Fox News is The Sunken Place for our parents

UPDATE 1/22/21: Obviously things got a lot worse since I originally wrote this in  2017. Now it serves as a memory of a quainter time of Fox News being the main source of racist, biased, unfounded, conspiracy-theory-laden reporting. The rise of NewsMax and OANN have shown us that Trump supporters prefer unfiltered racism.


I have good news and bad news for you dear readers. First, the AP, Politico, and the Atlantic can all stop going to the rural white towns that comprise Trump's base asking why they still support Trump despite not delivering on any of the promises that compelled them to his corner (the biggest, smartest corner) to begin with. The bad news is that I figured out the answer: Fox News is sending all the once-reasonable adults in our lives to The Sunken Place. Fox News is the hypnotic teaspoon for white people over the age of 60. I didn't want to believe it at first, but as Tucker Carlson's Lord and Savior Donald Trump ascended the presidency it became undeniable. Fox News is slowly hypnotizing parents around the country and using their bodies as conduits for insane conspiracy theories, thinly concealed racism, and stories about Hilary Clinton's underwear.




Now, most of us know that Fox News is a bastion for "stories" usually found on the page six gossip column masquerading as facts. Like, that one where Jesse Watters, at the behest of now 32 million dollars-poorer Bill O'Reilly,  went into New York's Chinatown and asked people if they knew karate (which is Japanese), used footage of Karate Kid (also Japanese), showed himself doing some roundhouse kicks in a Tae Kwon Do studio (which is Korean), spoke to old people who didn't speak English and then put them on TV without appropriate paperwork (HI I CONSENT TO BE ON TV_______________ < Signature> it is literally that easy) and then made fun of them for not answering his asinine questions. Here is a segment The Daily Show did on it, which I am sharing instead of the original because 1. Fuck Bill O'Reilly he gets no clicks from me and 2. TDS properly eviscerates the segment:



Or LOL that time that Fox News reported that Seth Rich had been assassinated by the Democrats (maybe even Hillary Clinton personally with all the guns Obama took from the second amendment people), blasted it all over their network, was forced to retract, and offered no explanation for how one of their "investigative" journalists published a story with no actual investigation. That is, until, they were sued by the family of the victim. Here is a breakdown of how bonkers that was courtesy of NPR.

OR that time Sean Hannity told your frightened meemaw and pawpaw that Syrian refugees were basically going to personally shut down every single coal mine and auto plant in the contiguous 48. A claim which Politifact has rated entirely Pants on Fire, even after Hannity provided Poltifact with a source for his claims. Bonus: they peppered this with Trump shouting about undocumenteds, just to seal the deal of who your grandparents would be voting for:

 

Their grasp is far-reaching. For me it started with my grandpa - an easy target because he has trouble hearing and Fox broadcasts at at least 10 decibels higher than any other news show and from what I can tell all the hosts have voice immodulation. I'd get the odd phone call here and there asking about Black Lives Matter and whether the Jews favored Obama.

But the net was cast wider yet, and I found my father, my once logical (albeit always conservative), empirical dad, sitting in his recliner the morning before Christmas insisting to me that Ohr's wife wrote the pee-tape dossier. I stared at him in disbelief - not sure how to counter a claim based in total insanity. All I could muster was "saying that makes you sound like a complete lunatic."

I wondered if I was alone in this - if maybe Fox had targeted my family directly. But a brief and unscientific poll of what my friends were experiencing told me otherwise. Some highlights include:

"Alexa is watching you." (Alexa does not have a camera UPDATE: They have added cameras to Alexa since the original publication of this piece, but at the time no such technology existed)

"There is no point in recycling. Even if climate change IS real, by not recycling I'm part of God's promise to destroy the world with fire" (not directly correlated with a Fox News Story but a good example of the utterly conflicting statements made in one sentence)

"When Jesus was born, Mary was 14 and Joseph was in his 30's! The age issue is only because we made it one back in the 50's." (This statement in regards to Roy Moore - so many things to unpack here it could be its own goddamned blog post)

From a friend, "I had an honest conversation about whether Obama was a Muslim." (in 2017, a year after he completed his second term).

"Rosa Parks, the one that caused all those problems." (almost as many words in that sentence as decades spent fighting for civil rights in this country)

and finally, my favorite, 

"AHEM. It's Merry Christmas." (Cause Trump won the War on Christmas you see)

I believe the evidence is clear (unlike Fox I am basing my reporting on actual research) - Fox News is The Sunken Place for our parents. And there is no cotton to save them - the world's #1 exporter of cotton, is China. 






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