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Are Fox and OANN really what's the matter with Kansas? [1]

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Date: 2023-01-08  

Three-way deals create strange bedfellows

For years friends urged me to admit it: Fox and now OANN are the real reason democracy’s collapsing in the US. They’re the answer to the question Thomas Frank asks in What’s the Matter with Kansas? They distort reality so much that voters angry about a rigged system keep voting for the party that actually rigs the system against them.

But don’t we adapt to bad information? And weren’t all news sources biased, and proud of it, before the era of Huntley, Brinkley, and Cronkite? It can’t be that simple.

Maybe my friends are right and it’s not that simple. Fox is in the business of serving up addictive stories. It just so happens anger makes them addictive. If you crave the high of outrage, even outrage based on facts you wouldn’t bet your life on, then you might just hold your nose and vote for the guys who keep showing up to stir the pot in those stories.

You don’t have to know they’re the same guys who provide legal cover and a surprising amount of the ad revenue that keeps the show on your screen to know they’re somehow important to Fox.

Frank’s working-class voters and the politicians they support may be natural antagonists. But Fox, in this little picture, keeps them together. Here’s an analogy. Sorry that it’s a little raw, but it’s a close analogy. Some prostitutes tolerate abusive pimps because they crave addictive drugs provided by dealers those pimps pay and protect. The dealers keep the pimps and prostitutes together.

What do you think? Is something like this strange three-way system the reason so many Americans vote for their tormentors?

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/8/2146183/-Are-Fox-and-OANN-really-what-s-the-matter-with-Kansas

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