel the CEO of Snap went so far as to state, “We simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform”. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg’s view as he put it himself was that he was not the arbiter of free speech. In meetings not only with staff, but also with Trump, going so far as to state that his decision was “supported by the social networks policies”.  While he has since done some tweaking of things, not much has changed, Facebook remains one step short of Parler, Reddit and 4-chan where politics are concerned. Remember, Facebook began in 2003 as a college platform and didn’t open itself to everyone until 2006. It only became a platform for the Republican right in 2016, ten years later, basically to leverage small dollars compared to television or radio to reach a wide audience of people who felt disenfranchised in one way or another and to play on those feelings. As a FB employee put it Facebook speaks to "an incredibly strong, primitive emotion" by touching on such topics as "nation, protection, the other, anger, fear."  If you have ever watched him in a hearing, he is the epitome of the title of this blog, he is no doubt the most obtuse person I have ever witnessed speak. Honestly, I don’t think cares about politics one way or another, what he cares about is money and his alliance will be with whoever allows him to make the most.

So, based on the question, that leaves us with only one choice left, Fox News. A little history. Fox News was created in 1996 by Ruppert Murdoch and Roger Ailes. While it wasn’t created until then it was conceived by Roger Ailes and other aides during the Nixon administration. As Ailes stated in a memo, "People are lazy," he explained in a memo. "With television you just sit — watch — listen. The thinking is done for you." As he stated, he and his supporters needed "our own news" from a network that would lead "a brutal, vicious attack on the opposition." In other words, a network outside of the fairness doctrine where he could spread any lie and falsehood he wanted that helped get “our” people elected to office. Because of the Watergate scandal, nothing happened at that time. When Clinton beat Bush in his run for a second term, the Republicans saw that they needed a way to feed their information to the voters in a way that would rile them up and get them out to vote.  After meeting with Murdoch, or his money you could say, the scam was on. Being a cable network, the fairness doctrine did not apply as Reagan had abolished it in 1987 although as a cable network, it would not have applied anyway, and they could basically do and say anything they wanted. Using “hot button issues”, Abortion, always #1, LGBT Rights, voter fraud, and of course now with BLM, ANTIFA and such. They throw out the lies, or at best, stretched truths, and then the Facebooks and other Social Media Sites as well as the Trumps and other Politicians, they all run with it.

At the end of the day, based on the choices, Fox wins this contest hands down. That said, it runs much deeper and there is much more to the story going back to many things done during Nixon and before from the real purpose of the Chamber of Commerce, The Gingrich Contract on America, and how the Republicans learned the lessons of unifying behind a cohesive message and more. But that’s for another day ….. Be safe, Pay attention and always, question it all.