Polls

POLL: Trump’s GOP Favors Giving Fascist Authority to the President to Shut Down Critical Media

Posted by on August 7, 2018 at 12:23 pm. NO Comments :

The disintegration of American democracy continues as the Republican Party under Donald Trump embraces the politics of totalitarian dictatorships. It’s consistent with their worshipful supplication to everything that Trump does and says. Any dissent is regarded as betrayal and party members are held to strict oaths of unbending loyalty.

Donald Trump Republican, GOP

In addition to rallying behind Trump’s Stalinist rant that the media is “the enemy of the American people,” a new Ipsos poll shows that a plurality of Republicans (43%) believe that he should be able to shut down any media company that he deems is behaving badly. Can you guess which ones those would be? According to Ipsos:

“Some of the limits of public support for freedom of the press are made stark with a quarter of Americans (26%) saying they agree ‘the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior,’ including a plurality of Republicans (43%). Likewise, most Americans (72%) think ‘it should be easier to sue reporters who knowingly publish false information.”

For the record, anyone can already sue a reporter or news outlet that knowingly publishes false information. The problem that Trump and his cult following have is when reporters publish truthful and fact-checked information that exposes their lies and the damage they are doing to the country. Their attacks on the press are not intended to produce either fairness or balance. They are intended to intimidate journalists and to poison the minds of the Deplorables so that they trust no other source than Dear Leader.

This strategy is also seen in Trump’s determined efforts to threaten reporters with banishment from White House events and the revocation of their licenses. And his relentless castigation of the media as “sleazy,” “disgraceful,” “horrendous”, “liars,” is bound to lead to violence. Meanwhile, his communications office has made the daily press briefings irrelevant. For one thing, they are hardly daily. There were five briefings in June and only three in July. And when they are held the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, spends most the time evading questions, haranguing reporters, and exalting Trump.

The good news is that, despite the worst efforts of Trump and the GOP to denigrate the press, the American people consistently say that they trust the media more than they trust the President. Perhaps the fact that Trump is the most documented pathological liar that’s ever occupied the White House has something to do with that opinion.

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

THE TRUMP EFFECT: His Attempts to Destroy the Media Have Actually Made it Stronger

Posted by on July 31, 2018 at 11:09 am. NO Comments :

One way to look at the presidency of Donald Trump is as a contrarian indicator. Whatever he tries to achieve ends up producing the opposite results. For instance, when threatened Kim Jong Un with “fire and fury,” he later embraced him as an “honorable” man who would abandon his nuclear ambitions. And now we learn that Kim is actually escalating his intercontinental ballistic missile program.

Donald Trump Effect

Trump is a sort of reverse King Midas: everything he touches turns to – let’s say garbage. His tax scam has benefited the wealthy while adding a trillion dollars to the deficit. His EPA has ignored environmental protection in favor of loosening regulations for polluters. His border wall is nonexistent and Mexico definitely isn’t paying for it. What he calls “winning” is just papered over failure, much like his casinos and university.

Now the Economist has published the results of a study that tracked the fortunes of the mainstream media for the eighteen months he has occupied the White House. During the entirety of that time, Trump has castigated the supposedly free press as “horrible people,” “liars,” “sleazy,” and he has adopted Stalin’s rhetoric by calling the media “the enemy of the American people.” Lately he has also adopted the behavior of tyrants by trying to ban journalists who dare to challenge his omnipotent (more accurately, impotent) authority.

It turns out that the media enterprises that Trump has attacked the most have gained popularity and success. The Economist’s poll asked a representative sample of Americans to rate large American news organisations on a scale from “very trustworthy” to “very untrustworthy.” The outcome of this survey is a useful lesson on the ineffectual tactic of childish browbeating that is Trump’s sole method of interacting with society. According to the Economist:

“From October 15th 2016, shortly before he was elected, to this month, confidence in Mr Trump’s two most frequently targeted newspapers, the New York Times and Washington Post, has actually grown. During the same period, trust in two media outlets that offer him reliably fawning coverage, Fox News and Breitbart, has withered.”

So the outlets Trump hates most are flourishing, and the ones that suck up to him are suffering. The study also found that this growth was not limited to liberals stepping up their support for news that affirms their biases. Even Trump supporters were leaning more favorably toward the objects of his hostility. And the allegedly “failing” New York Times saw monthly online readership double to 130 million since Trump’s inauguration.

Combine this with other polling that shows that the American people trust the media far more than they trust Trump and you have a recipe for continuing delusions from a president who is already acutely disturbed. And this new study proves that Trump’s rabid attacks on on the Constitution are only strengthening the subjects of the First Amendments protections. Nice work, Dotard.

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

Fox News Reports Poll Showing Democrats are ‘Out of Step’, But Guess What They Left Out

Posted by on July 29, 2018 at 11:03 am. 3 Comments :

The deliberate deceit and hostility of Fox News is escalating as Donald Trump gets closer to being tossed into the dustbin of history. With special counsel Robert Mueller progressing toward the inevitable report of Trump’s criminality, and former insiders like Michael Cohen preparing to truth bomb the President, the weasels at Fox News are just getting more desperate in the most obvious and embarrassing ways.

Fox News Lies

On Saturday’s episode of the Greg Gutfeld show, the eponymous host (who thinks he’s a comedian) introduced the program with the “shocking” results of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. [Note: Fox and Friends misused the same poll] Among other things it revealed that a majority of respondents (56% to 33%) said that Democrats are “out of step with most Americans’ thinking” That’s a pretty lousy number that indicates some trouble for the party. Although it doesn’t reflect the manner in which Democrats are disconnecting. While Fox News and the GOP want you to think it’s a condemnation of the Party’s embrace of lefties like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it could be just as easily that they think the Party isn’t embracing them tightly enough.

But what really makes this Fox News segment ludicrous is that they left out another significant result from the poll. Republicans were also deemed to be out of touch, and by a slightly larger margin (57% to 33%). For some reason that statistic was never mentioned on Fox News. Go figure.

In addition to this dissemination of blatantly distorted news, Fox also failed to mention everything else in the poll that revealed how badly the Trump administration is at odds with the American people. For instance:

  • They believe Trump’s tariffs will hurt, not help the economy (46-25)
  • Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice should continue (46-38)
  • Trump is too friendly with Vladimir Putin (46-39)
  • Russia is an adversary, not an ally (72-16)
  • Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election (65-26)
  • The interference by the Russians affected the outcome of the election (41-18)

Since Fox News went to the trouble of citing this poll, they ought to have reported the results more completely. And particularly with regard to the question of how badly Americans think the Republican Party is out of touch. But then again, Fox has never been known to responsibly cover the news, so why should they start now?

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

With the midterm elections coming up you can count on Fox to lie profusely about the issues and to smother Trump with accolades. Trump has promised to campaign on behalf of GOP candidates “six to seven days a week when we’re sixty days out.” So he’s effectively abdicating his presidency. And Fox News will devotedly air every single one of Trump’s boring, mindlessly repetitive rally speeches in their entirety. Which is certain to increase the incidence of cognitive infirmity among his glassy-eyed Deplorables.

GOP Deplorables Still Don’t Believe Russia Hacked the Election Even After Trump Said They Did

Posted by on July 18, 2018 at 1:17 pm. 1 Comments :

On Wednesday morning Donald Trump was asked if Russia is still targeting U.S. elections with the intent of influencing future outcomes. He responded with a categorical “No.” That, of course, contradicts his Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, who said Monday that Russia is still engaging in “ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy.” That’s Trump dismissing the intelligence community that he said on Tuesday has his “full faith and support.”

Donald Trump Voter Symptom

With support like that the intelligence community might as well just lay down in front of the bus and grit their teeth. There appears to be no principle that Trump is not willing to subvert, even within hours of having asserted it. That must make it very hard for his supporters to know what the heck they are supposed to believe. Ordinarily, cult leaders like Trump stake out definitive positions that their disciples can latch onto and recite in unison at rallies. “Lock her up” and “build the wall” are effective examples of that. But there is no such chantable slogan about the Russia affair.

In the meantime, Trump’s base (and I do mean base) is proving to be even more delusional than Trump himself. In a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, Republicans are siding with Vladimir Putin against American intelligence assessments with regard to whether Russia interfered with the 2016 election:

“A majority of registered voters, 59 percent, agree with the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia attempted to influence the U.S. election, the Reuters/Ipsos poll found. But only 32 percent of Republicans think that is true compared to 84 percent of Democrats.”

So only a third of the Republicans in this survey agree with the U.S. government agencies that study this matter in their role as defenders of the nation. But what’s even more surprising is that only a third of Republicans agree with Donald Trump, who now says that he agrees with the intelligence community.

To be fair, the Republican electorate can’t possibly know what they are supposed to believe. Trump changes his position almost hourly. So they aren’t getting the sort of cues that cult members are accustomed to. And lord knows that aren’t capable of thinking for themselves. That leaves them scattering like frantic ants whose Capitol Hill has been washed away.

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

And that’s why Trump’s followers are infinitely more dangerous than Trump. He is one person who can (hopefully) be brought to justice and effectively neutralized. But his minions are less manageable and more unpredictable. They include NRA-theists and militias who are convinced of the existence of a “deep state” cabal determined to take their guns and throw them into gay-run, liberal, re-education camps. And they will align with any entity that strokes their egos and affirms their paranoid delusions. Especially if it features the sort of totalitarian control that makes them feel so cozy and pampered and safe. Which explains their affinity for Putin and Kim Jong Un – and Donald Trump.

Trump Calls the Media ‘Our Country’s Biggest Enemy’ – But America Trusts the Media More

Posted by on June 13, 2018 at 4:32 pm. 4 Comments :

This is getting monotonous. Once again Donald Trump has lashed out at the free press and exhibited his utter contempt for the Constitution. In a Wednesday afternoon tweet the President made his position clear – again – about what he regards as the “biggest enemy” of the country. And it isn’t murderous dictators like Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin.

Donald Trump

The tweet that Trump posted was a response to his critics who correctly pointed out that his meeting with Kim produced nothing for the United States, but gave Kim everything he hoped for. Kim was able to stand next to the leader of the free world as an equal with the international diplomatic legitimacy that he craved. He got Trump to call off military exercises with South Korea, leaving us, as well as our allies, unprepared for whatever potential risks exist in the region. Trump even promised to remove the sanctions on North Korea before any action to denuclearize on Kim’s part.

The United States, however, got nothing but empty promises from a known liar – or liars (Kim and Trump). And Trump slammed unnamed (nonexistent) critics who he said “would have ‘begged’ for this deal-looked like war would break out.” But the only threat of war came from Trump himself. And now that he’s cozying up to Kim he wants credit for ending the crisis he manufactured. The tweet said:

The most troubling part of that deranged outburst is that Trump is repeating a dangerously anti-American rant that he has embraced for months. By calling CNN and NBC the biggest of America’s enemies he’s proving that he doesn’t understand foreign affairs or the risk scenarios that this country faces. He is completely wrapped up in his ego-bubble that informs him that only criticism of him is an actual threat. That could end up being a tragic mistake for the welfare of the nation.

Setting aside how delusional and perilous Trump’s paranoid fantasies are, they are also contradicted by hard data. A new poll by Public Policy Polling shows that the media that Trump detests so much is held in much higher esteem by the American people. The survey asked voters who they trust more, Trump or a variety of news enterprises. Here is a summary of who is more trusted:

  • CNN: 53% / Trump: 38%
  • NBC: 53% / Trump: 39%
  • ABC: 53% / Trump: 39%
  • CBS: 53% / Trump: 39%
  • New York Times: 52% / Trump: 38%
  • Washington Post: 51% / Trump: 38%
  • Fox News: 32% / Trump: 26%
  • Media: 48% / Sarah Huckabee Sanders: 35%

The trust of the media is pretty constant no matter the source. It’s a clear majority in the low fifties. The lack of trust for Trump is also consistently dismal in the upper thirties. Even poor Sarah Sanders is regarded as less credible than the media she lies to on a daily basis. The one anomaly in the group is Fox News. That’s likely because the survey respondents couldn’t decide who they trust most or least because they couldn’t tell the two apart. But even Fox News media correspondent Howard Kurtz says Trump’s media bashing has gone too far.

There was plenty of other bad news for Trump in this survey. For instance, Democratic voters are more excited about the upcoming election than Republicans. And voters overall prefer Democrats to the GOP. Trump’s approval still can’t crack forty percent. He’s considered dishonest, a liar, mentally unbalanced, in cahoots with Russia, and that he hasn’t made America great again.

The people think Trump should resign if proof emerges that he was working with Russia. They don’t want him to fire special counsel Robert Mueller or pardon himself. A plurality believe he should be impeached. And by wide margins people want a DACA bill passed, but do not want a wall along the Mexican border. His views on gun reforms are rejected by most Americans. And every Democrat posed as a 2020 challenger defeats him.

Other than that it’s clear sailing for Trump. And these results come after two years of endless bashing of Democrats and progressive policies by the President on Twitter and his State TV colleagues on Fox News. No wonder Trump thinks the biggest enemy is the media. Because it’s his enemy. Not because it’s biased against him. But because anything that might reveal more of his deceit and corruption is going to anger him. And that’s the only thing he cares about. And it’s also something that he has no control over, which only exacerbates his rage.

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

Trump’s GOP: A Majority Embrace His Stalinist Rant that ‘the Media is the Enemy of the People’

Posted by on April 28, 2018 at 11:18 am. 2 Comments :

There are innumerable ways in which Donald Trump has damaged the United States during the last fifteen tumultuous months. Even setting aside his unsavory connections to Russia and his role in helping them subvert our democracy, Trump’s negative impact is historically catastrophic. It’s ironic that he repeatedly brags that he has done more in his first year than any other president. Because he’s right, although not in the way his narcissistic dementia leads him to believe.

Donald Trump GOP

Trump has brazenly ignored long-standing principles for financial conflicts of interest. He has terminated regulations that protect citizens from environmental harm, consumer abuse, healthcare, and workplace safety. He has promoted discrimination against vulnerable communities encompassing race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. He has recklessly dangled the prospect of war with nuclear powers like Iran and North Korea. He has violated laws associated with ethical governing and has been frequently repudiated by the federal courts. And he has generally lowered the standards for civil discourse with his infantile name-calling, insulting, bullying, slandering, and outright lying.

But nowhere in this morass of corruption and immorality has Trump been more destructive than with his hostility to the free press and the First Amendment. He has made attacking the media a core component of his march to authoritarian rule. His cries of “fake news” whenever any journalist dares to report facts that he doesn’t like ring out across the landscape of the deplorable disciples that he cultivates. And it’s having an overtly dangerous effect on the national political environment.

A new poll by Quinnipiac asked voters this question: “Which comes closer to your point of view: the news media is the enemy of the people, or the news media is an important part of democracy?” The response by all respondents shows that a majority consider the media to be “an important part of democracy” (66 -22 percent). And while that 44 point difference is significant, it’s still frighteningly low. But it was brought down by one particular group of respondents. A majority of Republicans (51%) said that the media is “the enemy of the people.” No other demographic sector came anywhere close to that.

The phrasing of the question was clearly designed to elicit support or opposition to Trump’s infamous disparagement of the press. He has frequently called the media “the enemy of the people” in his rallies and public statements. It’s a concept he borrowed from dictators like Joseph Stalin. But the fact that it has caught on with so many Republican voters is more than a little disturbing. It indicates that Trump is successfully infecting a segment of the population with an ideology that is flagrantly anti-American. And worse – it’s pro-totalitarian dictatorship.

Fortunately, other results from the survey are more comforting:

  • Voters trust the media more than Trump to tell the truth about important issues: 53 – 37 percent.
  • The vast majority of voters say that Trump should not fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller: 74 – 13 percent (including 59 – 25 percent among Republicans).
  • More people believe James Comey than Trump: 54 – 35 percent.
  • More voters believe that the Russian government has compromising information about President Trump: 53 – 35 percent.
  • American voters disapprove of the job Scott Pruitt is doing as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency: 52 – 25 percent.

Still, that doesn’t absolve the Republican Party from embracing a despicable philosophy that denigrates the press and disrespects the Constitution. If they have problems with the media they should seek to reform and/or improve it, while still cherishing its ideals. Their position that it’s an opponent of democracy casts it as something that needs to be defeated and done away with. And that makes them the real foes of democracy.

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

Mueller Will Find that Trump Committed Criminal or Impeachable Offenses Says – a Fox News Poll?

Posted by on April 26, 2018 at 4:26 pm. NO Comments :

Donald Trump has turned his seething hostility for the media into a familiar chant that anything critical of him is “fake news.” Simultaneously, he has relentlessly hyped his pals at State-Run TV (aka Fox News). One of the best examples of that was seen Thursday morning when Trump called in to Fox and Friends for a half hour of tongue bathing.

Fox News Trump

However, it will be hard for Trump to dismiss the results of a new poll that puts him in a decidedly negative light. Otherwise known in the rest of the media as a realistic assessment of his floundering presidency. The new poll is by Fox News, and it has very little for which Trump can supply his usual narcissistic boasting.

To begin with, Trump’s approval rating is a pitiful forty-four percent. That’s down a point from last month’s poll. Likewise, his disapproval rose a point to fifty-three percent. He’s underwater on specific issues like Immigration, Syria, and Russia. And he’s treading water on the economy and North Korea. More specifically on the economy, survey results say that fifty-seven percent of voters say that Trump’s economic policies only help “people with more money.”

With regard to Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia, several question were asked that don’t bode well for the President. For instance, A majority of fifty-one percent say that Trump has not been tough enough on Russia. A plurality of forty-nine percent say that it’s extremely or very important that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia should continue. Only twenty-nine percent say that it should not. Fifty-six percent say that it is at least somewhat likely that Mueller’s investigation will find that Donald Trump committed criminal or impeachable offenses. More worrisome is that seventy-one percent think Trump will fire Mueller before the investigation is complete. It’s clear the American people are concerned that Trump might interfere with an investigation that they believe will show Trump to be a criminal.

Finally, many Trump supporters are fond of defending his belligerence, his disrespect for the institutions of government and the media, his infantile insults and divisiveness, his brazen and repeated lying, as just the consequences of an outsider whose mission is to turn Washington upside down and “drain the swamp.” However, on the question as to whether the disruption Trump brought to Washington is a good or bad thing, a plurality of forty-six percent said that it’s bad.

Trump’s practice under these circumstances is to ignore any news that falls short of fawning adoration. So even though this poll was produced by the only news network he respects, he will certainly pretend that it doesn’t exist. Just as he has ignored the latest results of his favorite pollster, Rasmussen. Ten days ago Trump tweeted proudly that he had cracked fifty-one percent. Since then he has dropped to forty-seven percent. And that’s still higher than the consensus numbers complied by RealClear Politics, which show an average approval of 41.8 percent.

Expect these numbers to decline further as Trump continues to embarrass himself with more public meltdowns. And expect him to ignore those declines, except to get even more frantic and unhinged as he realizes the walls are closing in around him.

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

It’s Tax Day and Donald Trump is Tweeting Up a Storm to Celebrate, But…

Posted by on April 17, 2018 at 11:12 am. NO Comments :

Never one to care anything about facts or truthful dialogue, Donald Trump is attacking the arrival of Tax Day with a celebratory zeal that is entirely out of whack with reality. So what else is new?

Donald Trump

Trump’s day always begins with his most pressing presidential duty: post nonsense and/or rage on Twitter. This Tuesday morning is no different. So here is what the Tweeter-in-Chief is obsessing over while waiting for his tee time in Palm Beach:

Indeed, everybody is talking. Unfortunately for Trump, they are mostly saying that his tax scam bill isn’t helping to do anything but blow up the federal deficit. A poll by NBC and the Wall Street Journal show that a pitiful twenty-seven percent think Trump’s tax bill is a good idea. Another poll by Gallup puts those who disapprove in the majority at fifty-two percent. And an analysis by Bloomberg shows that Republicans are going to find it difficult to run on the tax issue in the 2018 midterms.

So happy tax day everybody. We may have a bill that is only benefiting the wealthy, but it is also likely to throw the members of Congress who forced it on us out on their asses.

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

Untruthful Slime Ball: New Poll Shows Americans Say Trump is Less Believable Than Comey

Posted by on April 13, 2018 at 11:57 am. 5 Comments :

The new book by former FBI Director James Comey is about to be released and details are being discussed in the press. The book, “A Higher Loyalty,” is sure to create a stir as excerpts reveal Donald Trump to be, as Comey says, “unethical, and untethered to truth.” While anyone paying attention the last of couple years already knows this, saying so publicly about a sitting president is unprecedented, especially coming from such a high government official.

Donald Trump, James Comey

It was a foregone conclusion that Trump would be unable to refrain from reacting to Comey’s book. Furthermore, it was easy to predict that his reaction would be hostile, childish, and devoid of any factual basis. And Trump did not disappoint. On Friday morning he commenced his presidential duties by logging in to Twitter and posting some typically asinine attacks on Comey:

Being called a liar by Trump is like being called ignorant by – well, that’d be Trump too. The pissed off president is accusing Comey of serious crimes, which is not only false, but improper for an alleged commander-in-chief. He is prejudicing any potential jury pool with his blatantly biased opinion and personal animus.

However, what really sticks out like a sore, infected, and gangrenous thumb is Trump’s colorful assertion that Comey is an “untruthful slime ball.” He is clearly projecting a character flaw that he sees in himself. And he isn’t the only one who sees that. A new poll by ABC News/Washington Post asked “Who are you more likely to believe, Comey or Trump?” The results may cause Trump’s Diet Pepsi infused blood to go flat. According to the poll:

“Americans by a 16-point margin, 48-32 percent, find Comey more believable than Trump.”

These numbers are similar to previous polls that asked the same question. Last June an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that by a 2-to-1 margin (45% to 22%), Americans said they are more likely to believe Comey than Trump. And just in case Trump dismisses these polls as being “fake” news, other polls show that voters also trust the media far more than they trust Trump.

Those saying that they believe Trump more represent his hard-core base that worship him as their cult leader. They don’t care if he’s lying, if he cheats on his spouse(s), if he breaks the law, or if he shoots someone on Fifth Avenue. Their messiah can do no wrong. Fortunately, the rest of America doesn’t agree. The ABC/WaPo poll asked about other matters related to investigations of Trump’s unsavory activities. By “yuge” majorities the public supports those inquiries and the work that special counsel Robert Mueller is doing:

“The public by a broad 69-25 percent supports Mueller’s initial thrust, to investigate possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Russian government attempts to influence the 2016 election. Support extends to half of conservatives and more than four in 10 Republicans.

“Backing for Mueller’s work goes further: Americans by 2-1, 64-32 percent, also support his investigating Trump’s business activities. And by 58-35 percent, a 23-point margin, they support investigators’ latest apparent direction, looking at allegations that Trump’s associates paid hush money to women who say they had affairs with him.”

Trump ought to be more careful when calling other people slime balls. The mud he is throwing invariably splashes back on him. And he ends up dirtier than those he seeks to tarnish. It’s a familiar pattern that we can expect to see repeated as Trump’s problems exacerbate. He will predictably lash out with greater ferocity the closer Mueller gets to releasing his findings. Let’s hope that he can be constrained before he does anything even more stupid and destructive to our nation than what he’s done so far.

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

In Defense of Fox News (?): Trust in Media Graphic Was Early, Not Censored

Posted by on April 9, 2018 at 11:44 am. NO Comments :

There is no question that Fox News is the most brazenly biased right-wing distorter of reality that has even been broadcast. It’s executives, hosts, and contributors are almost entirely devoted to disseminating conservative propaganda, much of it dictated by Donald Trump’s White House. Even worse, Trump’s positions are often dictated by Fox News.

Fox News Lies

That said, there has been a story circulating around the InterTubes that is just plain wrong. It asserts that Howard Kurtz, host of Fox’s MediaBuzz, was surprised by a graphic that showed Fox News as being the least trusted cable news network, and that he called for it to taken down in order to suppress that anti-Fox information. There is a lot wrong with that assertion.

First of all, there was a graphic that appeared during Kurtz’s program that was out of place. Kurtz did ask that it be taken down. But that’s only because it was out of sequence. When that part of the discussion came up a couple of minutes later, he showed that graphic again at the proper time. There was no attempt to censor it. (See video below).

Also, the argument that this graphic was taken down because it showed Fox News as trusted less than MSNBC and CNN is not accurate. The Monmouth University survey that was the basis for the graphic’s data did not compare the networks’ trustworthiness. It compared whether respondents trusted Trump or the media more. That’s actually worse from Trump’s perspective. Although that misreading is largely the fault of Fox News. The graphic needs to be read left to right, not top down. By highlighting the column instead of the rows Fox invited the misinterpretations. As News Corpse previously wrote about this poll:

“Like other polls before it, Monmouth found that Americans trust the media more than they do Donald Trump. That’s gotta sting the President who has been striving furiously to turn the nation against the press. The detail shows that 48 percent of Americans trust CNN more than Trump (35% trust Trump more). Forty-five percent trust MSNBC more than Trump (32% for Trump). Even 30 percent trust Fox News more than Trump (20% for Trump). Although the Fox numbers also show that a plurality of 37 percent trust both equally. This affirms that Trump’s base is still immovably stuck in the low thirties.”

The original story asserting that Fox News was embarrassed by an errant graphic and deep-sixed it appears to have been published by the Associated Press. They have since corrected their story. But it’s important that the record be correct in the progressive media so as to preserve our moral claim to being reality-based. There are more than enough legitimate examples of Fox News lying. And the findings in the poll are bad enough for Trump that they don’t need to be muddied up with misunderstandings.

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