The husband of Donald Trump’s senior counsel, Kellyanne Conway, recently posted a tweet with the psychiatric definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The nine enumerated criteria are a frighteningly perfect match for the obvious character flaws of our mentally infirm president. But can a cable television “news” network also suffer from this mental illness?

Fox New seems to be trying its darndest to prove that it is just as psychologically diseased as Trump, the president they created and adore. A recent poll revealed that Republicans who watch Fox News are mind-melded to Trump with near unanimity on policies and opinions. It’s an ideological embrace that exists only in cults wherein the followers are forced to believe everything – and only the things – that their leader tells them to.

There have been numerous examples of Fox News adopting flagrantly dishonest conspiracy theories such as the PizzaGate nonsense that alleged that Hillary Clinton and her accomplices ran a child sex/slavery ring from the basement of a Washington, D.C. pizzeria. And there was the Seth Rich matter that fantasized that Rich was a “Deep State” operative who leaked Clinton’s hacked emails and was later murdered by her assassination squad.

These are the sort of ludicrous myths that have sprung up around the Internet cesspools of right-wing hysterics like Alex Jones of InfoWars. But they were also embraced by the hosts of Fox News primetime programs like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. And now Fox has taken another leap into the abyss of wingnuttery that proves they can never be considered a legitimate news network.

On Friday morning’s episode of Fox and Friends First, “reporter” Carley Shimkus read a tweet from the anonymous Twitter account of QAnon76. The tweet itself was rather innocuous, defending Trump’s Executive Order that ostensibly protected free speech on America’s college campuses (it doesn’t actually do anything, except to divert the news cycle from all the other bad news Trump generates). However, QAnon76 is part of the larger “QAnon” movement that believes there is a secret society, headed by Trump, that is organizing to destroy the anti-Trump “Deep State” factions burrowed into the U.S. government. The Twitter account has more than 160,000 delusional followers.

So this crackpot QAnon tweet was featured on Fox News this morning. Which means that Fox News is just as loony (and complicit) as they are. pic.twitter.com/B5hLhskEHH

— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) March 22, 2019

It is not plausible that Fox News didn’t know who this was when they filled the screen with a graphic clearly showing the name of the tweeter. So it has to be presumed that they did it deliberately to advance their screwy, cartoon agenda. And they would be aligning with their Dear Leader, Trump, in this endeavor. Just this past weekend, Trump retweeted a video that was originally posted by the Twitter account of “Deep State Exposed,” another confirmed QAnon disciple who also posts manufactured videos of Trump assaulting journalists. And Trump actually met with a QAnon figure in the Oval Office last August.

So for anyone who wasn’t convinced that the metamorphosis of the Trump White House into a full blown conspiracy theory factory wasn’t complete, we can put those doubts to rest. And the same goes for Fox News, who are now unashamedly coordinating their message and mission with the craziest freakazoids on the InterTubes. This could pass for one of the most hilarious bits from The Onion if it weren’t all true – and bone-chillingly scary.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.