A friend of mine who lives on the East Coast and therefore wakes up earlier than me emails to say that I really need to check out Politico's excerpt of John Boehner's new memoir. You bet! Let's take a look:
In the 2010 midterm election, voters from all over the place gave President Obama what he himself called “a shellacking.” And oh boy, was it ever. You could be a total moron and get elected just by having an R next to your name—and that year, by the way, we did pick up a fair number in that category.
Retaking control of the House of Representatives put me in line to be the next Speaker of the House over the largest freshman Republican class in history: 87 newly elected members of the GOP. Since I was presiding over a large group of people who’d never sat in Congress, I felt I owed them a little tutorial on governing. I had to explain how to actually get things done. A lot of that went straight through the ears of most of them, especially the ones who didn’t have brains that got in the way.
And that's just the first two paragraphs. It's safe to say that Boehner has decided to really get a few things off his chest. Roger Ailes, for example:
At some point after the 2008 election, something changed with my friend Roger Ailes....[He went] on and on about the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, which he thought was part of a grand conspiracy that led back to Hillary Clinton. Then he outlined elaborate plots by which George Soros and the Clintons and Obama (and whoever else came to mind) were trying to destroy him.
“They’re monitoring me,” he assured me about the Obama White House. He told me he had a “safe room” built so he couldn’t be spied on. His mansion was being protected by combat-ready security personnel, he said. There was a lot of conspiratorial talk. It was like he’d been reading whacked-out spy novels all weekend.
And Ted Cruz:
Under the new rules of Crazytown, I may have been Speaker, but I didn’t hold all the power. By 2013 the chaos caucus in the House had built up their own power base thanks to fawning right-wing media and outrage-driven fundraising cash. And now they had a new head lunatic leading the way, who wasn’t even a House member. There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz. He enlisted the crazy caucus of the GOP in what was a truly dumbass idea. Not that anybody asked me.
It's obvious that Boehner was an old-school pol caught in an insane world he had no hope of understanding. His bottom line is pretty simple: Following the election of Barack Obama, the Republican Party was no longer driven by ordinary political considerations. It was driven by Fox News—now under the control of a paranoid lunatic—and the rest of the conservative media outrage caucus.
I will continue to repeat this forever: Facebook may have some impact on the spread of political misinformation, but it's a gnat compared to Fox News. It is Fox News that has destroyed the American political system over the past two decades.
The Defamation Lawsuits may be the key.
Not directly, but depending on when Old Man Murdoch shuffles off the mortal coil, they may arrive at the right moment for the succession battle.
While not bleeding heart Lefties, two of Murdoch's eldest are also not very happy about Lachlan. A James & Liz Coup against him family wise might well play out if they have the looming threat of a Defamation massacre that is very credible.
Boehner with a P.S. to Ted Cruz. Not mincing words.
https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1378005545718800388?s=20
Love it!
You and me both, Kevin. Fox is the hub around which all the crazy spins. The viewership stats that people are prone to cite at moments like this clearly do not capture how pervasive Fox's influence is on the right.
I had a few chuckles. Then I began wondering: Is this an elaborate April Fool's piece deliberately delivered a day late for effect?
I can't find it right now, but I recently read something that suggested that the impact of social media was more indirect, in that social media contributed to an increase in distrust of conventional news sources, even if it wasn't directly responsible for spreading fake news.
In the "tea party" days, they needed astroturfers to organize demonstrations and buses to said events.
Now, they just need an appropriately placed social media ad to self-deludedly organize.
Jake Angeli is the Calvin Johnson of rebellion.
It is Fox News that has destroyed the American political system over the past two decades.
Certainly they've played a major role. The question for me is, how much of the "Fox effect" is root cause and how much is a consequence of crazy that was already built into the Republican Party?
And before anyone says "chicken - egg," Fox certainly has had an amplification effect. Plus there is a feedback loop: crazy occurs, Fox broadcasts it, and that yields more crazy. But I have long held that Murdoch, first in Australia and then here and in the UK, saw a market opportunity and simply capitalized on it. The crazy was already here, in many rich layers, some of it in bloom and some of it latent, but Fox didn't create any of it where there wasn't any before; they just brought it out.
IMO the real source of the crazy is the paranoid racialized authoritarianism that is endemic to modern Republicans and to their forebears in the faux-"rugged individualist" midwest and west and the (then-Democratic) Confederate south. It had a major effect on our politics long before Fox existed -- McCarthyism, Nixon, Reagan -- and there's no reason to suppose that, had Fox not existed, some other means would have emerged to facilitate its inexorable devolution to the point it has reached today.
Fox is now the main official mouthpiece, but Republicans and the Tea Party wing thereof have been able to get their message out even without it. Reagan and Gingrich didn't need Fox. Fox did not uniformly support Trump until he had clinched the nomination. Fox viewers do not believe in crazy things because of Fox - QAnon was not invented by Fox. They watch Fox because it gives them "news" on such things. Basically Fox is in the business of supplying the news and views that the extreme right wants to see and hear - and of supporting Republicans, but it can't impose its own opinions on people.
You can't blame the Trumpist movement - otherwise known as the modern Republican movement - on Fox. It is a matter of deliberate, cynical exploitation of racism and other prejudices by Republican politicians. This also provides commercial opportunities, which others would take up if Fox were suppressed, and some are already doing it.
Let me take a guess: you think Purdue Pharma had nothing to do with the opiod epidemic. They were just in the business of selling people what they wanted.
Jim Boehner occupied one ofd the most powerful positions in American politics for four years at the beginning of the Tea Party take over of the Republican Party. Sure, Fox may have laid the foundation years before that, but it was the election of Obama and the Tea Party that really pushed the Republican apple cart downhill.
So ... refresh my memory ... what exactly did Boehner do to either stop or slow down the take over by the crazies? My memory is that he did nothing and pretty much signed on for the ride while he was Speaker. Am I wrong?
Totally agree, this guy is no victim and did nothing to stop the craziness.
Yup.
Plus, considering his ascendancy was predicated on the success of the Contract on America, the Boehner Jam is just a wiseacre elder of the longer term GQP project.
I read the Politico article with growing amazement, then logged into the library website and placed a "reserve" on the book. There were only three ahead of me! Looking forward to the rest.
Per his description of Roger Ailes -- I think I've underestimated the extent to which actual mental illness plays into the modern conservative movement.
Yes.
The stupid virus afflicting conservatives is becomming more virulent. Ails was in his seventies when he developed a full-blown case. Poor Matt Gaetz was struck down in his thirties.
early onset
Gaetz likes things young.
And nekkid.
The foundation for all of this goes back to Grover Norquist, and his theme of "government is a joke."
It really took the end of the cold war. As long as there was some chance of actual war with actual enemies, the military, and by extension the Federal government and the State Department and the CIA and the FBI and then, by extension the rest of the gov, could hardly be considered a "joke" or a big waste of tax dollars.
It only took twenty years, but by 2010 you can see the people Boehner complains about have one thing they fundamentally believe: "government is just a big ass joke."
Once you are over that hurdle, going on Hannity to get some assignment or spout some lunatic theory is no great leap.
Trump, sadly, just saw this so clearly, and fit right in, since the record will reflect, for sure, that no President gave less of a rat's ass than Trump about government.
Government, like Ukraine, is joke to them!?
Disagree that Trump saw it clearly, more like he was a fly who happened to be around when the Republican party started going to shit.
Agreed. Trump isn't sufficiently familiar with the workings of government, or of public policy, or of political science debates, to possess a coherent, actionable view regarding the conversation about the role of the public sector. He's Archie Bunker in a $3,000 suit. But a heck of a lot meaner.
The dynamic of Trump's rise reminds me of Napoleon Bonaparte's view of France. He is reported to have compared the French nation to a violin, and said something to the effect of "I hold no special regard for the violin in question; I just happen to play it very well."
Trump was an accident of history. Something akin to Asimov's "The Mule" character from the Foundation books.
Government is a joke, but global plutocracy is good. Your point is irrelevant. Fox News is about zionism and nothing more or less. Accept that and you get the con job.
This just in: Rupert Murdoch isn't Jewish. And left wing anti-Semitism isn't any better than the right wing kind.
Midgard isn't leftwing.
He's Shooter come back as an affinity troll.
Indeed. If there were a Hell, Rupert Murdoch would have a lot to answer for all the damage he's done to the USA, UK, and Australia.
But Newt Gingrich is proof that he was only responding to a market demand when he created Fox News. He made things worse, for sure, but he had progenitors.
...Newt Gingrich is proof that he was only responding to a market demand when he created Fox News. He made things worse, for sure...
Clearly there's always been a market for right wing, paranoid, populist craziness in America. So to that extent Murdoch has indeed merely responded to market demand. But it's possible in the parallel universe where Fox News doesn't exist, nobody would meet that demand in quite the way Murdoch has. Also, it's an open question as to just how much "worse" the situation is because of Fox News. Maybe only a little bit. But I doubt it.
I'm with Kevin on this one: the particular breathtaking degree of venality, Machiavellianism, brazenness and skill evinced by the conduct of the Murdoch empire in recent years has exerted a unique and hugely damaging effect on US politics.
Of course , many good observations. My contribution: I don't think chicken-or-egg is the best way to view this. FoxNews is a member of the team that has been radicalizing "conservatives" for decades. I want to leave out politicians for a moment and talk about the megaphones. (There will always be politicians to push stuff or capitalize on existing tendencies). The rush radio thing, the beck thing, drudgery and others were there before the fox became a big animal. But they're all part of an amplifying system.
I clearly remember noticing in the early 2000's that every hotel that I went to had fox blasting on the lobby tv 24/7. I didn't go to hotels a lot but it was consistent in the US. How did they get all those eyeballs? Was it just that hotel managers individually decided to tell their front desk clerks to put that channel on?
You can't have a successful propaganda program without massive communication channels. It's the megaphone that matters, not who is creating the disruptive narratives. The fox is definitely a bad animal.
As I recall Fox was paying businesses to broadcast in public areas. Fox was one of many conduits to broadcast the propaganda far and wide. At first it was more underground, direct mail campaigns then the hate radio that came of age in the 1980s but when cable & Satellite TV became so widespread the conservatives started up FOX to reach even more potential allies. IMO FOX's influence is on the wane as it is now seen as the old guard with the insurgents capturing a lot of their viewership on cable TV and other potential sheep getting roped into the flock via social media.
More like zionism with no class. Look at Gaetz/Greenberg mess in Florida. Quite the kosher gang. The difference between the Bush neo-cons and the Trump neo-cons is much less than you think. The difference is the latter with its lack of class sucked in some sheep.
What is your problem? I think your brain is auto-intoxicating, huffing fearen8.
"...It is Fox News' viewers
that haswho have destroyed the American political system over the past two decades."TIFIFY
Exactly. It's what no one wants to acknowledge. A lot of Americans are crazy racist a holes and they definitely vote.
See also, Republican voter suppression. It wouldn't be happening if it wasn't fully supported by the majority of white Americans. But don't expect the press/media to hit the diner circuit for those opinions.
Not a fan of the man, but when you’re right, you’re right.
It's not an information bubble if it's just Fox News. Just look at Shooter.
I'm not gong to read his book, but I do wonder if at any point he acknowledges and thanks FOX and the crazy racist voters for making him Speaker of the House, the kind of retired politician that gets book deals.
I don't think you can leave out Rush Limbaugh. He was influential on the airwaves way before fox, if I remember correctly, at least I knew of him before I knew of fox. I also remember driving across Kansas and not being able to get anything on my radio except limbaugh, preachers, and pork belly prices. He was entrenched in the "heartland" for years starting a long time ago.
Usually driving in rural areas like when I've made the drive from Virginia to Chicago, I was able to pick up NPR as well as gospel, country and hate radio. Thank goodness for NPR.
Virginia isn't Kansas. I lost NPR not long after passing through Wichita KS going from NE OKlahoma to Denver, and didn't pick it up again until maybe 70 miles outside Denver. Kansas is an information wasteland...couldn't get cell service on my AT&T cell phone either.
I was able to listen to college town NPRs on I-70 from home through western MD then PA, WV, OH and IN.
Having lived in both, I have found lack of NPR reception driving in the old dominion.
Family & i have traveled the length & width of Kansas & have had a better experience than you report. Wish that I were there still.
https://kansaspublicradio.org/info/coverage-map-frequencies
I live in Montana and have found that I can get either MT Public Radio or Yellowstone Public Radio throughout most of the state. The problem is that the translators are weak and the right wing noise machine has strong signals. You need to search for NPR and it is easy to find the noise.
You are absolutely right about the toxic effect Fox News has had on American politics.
However, the original sin in this regard came from Ted Turner, when he dreamed up CNN. Up till then, the idea of a 24 news network was absurd. National news programs were half an hour long, which was plenty to cover the major stories of the day. Not only did the Fairness Doctrine mean you couldn't give an opinion on an issue without offering an opportunity for a rebuttal, but there wasn't enough time in the broadcast to devote to it. Once in a while, Eric Severeid was offered a minute or two to offer a pithy comment on something, but that was as far as it went.
One you pushed the news format into all day territory, it meant you had to fill that airtime with something. That meant either you made mountains out of previously uncovered molehills, or you filled the space with blowhards offering endless opinions on just about everything. Once the Fairness Doctrine was scrapped, that meant you could broadcast the most partisan takes on any issue without worrying about giving equal air time to the opposition.
Thus Fox News filled the void to give voice to the vast segment of the American population that had always been out there---Nixon's silent majority---and amplify their grievances. But if it wasn't Fox News, it would be someone else---Breitbart, or OAN. So long as you have 24 hour a day opinion programing some of them will be spewing right wing invective to a receptive audience.
Unless the Fairness Doctrine gets reinstated (and that horse has left the barn), I think the best way to rein in some of the most egregious offenders are with these lawsuits of the kind leveled by Dominion and others against those accused of spreading election falsehoods. The prospect of billion dollar settlements has already had an effect on what these right wing outlets are broadcasting. As welcome as that may be, it's a dangerous path to follow. No one other than Donald Trump wanted to make it easier to sue "Fake News" corporations for what he deemed to be slanderous coverage---that is, anything critical of anything he did. Fans of free speech may just have to accept the fact that partisan journalism is here to stay, and we just have to live with making the best case for our own side.
With respect, I'm not sure how to re-instate the Fairness Doctrine in any meaningful way. Even if it were legislatively re-instated, FN would simply hire an absurd mimic of leftist positions, designed to sound as loony as possible, and say "See? Fairness."
Good point re: Ted Turner, but it's important not to confuse the container with the contents. CNN, for all of its faults, remains a much more accurate account of reality than many other networks.
Also regarding Ted Turner, there were already all news radio stations like 1010am WINS in NYC an WTOP in DC, so the radio concept was already there. Ted might have been first but if not Ted someone else would have conceived it eventually in the 1980s as cable expanded.
The radio stations gave Turner the idea. However, if you listen to local all-news channels, a lot if it exists to give local traffic and weather reports, plus a good dose of local sports. You're not going to do traffic updates every 10 minutes on a national news show. You're going to have to fill the time some way else. I don't think Turner really understood the ramifications of what he started.
The Fairness Doctrine is probably not coming back, but when it was in effect, a broadcast network had to allow credible competing opinions in order to keep their licenses. If a station aired an editorial opinion---and it was always framed and labeled as such---it had the legal responsibility to give air time to representatives from the other side. You couldn't just stick in some crazy clown spouting nonsense to fulfill your obligation for fairness.
The fact that they didn't doesn't mean they couldn't, or, in the current environment, wouldn't. Stations were given pretty broad latitude as to how the contrasting opinion would be presented.
I think we couldn't depend on FN to self-police, and any external judgment organization would instantly be deluged with complaints about being anti-conservative.
I'm pretty much on your side, but the Fairness Doctrine was only supportable when the range of views presented was generally center right.
I'm not sure it is the format. When I first got access to CNN on a regular basis in the mid 1980's their primetime anchors were Bernard Shaw and Judy Woodruff. Shaw was awarded the Cronkite award for excellence in journalism. Woodruff is currently the anchor for the PBS News Hour.
Of course that was in the days before the "Breaking News" chyron on a red background became de rigueur.
I think the best way to rein in some of the most egregious offenders are with these lawsuits of the kind leveled by Dominion and others against those accused of spreading election falsehoods.
I wish I had more faith in this route, but I don't. I believe Fox News and other right wing broadcasters will simply get their lawyers more heavily involved so as to finetune a strategy of pushing, but not piercing, the envelope of defamation. They'll become much more skilled at stopping just before the line of legal liability is crossed, with virtually no impact on ratings or effectiveness. (I wouldn't be surprised, either, if some future Murdoch-friendly Supreme Court ruling increases the bar for demonstrating libel).
@Utek
Plenty of blame to go around, I suppose, but I disagree with you on this. I'm pretty sure it would be possible even today to program a 24-hour news channel with legitimate news from around the nation and the world, without turning into the cesspool of crazy shit that is Fox News. Especially in the earliest days of cable news, I'd bet there were plenty of international networks who'd have been glad to supply feeds in exchange for reaching the American consumer. Not to mention that (if you were having trouble filling time) you could do legitimate news without having to make every story unique -- as stories develop they bear updating, or even repeating.
But when Fox went live, they had no news department at all. It was all opinion, dressed in the trappings of a real newsroom. They began as a fraud, and went downhill from there. I think Fox, Murdoch, Ailes, Limbaugh and those who financed them bear much more responsibility than Ted Turner.
And I'll continue to repeat this forever: Trump gave the Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh, not Sean Hannity. Right-wing talk-back radio nuts reach a massively greater audience than Fox TV, and they've been doing it since last century.