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Jane Mayer misses the 800-pound gorilla behind The Big Lie

Jane Mayer has a long piece in the New Yorker this week about The Big Lie—the belief that Democrats stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump. She focuses a lot on the influence of the Bradley Foundation—which donates millions of dollars to conservative groups that promote election fraud narratives—as well as the Heritage Foundation, Turning Point, and other right-wing organizations dedicated to the notion that election fraud is widespread.

It's a good enough piece, but not really anything new. I did my own version in 2012 and dozens of others have written similar articles over the years.

So what makes this time different? Obviously one difference is that it was a presidential election being challenged and the president in question was Donald Trump. And maybe that's all.

But it's noteworthy that over the course of 8,000 words Mayer doesn't once mention the fact that The Big Lie was was promoted relentlessly for more than two months by Fox News. The Bradley Foundation is a pipsqueak by comparison. If there's a reason that more than half of all Republicans think the race was stolen, it's twofold:

  • Fox News has spent the past two decades scaring its viewers into believing that an enormous nationwide effort to steal a presidential election is exactly the kind of thing the Democratic Party would do. They have both the predatory desire for power at all costs to motivate them and the scary Deep State means to pull it off.
  • Fox News spent all of November and December reporting with a straight face on literally every single allegation of fraud, no matter how nonsensical.

This is why I keep insisting that we pay more attention to Fox News. I know it's been around forever. I know we've never been able to make much of a dent in it. I know it's kind of boring. I know there are shinier toys around these days to distract us.

But Fox News is still the main enemy of decent government in the United States, and it will stay that way as long as its brand of fearmongering earns the Murdochs truckloads of money and the rest of the conservative movement takes its cues from them. It's hard for any right-wing meme to gain big-time nationwide exposure without support from Fox News, just as it's hard for any right-wing meme supported by Fox News to fail to catch on. They're still the 800-pound gorilla in the conservative movement.

50 thoughts on “Jane Mayer misses the 800-pound gorilla behind The Big Lie

  1. drickard1967

    I agree Faux News is a blight upon the body politic... but the one and only explanation for everything bad in the world? How long until Kevin is blaming Fox for the side effects of the evil Dex?

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      When did Australia remove lead from gasoline?

      Maybe Rupe is just showing off his metal-damaged mind...

    2. Joel

      Please point out where Kevin has posted that Fox News is the one and only explanation for everything bad in the world. Take all the time you need.

  2. skeptonomist

    "It's hard for any right-wing meme to gain big-time nationwide exposure without support from Fox News"

    Whether it's hard or not, Trump did it. The fraction of people who rely on Fox for news and opinions is still small. Broadcast news is still the main source and then there are the other cable "news" networks, print, etc. Trump got plenty of exposure from the MSM. The owners, editors and writers of the MSM evidently thought that Trump would be laughed out of the election if he got real coverage, but he had just the message that many people were waiting for - xenophobia, racism, and ostensibly leftish economics (which of course were fake). Fox didn't convince people to believe in these things and Fox didn't tell people to support Trump until it was clear that he was likely to win the primaries.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Also, how much time did FOXnews spend on Pizzagate, versus the tangential Seth Rich murder for hire?

      QANON is evidence that NewsQorp is not the only credible conspiracist in town.

    2. J. Frank Parnell

      “The fraction of people who rely on Fox for news and opinion is still small.”

      And when you watch Star Trek, Spock has a beard.

    3. kahner

      "Whether it's hard or not, Trump did it. "
      Did he though? Fox's early coverage of trump may not have been all positive, but there was a hell of a lot of it, if memory serves. Same with all the other news outlets. So he certainly got tons of national exposure. And of course as his popularity rose and he become the nominee, the fox coverage became fawning propaganda that helped him win the presidency.

  3. akapneogy

    "If there's a reason that more than half of all Republicans think the race was stolen, it's twofold:"

    Three-fold really. Republicans are raising serious doubts that they are either equipped to or belive in living in a democratic society.

    1. MontyTheClipArtMongoose

      Like Jemaine Clement in Eagle v. Shark, I would be more than happy to fight a man in a wheelchair.

      What I am saying is Madison Cawthorn can meet me in Temecula.

  4. middleoftheroaddem

    Fox News has intentionally misled people and aided in a ridiculous/dangerous lie. I WISH I could place ALL guilt on the ‘they are not a legitimate President claim’ on the GOP but that is a factual. Democrat’s pattern of claims of stolen elections provided a foundation for the whole stolen election narrative: to be clear, the Democrat claims are not equal to the GOP BS but, unfortunately, I think the pattern of Democratic stolen election claims is problematic.

    Al Gore claimed his election was stolen
    https://theintercept.com/2018/11/10/democrats-should-remember-al-gore-won-florida-in-2000-but-lost-the-presidency-with-a-preemptive-surrender/

    John Kerry claimed his election was stolen
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_United_States_election_voting_controversies

    Hillary Clinton claimed her election was stolen
    https://www.yahoo.com/now/hillary-clinton-maintains-2016-election-160716779.html

    1. Joel

      Click the link. Always click the link.

      None of your links state that Gore, Kerry or Clinton claimed the election was stolen.

    2. golack

      Turns out, Gore did win FL after all. But at the time, conceded. He never tried to mount an insurgency. It is important that we understand how that happened and put in place measures to prevent that in the future.

      Hillary won the popular vote by millions--but did not mount an insurgency. That vote did highlight problems we have in our democracy and how the electoral college distorts the vote.

      And Kerry--he conceded too and didn't mount an insurgency. Real issues, hanging chads--yes still around even after Bush v Gore--and large undervotes, which can be caused by hanging chads, were present. Not to mention standard voter suppression techniques in Republican controlled states, e.g. sweeping purges of voter registrations.

      We have since updated most of our voting machines, so many of the physical problems with vote counting have mainly disappeared. And the few problems that did arise were caught during the process since most (all?) places maintain a paper trail. When Trump officials announced that this was the cleanest vote ever, they were right.

      1. Krowe

        We have updated our voting machines, but not the partisan management of elections themselves (Blackwell in Ohio in '04, W's bro and Katherine Harris in FL in '00, Kemp stealing his own Gov win in '16, etc.)

  5. Loxley

    While I don't argue with the evil influence of Fox "News", that , in fact, is not the 800 lb. gorilla in the echo chamber of The Big Lie.

    It is this: it is the GOP itself that is trying to steal our elections, legally, and illegally, for decades. In fact, it can easilty be argued that conservatives have been stealing or try to, our elections since the Constitution was authored- and including it as well.

    1. Amati

      So, just as a gedanken experiment, what might happen if, say, Bloomberg were to, oh, finance some election fraud recounts / investigations concerning Republican winners? Might give the Fox resident sophists the yips on air.

      1. Altoid

        +1, bring it on!

        Almost all the R representatives from PA voted against accepting PA's certified return on January 6. If they had any honor they'd all have resigned and run again. None did. Tells us something.

  6. ScentOfViolets

    Kevin misses the forest for the trees on this one, IMHO. Look to the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine and no modern equivalents to replace it if you want to spot the first overt signs of rot.

    TL;DR: It's not FNC per se that's the problem; it's the determination of a small but very financially powerful group of people to subvert the flow of information. Me, I'd drag these yahoos out into the town square and have them drawn and quartered without fanfare or mercy for their evil. But that's just me with my educator's hat on 😉

      1. ScentOfViolets

        Sigh. I get so tired of the mooks who pretend to misunderstand the clear meaning of the text in order to score point. So I'm going to ask this jerk, nicely, what he thinks the bolded part means:

        Look to the abolition of the Fairness Doctrine and no modern equivalents to replace it

        Well, what do you think `no modern equivalents` means? You do realize I get to call you a jerk and a douche until you apologize for your smarmy little snit, right git?

  7. Martin Stett

    Dropped cable years ago, and it's still a small shock to see people drop everything and turn on the TV because it's time to watch something, other than a ball game. I look at old cable bills and wonder if people are still paying rent on a decade- old receiver, or the service fees. Even with four premiums, I still pay less than a quarter of my old monthly fees. I look at cable and it looks like Blockbuster c.2005.
    And when Fox loses its cable fees, that's when the change will come.
    I post this in every forum where FoxNews is even mentioned:
    https://unfoxmycablebox.com/

  8. Yikes

    There is nothing good about Fox News, it would be great if Bezos could buy it and then, rather than dismantle it, put two clauses in Hannity's next $30M contract (1) a non disclosure clause, and (2) his agreement to dial it back.

    But that's a digression. The 800 lb gorilla is not Fox, its the 43% of the country that are evil yahoos. I mean, thank goodness they are not evil geniuses.

    Broadcasting finds its market. This whole detour down the road of "what is causing this idiocy" is dangerous to me. Its the equivalent of being in trench warfare and looking over the top of the trench wondering what the "motivation" of the enemy is.

    Because believing in the laundry list of things which would cause an evil yahoo to vote R requires a lot of work ignoring reality, those votes will drop off.

    But the evil yahoos that remain will be ever more motivated, regardless of Fox, since they can get their views confirmed on the internet easily.

    1. George Salt

      "Broadcasting finds its market."

      This is the most astute comment on this thread. Fox News is more of a follower than a leader.

  9. Altoid

    Maybe it's one hand washing the other? Fox is one of the hands-- stoking fear, anxiety, anger, all the things that keep their people amped up and going to the polls and pushing the R button on the machines, turning out in city council and school board meetings, staring gimlet-eyed at cities and people with the wrong names and building up arsenals against the UN takeover.

    The other hand is the big money Mayer is talking about. That hand writes the agenda-- what the nutball Rs do with the public power given them by the energized minority. That's the American Legislative Exchange Council model legislation pushed by Koch phone calls, it's Federalist Society judicial appointments, and so on. It's all pre-written, just needs voters too amped up about those evil city people to pay attention to what's done in their names.

    The shadow money needs Fox-driven turnout in order to put in power the people who enact its agenda. It needs the rage and fear Fox instills. Murdochs make tons of money and must feel great cackling glee at their ability to manipulate so many people, and they get the regulatory and tax favoritism that are on the shadow-money agenda. One hand washes the other.

    History time. Roger Williams got suspicious of the Massachusetts magistrates, didn't trust their spiritual purity, so he ran off with a bunch of followers and set up Rhode Island (this was close to 400 years ago now). Pretty soon he decided he didn't trust his followers' purity, then eventually decided he didn't trust his wife's either. That's kind of where the right is eventually headed. In the end Williams threw in the towel on purity tests and let everybody in. The sooner the right gets to that point the better off we'll all be. But no guarantees-- they may never get there.

  10. golack

    Your previous post was right, Fox News is an outrage machine. That drives eyeballs and ad dollars. Subversion of government and governance in general, just a side effect of making money.

  11. Eric London

    Yes, that article by Jane Mayer is a good summary of everything written up to now and published in media such as Daily Kos, Mother Jones, and so on.

    What that article does not do is address the real issue: how did they come to that conclusion? The underlying assumption by our side (yes, I am a liberal) is that conservatives are stupid emotional puppets who are easily manipulated by the grifters who feed off them.

    However, and this is a big however, there may be some justification for their position. The background material can be found at https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/author-of-the-mega-viral-thread-on . All this material is widely known amongst conservatives and has been exhaustively discussed on conservative sites. (That's right, they sometimes actually write thoughtfully, and not all in caps.)

    What I have not seen is a detailed take-down of those points. (Before you start typing: I am not persuaded by ad hominem attacks, which seem to be the persuasion tactic of choice in the comment string of a Kevin Drum post.)

    Does anybody know of somebody on our side who has carefully and substantially refuted the points raised by Darryl Cooper?

    1. cld

      I got as far as the line about all the scalps Hillary Clinton has hanging on her wall and I wanted to know if they could identify even one of them.

      That's all such a tapestry of fantasy I can't imagine anyone bothering to try dissect it at this point.

    2. Yikes

      How did they come to that conclusion? "They" came to that conclusion because in their little world Trump did win. At least among all the people they know.

      I mean, why did liberals spend thousands of hours and millions of words trying to figure out how Trump won in 2016?

      Its because they couldn't believe it. And by the way, I must have sat through thousands of hours of discussion and MSNBC analysis about Russian interferance - and not one of those hours ever had data has to how it statistically would have worked to make the difference in the 2016 results -- which is not surprising since there is no way to statistically correlate Facebook posts with votes. But, for liberals it was enough that the interferance happened.

      The second reason they came to that conclusion is, of course, that Trump and all of their preferred media is telling them that is the case without any evidence. Compare and contrast.

    3. colbatguano

      This is the same gibberish that was the basis of dozens of lawsuits that basically said: "Because they changed some aspects of voting, there was widespread fraud that led to Trump's defeat in 2020." This nonsense. As is their belief that the BLM protests last summer were some vast media/corporate conspiracy to enshrine political violence to scare off Republicans. Sorry, they're just going to have to get used to the idea that Black people don't like getting abused by the police.

  12. Justin

    What to do about Fox News… of course the only effective way to deal with them is illegal. It’s not worth it. Well, not yet anyway. Someday though.

    At what point to they become an “enemy of decent government” that justifies treating them as a terrorist organization? Are they the media platform for an al Qaeda like threat? Or ISIS? Or the Taliban?

    See… they will never be considered that kind of threat even if they are. And they take advantage of this. As long as my cable TV provider sees fit to profit from their hate, they will thrive. They are part of the political system. You can’t touch them.

    That guy who harassed Tucker Carlson in a store a few weeks ago? A hero.

      1. Justin

        Death, destruction, and financial disaster. It’s the result from every republican administration since 2001. Bush and Trump.

    1. George Salt

      I'm more concerned about Joe Manchin.

      "According to spokesman Kevin Bishop, Graham attended an event over the weekend hosted by Sen. Joe Manchin on his houseboat and attended by other senators. Sam Runyon, a spokeswoman for Manchin, said the West Virginia Democrat "is fully vaccinated and following the CDC guidelines for those exposed to a COVID positive individual.”"

      If Manchin succumbs to Covid, West Virginiia's Republican governor will appoint his replacement and Mitch McConnell becomes Senate Majority Leader again.

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