Democrats Should Stop Appearing On Fox News, Here's Why
Democrats Should Stop Appearing On Fox News, Here's Why
Stop Feeding Fox's War On The Vulnerable
Fox News is a fascistic enterprise, devoted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to promoting and enabling right-wing conservatism designed to undermine the rights of millions of Americans of multiple races and sexual orientations. This is not a new position for Fox, and it has in fact been the entire point of Fox News since it was launched in 1996.
So the question is, as the party who is purportedly a champion of social justice, equality, fairness, and logic — why is the Democratic Party helping Fox News?
Because that is what Democrats are doing when they appear on Fox. They are helping the network’s destructive mission.
The Biden White House regularly sends major officials to appear on Fox News. Most frequently this has included Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, but it also includes other senior administration officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as well as then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
Fox News’ core mission is no different than the Ku Klux Klan, to hold up white male supremacy as the default in America while reducing everyone else to second class status, even advocating for the police services to kill Blacks with impunity.
Democrats would not send officials to appear on the Klan if the Klan had a cable channel or streaming service, but they think nothing of sending officials to appear on Fox.
It isn’t just the Biden administration. In the most recent election cycle, Senate candidate Rep. Tim Ryan had a town hall meeting hosted by Fox before he lost by 7 percentage points to J.D. Vance.
In the 2020 election cycle, multiple candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination had town halls hosted by Fox. This includes Buttigieg, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Like with Ryan, this didn’t help their campaigns and they all eventually lost to President Biden.
But what their appearances did do, and continue to do, is lend an air of credibility to Fox’s ongoing attacks on vulnerable populations, women, common sense, and the Democratic Party.
For instance, when Sen. Sanders did his Fox town hall, he scored a few points with the audience in question. But the network then turned around and spent the next 24 hours using Sanders’ appearance to attack the progressive ideals that Sanders has championed for decades.
Aside from the moral issues involved in aiding and comforting Fox News, it is just dumb politics.
Roger Ailes, the serial abuser of women who founded Fox News, first came up with the idea for Fox while serving as an aide to Richard Nixon. He wrote up the idea in a memo entitled “A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News.” That doesn’t get more explicit in defining the terms of Fox’s existence.
Years later conservative billionaire Rupert Murdoch, who used (and continues to use) his outlets in countries like Australia and the United Kingdom to advance his right-wing agenda and enrich himself, gave Ailes a blank check to make his memo come to life: Fox News.
When Democrats appear on Fox News, they allow the network to have an air of legitimacy. While Fox has discarded its old “fair and balanced” slogan, they still need to come across as a somewhat legitimate outlet to their viewers and the rest of the media. Without that legitimacy they would be treated as what they really are, the media arm of the Republican Party.
Democratic appearances on Fox allow the network to say, “See? Even Democrats acknowledge we’re real.” Those appearances can then be referenced over and over again, with the Democratic Party giving its brand over to propping up an enterprise dedicate for over a quarter of a century to tearing down that same party.
Nice work if you can get it.
The most common retort I have heard about why Democrats should not starve the Fox News beast, is that they need to reach out to Fox viewers, to give them some sort of Democratic viewpoint in their media diet with the hopes of perhaps bringing a view of them into the fold.
This is a nice notion but it is based in a delusion. The overwhelming majority of Fox viewers are in lockstep with the network’s mission of destroying the Democratic Party and the American left. Appealing to them is as ineffective as trying to get the most diehard member of Al Qaeda to convert to Christianity or Judaism. They don’t want to hear Democratic Party nonsense and appearing on Fox just helps to fuel their never-ending primal screams of bigotry.
And yes, the Democrats should not just speak to the left and the center. To continue being viable Democrats do not to spend some time appealing to the center-right (though I would argue they should pay much more attention to the left and it is cheaper), but they can do this without feeding Fox News. Despite their protestations, every single day millions of conservative-aligned voters get their news from the mainstream media. This includes sources like the Associated Press, CNN, Reuters, the Washington Post and yes, even the New York Times.
While the most dedicated conservatives only live within the walled media garden of Fox News, this does not apply to millions of voters with a more diversified media diet. It isn’t necessary to provide fuel for Tucker Carlson’s terroristic smears of transgender people just to reach a center-right voter. Democrats can have their cake and eat it too.
Another argument says that when Democrats appear on Fox, it allows for the network’s stream of propaganda to be interrupted. Buttigieg’s appearances are often cited to make this point. Sure, from time to time he delivers a good zinger in a Fox News appearance, just like how then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki would generate a viral video with a dunk on Fox’s White House correspondent Peter Doocy. But to what end? These dunks and zingers are mere droplets in an ocean. A fleeting glitch in the matrix that ultimately serves no purpose other than making liberals feel good for a second while enabling more and more Fox attacks. They are ultimately worthless.
Fox News should be put in isolation. It is not journalism. It is hate. It is designed to elect Republicans to office, by amplifying made-up stories like migrant caravans, myths about the vaccine, and in the most recent election cycle, amplifying a narrative about a nationwide crime wave that it dropped after the Republican election day disaster.
The network won’t die without Democrats. Murdoch’s corporate largess, cable TV fees and the support of sponsors like My Pillow’s Mike Lindell ensure that Fox will remain in circulation for the foreseeable future, unfortunately.
But the network should be forced to do so without the help of the Democratic Party. Let Fox News encourage police attacks on Black people without the help of the Democratic Party. Let Fox News promote attacks on transgender children without the help of the Democratic Party. Let Fox News excuse the availability of guns to commit murder and mass shootings without the help of the Democratic Party. Let Fox News argue for loss of women’s equality and access to abortion without the help of the Democratic Party.
Let Fox News stink in its own filth of its own accord, let them wallow in hate, lies, misinformation and Republican Party propaganda on their own. Democrats should stop appearing on Fox News, for the good of the country.
I recently launched subscriptions for this newsletter and I’d appreciate if you would join. Nothing is going to go behind a paywall and this will always be free. Thanks!
— Oliver
Follow me, Oliver Willis, on Twitter @owillis/Mastodon: @owillis@mastodon.online
Exclusive Kal-El Photo
Why yes, now that you mention it, he is the cutest little dog in the entire world. So true!
Democrats can’t seem to kick this habit…I don’t know what you’d call it—-not exactly bipartisanship since that is impossible now, and not both-sides but believing that things that are not based on rational argument really are and you can persuade people who aren’t interested in reasons by using reasons.
Many just do not understand fascism and it sometimes seems beyond their ken though I am encouraged that Biden and a few others are catching on—though they seems to think it all starts and ends with Trump.
I’m curious about your view of a mirrored question: should cable outlets such as MSNBC and CNN allow high-ranking autocracy-loving Repubs to appear on their networks? Not making a “both sides” argument here, because MSNBC, for example, takes a pro-democracy stance. (I’m not so sure about CNN anymore.) I’ve seen Ari Melber interview a Trump ass-kisser or two, and it seems like a pointless exercise.