Why Conservatives Watch Fox News

It's Not For News

I’ve written here before about why I think liberals/Democrats should avoid appearing on Fox News (TLDR: Because it’s a Republican PAC/propaganda outlet and appearing there just helps to further that mission), but one counterargument I receive on a regular basis is that these voters have to be reached somehow, so it’s worth the effort.

My main response to this is that, no, these voters do not need to be reached and cannot be reached, and frankly it is a better use of time and resources to go after voters who aren’t complete Fox News cultists. But another part of this dynamic is that I believe many liberals don’t quite understand the role that Fox (and the rest of the media) plays in the mind of the conservative voter.

We tend to think that they operate like the rest of the public that tunes in to CNN, MSNBC, and other television news programming, in that they want to be informed about their world. This seems perfectly rational but if one actually watches Fox News (and I don’t advise full immersion unless you’re being paid to do so, as I once was), that is not the case. The right isn’t watching Fox to learn, but rather they watch Fox to be reassured.

The world is changing, and always has. For most of us, even when it changes in ways that feel uncomfortable, we eventually learn to get used to it – or to even embrace the change. But the average Fox News viewer is watching to have an entire network devoted to telling them, no, actually, you’re right about how everything has gone wrong and in fact most people agree with you – it’s just that their point of view is being suppressed by some unseen force (usually operated by people you hate for their race, religion, or gender identity).

Fox News shoves this steady diet down the throats of their most devout followers for twenty-four hours a day, every single day of the year. The people watching aren’t ironically absorbing this information, just to regurgitate it to friends and family with an ironic eyebrow raise, they believe this is the world as it exists. For them, the Democratic Party is this amazingly competent, galaxy-spanning super conspiracy, with the power to subvert elections, imbue everyday products like beer and M&Ms with a far-left message, and sometimes even control the weather itself.

Fox tells them that Black people are oppressing whites, that Joe Biden has banned Easter to promote transgender people, that the natural transition from coal power to clean energy is just part of a hoax to take away their light bulbs. Imagine the dumbest notion you may personally hold, now imagine that there’s a television network affirming that belief and asserting that you’re smarter and better looking than everyone else who doesn’t believe it. That’s what Fox is to people on the right.

When a cabinet secretary for a Democratic presidency appears in the middle of that mix, they could convey the best zingers, the most truthful message, the most media-trained response that goes viral within minutes, it really doesn’t matter to the core audience. What those appearances do is validate the twisted world view that Fox is serving up, even if their message runs counter to Fox’s narrative.

The Fox viewer “knows” for instance, that President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill was really just a Green New Deal boondoggle that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (as a progressive Latina woman, a prime villain in the daily Fox narrative) dreamed up to turn America towards socialism. A Biden administration official who appears on the network, even if they appear next to a bridge being refurbished with that same infrastructure money, has no hope of dislodging this notion. Their appearance instead tells the viewer, “See? Fox has been telling me the truth all along. And so many people know it’s the truth that the Democrats have to go on Fox to push more lies. We were right all along; I need to go vote for more Republicans.”

Fact checking doesn’t work on this mindset. Neither do snappy phrases or well-crafted messaging. Nothing does. It is a lost cause. And the overwhelming majority of Fox’s audience is knee deep in this mindset, thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars spent by Rupert Murdoch over 25-plus years.

It is an utterly hopeless situation and will forever be fruitless. That sounds bleak, but it is the reality.

The alternative is to simply abandon this segment of the population and instead devote resources to those outside the cult. The good news is that this is the vast majority of the American public. Fox News gets good ratings in the twisted world of cable news but the audience for non-cult, actual news programming and content is much larger.

There is no perfect news outlet, and they are all problematic in their own way, but most of the rest of the news media outside Fox has the benefit of not being pure and uncut right-wing propaganda. A Democratic official who appears on CNN, speaks to the Associated Press and (even better) communicates via progressive media or directly to the public is reaching a receptive audience. Their minds aren’t already polluted with fake narratives from Fox. They don’t wake up every day believing in absurd conspiracies and racist and sexist ideologies that are reinforced on a twenty-four-hour loop.

Speaking to these people won’t turn them into Democratic voters overnight either, but there’s a much fairer shot at that happening. Fox fans aren’t looking for the truth and they don’t want to hear the truth. Stop wasting our collective time giving them something they do not want.

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— Oliver

Follow me, Oliver Willis, on Threads @owillis1977

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