Friends Don't Let Friends Watch Fox News
Or soon they won't be friends anymore
A year ago I walked into an older relative’s house unannounced. They’d been expecting us that day for lunch, but we’d arrived thirty minutes earlier than we’d planned—so we knocked and walked in.
The small TV on the kitchen counter was playing FoxNews.
When she came down the stairs, almost in the middle of greeting us, my relative walked hurriedly over to the sink, grabbed the remote and turned off the TV—looking like a teenager caught by her parents watching porn.
Suddenly everything made sense. All the dots connected.
During the last couple of years, I noticed this couple changing, but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. They’d become more and more outspoken on things like immigration and women’s reproductive rights and police shootings—surprising me with the intolerance and cruelty of off-the-cuff comments that seemed out of character for them. I questioned whether or not I was just being overly sensitive or projecting my fears unto them.
But after the surprise peek into their viewing habits it was was clear: they were just following the script.
I’m a big defender of the 1st Amendment. I believe that all of us have the right to express ourselves; it’s one of the things that makes America truly great. But, unfortunately, the right to free speech and expression is often ugly and pleasant. In fact, free speech can be, and very often is, offensive and off-putting speech.
You see, here in the Yew-nited States of AmeriKKKa, each one of us has the inalienable right to make a complete ass of ourselves. I run that risk here in this space five days a week. Hell, some eagerly believe that I SUCCEED at making an ass of myself five days a week. Then again, we all know what opinions are like, right?
Opinions, free speech, and the right to make an ass of oneself are part and parcel of American democracy, which can be nothing if not downright ugly at times. Making matters worse is that, since 1996, AmeriKKKa has had a cable “news” network dedicated to the promotion of Right-wing disinformation and propaganda. Fox News Channel (FNC) has promoted hatred, division, and now the Big Lie. In doing so, they’ve become America’s #1 cable news network, even though nothing about FNC says “journalism” or “journalistic integrity.”
When you look at FNC’s roster of talking heads, it becomes immediately apparent that its emphasis isn’t on news and information. No, FNC founder Roger Ailes wanted a vehicle for creating anger and resentment. He knew that such strong emotions would make for a comitted viewer base and a strong base for Right-wing political candidates. So Ailes wanted FNC to be the mouthpiece for the GOP. Over the past 25 years, it’s become synonymous with Right-wing talking points and dezinformatziya.
They abandoned any reference to Jesus’ words about kindness or generosity or welcoming strangers or sharing what you had with those who had not—instead, they slowly but quite clearly adopted a bastardized, angry, America First, gun-loving, immigrant-hating, racist white religion that has become the Republican God.
So whether it’s anti-Muslim legislation or LGBTQ hate crimes or migrant kids taken from their parents or children orphaned by mass shooting or President’s fat-shaming protestors—there is always an excuse, always a justification, always a Fox News alternative reality or Franklin Graham tweet to bunker down in.
The same thing has happened in the white people I’ve served in churches here in the South over the last decade. Their social media feeds are increasingly littered with Brietbart fictional pieces about Hillary eating children and wild conspiracy theories about LGBTQ people converting their children.
The change in them has been as stunning in its velocity and stomach-turning in its depths—and the worst part is that I can’t reach them anymore. Before FoxNews, Franklin Graham, and MAGA propaganda, I could meet them in the common ground of our shared faith in Jesus and in the clarity of objective truth. They no longer have use nor tolerance for such things.
The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ counter-cultural, counterintuitive manifesto of humility and gentleness and love—has been replaced by venomous, incendiary Sean Hannity propaganda.
The barrier-breaking, table-expanding hospitality of Christ has morphed into sneering Trump rally rant rhetoric about violent illegals and foreign predators and “build that wall” refrains.
The sad thing is that people who may once have been good, decent, generous folks have allowed FNC to turn them into bitter, resentful husks of humanity. Angry, racist, homophobic, and hateful, they blame anyone not White, Christian, Conservative, and heterosexual for everything they deem “wrong” with America these days.
The worst part is that these “patriots” dare to continue referring to themselves as “Christians” when they’re as reflective of the teachings of Jesus Christ as I am a Nobel laureate.
The worst part of the Trump Era, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, is the realization of how many truly, profoundly awful people believe themselves to be “REAL” Americans. This despite an almost total lack of compassion towards others not like themselves.
It may be overly simplistic to refer to a person no longer walking this Earth as Evil Incarnate, but if anyone would’ve fit that description, it would’ve been Roger Ailes. For him, it wasn’t about journalism. It wasn’t about news and information. It wasn’t about creating a more informed public and informing the public dialogue. Not at all. It was about creating rage and anger, stoking divisiveness, and pitting demographic groups one against the other. And he intended for FNC to be his vehicle for achieving that.
Which is precisely how things worked out.
FNC has succeeded in poisoning families. The network’s talking heads make millions spread hatred, rage, and fear of the Other. FNC programming is based on spreading lies, disinformation, and Right-wing talking points in a sincere effort to discredit and destroy Democrats.
FNC, as part of that process, has helped to sabotage compassion, justice, tolerance, and understanding. That it’s become AmeriKKKa’s #1 cable news network is almost literally the textbook definition of evil. FNC has raised deceit, racial hatred, and dezinformatziya to an art form.
The saddest aspect of this farce is that FNC believes it can credibly lay claim to being a “news” network. While they no longer use the “fair and balanced” tagline in marketing campaigns, the sheer dishonesty of that claim still clings to the network like dog excrement on the bottom of a shoe.
Millions of Americans use FNC as their primary, and in some cases only, news source. They believe that what they’re fed by FNC talking heads is the truth…which is how we get 72 million mental and moral lightweights voting for Donald Trump.
The division of America into two distinct camps is no accident, in large part because that was Roger Ailes’ goal. He knew that he could monetize anger and disillusionment even as he advanced the cause of Right-wing extremism. That he was successful beyond his wildest dreams is his sad legacy. I can only hope that he has a reserved parking space in Hell.