Conservative Media vs Conservative Media

 

Conservative media is at war with itself, and nowhere more so than on Fox News.

During the day, Fox News acknowledges the Biden victory, and generally covers that particular news story straight.

But come evening...

Fox News transforms into a conspiracy-mongering fount of bullshit where Biden and the Democrats stole the election from the ever-stalwart champion of freedom and Democracy, Donald John Trump.

This on-air Civil War, with its fault-line running right through the A.M. and P.M. divide on the flagship conservative network, has created a first-rate identity crisis within conservative media. On one side is Truth, with a capital "T." Those outlets which value truth as a matter of integrity are acknowledging a Biden victory and opining about other things by now. These are not merely the disgruntled journalists who got fed up with the constant lies of Trumpism and formed their own media outlets with The Bulwark and The Lincoln Project. These include long-standing conservative stalwarts who cannot deny reality because it isn't in their nature (as much). These are outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, and National Review. On the other side, where Ratings rule over Truth, are Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingram, Matt Levin, Lou Dobbs and the usual ensemble cast of self-affirming falsehood generators. Fractured between the two sits Fox News, the New York Post, and the Drudge Report. The fault line has even cracked right through the middle of Tucker Carlson's show. After being forced to issue a retraction on Friday, November 13th regarding the false story of James Blalock voting from the grave, Tucker laid it on the line regarding the phony narrative of (former) Trump lawyer Sydney Powell on November 20th. Because Powell had refused to give any evidence of her voter fraud claims, even Tucker Carlson had to finally call her out on it. Sydney was later fired - not for lying, but for making Trump look bad.

While it fills me with gleeful delight to see so many right-wingers chanting, "Fox News sucks!" it also worries me how this not-so-civil war will play out. It is entirely possible that those asked to tell the truth on Fox News will flee entirely to Newsmax, One America News, or some other truth-optional outlet. Such a development would insulate the Right-Wing Media Cult even further from facts, and set the stage for 2024 to whip up a candidate even worse than Trump, assuming Trump isn't the candidate again.

I'm also left wondering why, at this juncture, America can't wake up to the blindingly obvious reality that Hannity, Limbaugh and their ilk have been CAUGHT LYING THEIR ASSES OFF for over a solid month, and THAT'S just pertaining to the election! I can't help but marvel how these people, laid bare for being so remarkably bad at their jobs, still HAVE jobs! Oh, to be sure, their job isn't to tell the truth, but they SAY that it is! And that means that the conspiracy theory bullshit about a stolen vote has exposed them for being the snake oil salesmen which they are. I can't help but ask, at what point do these idiots get fired? I mean, how much bullshit does it take?

This goes beyond propaganda. It's not merely spin-doctoring. This is flat-out LYING, for WEEKS on end, with the obvious truth hanging out there, as bare as the emperor with his new clothes, and nowhere is there an innocent child who points out, "Hey, the Emperor is naked!"

Newsbusters is a right-wing fact-checking organization, somewhat akin to PolitiFact or Snopes, but clearly conservative. (I find it interesting the conservative fact-checkers would name themselves "Newsubsters." Just as "Ghostbusters" busts ghosts, "Newsbusters" busts - what, news?) If anybody would be able to expose any lies the "main stream" media is telling regarding election fraud, it would be THIS website. Yet the only story that claims any kind of solid evidence for voter fraud comes in the form of a "Special Report" that claims that the biased news media swayed voters to choose Biden over Trump. It claims that because the media buried news stories about Tara Reade and Hunter Biden's laptops (both of which I investigated thoroughly on this blog), that as many as one in six voters was persuaded to vote for Biden rather than Trump. Extending that figure throughout the electorate, that translates to a Trump victory, which was avoided because "the media" didn't report the truth. This was based on a survey in which 1,750 Biden voters were "informed" regarding the Tara Reade and Hunter Biden scandals, they found that 82% of them weren't aware of them, and that 17% of them would have changed their vote.

Get that? Trump didn't lose because of any actual "stolen" votes. The election was "stolen," according to Newsbusters, by a media which didn't report the truth. 

But the actual vote totals are still accurate!

Of course, the Tara Reade story turned out to be bullshit. The Hunter Biden laptop story smelled fishy from the beginning. And, of course, the conservative media refused to tell the truth about Trump and his constant scandals for five years. The voters who were "exposed" to the "facts" about Biden in this conservative "survey" were being lied to. So this only proves that lies can sway an election, and could have swayed this one more than they did.

But we knew that, already.

If this is the best that even a conservative fact-check organization can do, I think we can lay to rest any claims regarding election fraud. Case closed.

Meanwhile, I'm still amazed Hannity and Limbaugh have not yet been fired.

But they never will be. Not until news outlets are fact-based instead of ratings-based.

Eric

*