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This may seem like old news.
Every time you think you understand their motives and think they can’t go lower, they become Russian propagandists. They went from Trump to TV to Putin TV in a flash. To understand who they are, we have to understand how they evolved into what they are today.
We all witnessed Fox “News” take Putin’s side over Biden last week. This seems outrageous, however, if you know the back story, it fits with their version of America and the world they want to live in.
Most dictators will tell you, the more you repeat the lie, no matter how outrageous, eventually people will begin to believe it. Every fascist from Hitler to Idi Amin has used this technique.
Fox “news” took the lying to heart.
Fox was the brainchild of Rupert Murdoch. However, it was really built by the departed Roger Ailes who created a profitable “fear factory.”
Ailes learned much of what he knew from working for Nixon as a political consultant. He used race and scare tactics then and he used the same techniques to establish Fox. Racism in America isn’t new, it’s been a part of us since the beginning of the nation, however, it wasn’t encouraged as it is today. This is due to two men who made it acceptable to be racist again, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch.
To watch even a day of Fox News – the anger, the bombast, the virulent paranoid streak, the unending appeals to white resentment, the reporting that’s held to the same standard of evidence as a late-October attack ad – is to see a refraction of its founder, one of the most skilled and fearsome operatives in the history of the Republican Party. As a political consultant, Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993. “He was the premier guy in the business,” says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. “He was our Michelangelo.”
It’s not known if Ailes had set out to create exactly what Fox became in the minds of many Americans. If his sole purpose was racism, white resentment and corporate greed as the norm, it well exceeded his expectations.
What really aided them was the election of Barack Obama.
In the Obama years, Roger Ailes and the pundits at Fox lost any semblance of appearing “fair and balanced.” They were encouraged by Trump and his lie about Obama’s place of birth. There was absolutely no way they were going to let us have a legitimate Black president, it was completely unheard of in the halls of power. This helped continue its undeniable descent into unabashed racism.
The nightly assault on people of color took a different twist every morning into the evening and continues to become more bizarre by the day. They preach anything from old dog-whistle racism to larger obvious tactics like the continued reporting on xenophobic conspiracy theories as fact.
There is no doubt since the ’80s, America changed. A percentage of the nation gave into unapologetic racism. They relied solely on basic primal instincts, and lazy stereotypes because it was easier than self-reflection. A large portion of Americans believe all the myths of a fruitful existence based on vapidity and wealth.
The conservatives continued “punk’ing” Americans, most to this day are convinced they are all millionaires waiting in the wings if they work hard enough, they might get a large piece of a dwindling economic pie. However, they can't let immigrants and POC steal their rightful jobs. They are owed everything through the sheer act of being born white in America.
In this constant state of fighting, racism, casteism and chaos, we are no better than the Romans before their collapse. We learned nothing from our founders or history in general.
This laid the perfect groundwork for Fox “News.”
We have had alt-right radio in this country for decades. We hadn’t seen it yet on television until Fox.
The 24-hour a day cycle continues to warp minds, create fear and encourages the derailment of the norm.
It has always been there, they didn’t create it, they just ran with it.
The systematic war on the truth and POC in America started before Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes dreamt of concocting this corrupt network.
They merely saw the opportunity as Ailes had seen at the time of Nixon.
He helped form a cult of people easily led by false narratives and empty promises designed to fuel hate. Although, Ailes is gone his spirit and vision lives on at Fox.
A nation divided is easier to control. It’s ripe to contort minds for profit. For it to thrive the anger and resentment needs to be unending.
If Fox viewers wander off the path of white grievance even for a minute, the pundits are there to remind them. They are an outlet that assures them it’s acceptable to feel this indignation.
Unbeknownst to them, the audience played right into the hands of anyone in the GOP with dictatorial leanings, libertarians and every other bourgeoise group trying to encourage infighting amongst the masses.
It may have been perfect for Fox, but it was ideal for Vladimir Putin. He knew us before we knew ourselves.
In an act of hypocritical irony, he is known for this quote.
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as [inherently] exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
Putin contends that encouraging a nationalistic sense of superiority is harmful to the rest of the world. No one nation is exceptional; we're all born equal.
And then there's this — a quote from Putin at a rally in Moscow in February, first unearthed by Dan Amira with New York Magazine:
“We will never allow anyone to interfere in our internal affairs. We will not allow someone to impose their will on us, because we have our own will! It has helped us to conquer! We are a victorious people! It is in our genes, in our genetic code!"
He didn’t believe anything he said about policies and being created equal, that’s how he operates. He’s not particularly a religious man who attaches significance to anything but world domination and power.
It has been rumored he cultivated Trump for years to take power. He saw in him a weak man he knew he could control. He saw in us the flaw in our belief that we are the only exceptional democracy in the world. In that perfect storm of greed, failure of self-reflection, lack of unity and focus, we became his puppets.
Fox and Putin need each other. Fox, through spreading misinformation, and Putin through helping them promote propaganda. They dishonestly use the gift awarded to all of us as Americans to express our First Amendment rights. They have perverted it and sown so much doubt in government and in our fellow citizens, there is absolutely no trust. It’s broken.
This world Fox plays in is essentially an Oligarchy as Putin wants for the world. It fits with the same vision they both have. To create a society of haves and have nots.
That doesn’t work. Eventually, the broken system will devour them as it did the Romanovs.
There are no winners in this country with the decline of American democracy, not even the ones who want to destroy it will emerge from this unscathed.
A failed state is a self-inflicted wound that leads to constant infighting and chaos.
It never ends well.
Russia, who they all appear to serve, will not save them. Neither will North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or any of the other nations to which they pledge their allegiance.
Now they have the keys to their palace. Like many before them, they fail to recognize that wealth won’t buy their way out of what they created, what they thought they could control. People say they will pay no price for what they did, but they will, we all will.
They say Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Putin and Rupert Murdoch will fiddle while America burns. We can and must stop them, history can be on our side if we fight for it.