The General US Politics Thread

Yeah part of why Fox is so effective is that it’s able to lie to viewers about democrats, that’s a lot harder to do when the democrat is on screen pointing out that Republicans are lying.

We can’t make Fox go away by not appearing on it, for once we need to take a leaf out of Trump’s playbook, appear on the news channel and make them spend air time broadcasting us calling them liars.

Don’t pretend that Fox is a legitimate news source, appear on it and call it the propaganda arm of the Republican Party to its face. Tell so many uncomfortable truths that you get banned, then trumpet the fact that you got banned for speaking truth to power.

Regardless, I still don't want to have to tune in to the actual channel to watch such a thing.

FFS, I don't even like linking to the FOX News site because I don't want to give them any clicks.

While it's quite different in terms of scope and subject matter, this reminds me a bit of THQ Nordic's ill-fated decision to decide to host an AMA on 8chan of all places.

You can condemn FOX News as propaganda bullshit without actually showing up on FOX News.

If we're really going to adopt Trump's playbook (ugh), you can do it on Twitter. And after all, isn't that why so many people seem to love Ocasio-Cortez?

Edited by M84 on Apr 16th 2019 at 6:30:43 PM

Why would you tune in? You’re not the target audience, would you attend a cult deprogramming session? It’s not for you, it’s for the Fox devotees.

You can’t condemn Fox to it’s viewers without appearing on Fox, they don’t watch anything else, that’s the problem.

Edit: Twitter is for younger people, Fox and Facebook are for older people, all three are enemy territory and should be treated as such, but some times you have to venture into enemy territory.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 16th 2019 at 10:32:46 AM

It's a town hall where the purpose is for candidates to answer questions about what they plan to do as President. It's not a cult deprogramming session.

The difference is that Twitter and Facebook, for all their problems, are not outright owned and controlled by rightwing assholes with an agenda.

This feels like a rehash of the discussion on whether or not reaching out to Trump voters is a winning strategy that is worth the Democratic candidates' time.

Edited by M84 on Apr 16th 2019 at 6:44:55 PM

I disagree with the idea that Facebook and Twitter aren’t owned by right wing assholes happy to profit from the pain and suffering their platform deliver to millions. Twitter is hosting that video Trump posted of Rep Omar, it’s happy to make money from a video that’s inciting violence against innocents, it’s a propaganda platform for domestic terrorism and should be treated as such. If she gets killed because of that video her blood will be on the hands of twitter’s owners, I doubt it will be the first blood on their hands either.

I’m sure that some of the places that hosted AQ’s propaganda videos did it for money rather than ideological devotion, that difference doesn’t matter.

As for it being a town hall rather than a reprogramming session, I fail to see why it can’t be both.

Edit to edit:

No strategy works in the exclusive, we need to get out the Dem base, inspire the left, win over the ‘moderates’ and make the right stay home, that’s how we won in 2018.

Edited by Silasw on Apr 16th 2019 at 10:47:15 AM

Also, just because there was an apparently positive reception to Sanders doesn't mean this is proof that it does work. Ultimately, the only way we can be sure this is a winning strategy is through election results.

The winning strategy is to fight everywhere, that’s what did it in 2018, this isn’t one battle, it’s hundreds of battles, millions in-fact.

If you are good at arguing, appearing at Fox news isn't such a bad idea because it is pretty much the ONLY way to penetrate the bubble those people are in. If you aren't, you shouldn't do it.

It's the equivalent of trying to win a race while chained to a weight and your opponent is not. Sure, if you're a really good runner it's possible to win. But it's still kind of a bad idea to agree to such terms in the first place.

My point is that I think it's a bad idea to do anything that might even remotely legitimize FOX News further to the general public (not just people who are already regular FOX News viewers).

But then, I've been pretty open about how I think FOX News is one of the most destructive forces on the planet in terms of how it's affected the public well of knowledge.

Edited by M84 on Apr 16th 2019 at 6:54:52 PM

Yeah appearances should be done carefully, if Sanders didn’t at least once called Fox the “propaganda arm of the Republican Party” or the “Trump Television Network” than he fucked up.

I want an opening statement along the lines of, “thank you for welcoming me, it’s strange to be here on the Trump Television Network, but I consider it a great opportunity, I’d like to use today to speak to you the voters, to get to know you and to help you get to know me, the real me, not the fake news version of me that Mitch Mc Connell and others at Republican Party HQ have their team of professional liars here create every night”.

And so we come back to Grafite's original point: you shouldn't dismiss these invitations out of hand, for they might actually be great opportunities.

But emphasis on might.

It grants legitimacy to the most-watched News network in the United States? I feel like that's a ship that sailed a long time ago.

I agree that FOX is a terrible propaganda machine, but it's a terrible propaganda machine with a wider audience than anything you'll find on a more legitimate news station. I loathe Sanders, but if he actually got FOX's audience to applaud single-payer then maybe he's on to something.

Jon Stewart once ripped apart Tucker Carlson so savagely in an on-air interview that Carlson's show wound up cancelled.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 16th 2019 at 8:20:20 AM

I couldn't find anything like that in that Vox article.

So you agree with the premise of trying to reach FOX's viewership, but you think he should start his attempt at diplomacy and persuasion by saying, "Hello, brainwashed dumbasses of America. I'm glad to be here on this stupid shit you think is news. Please bear with me while I explain that all your deepest held beliefs are bullshit and you, yourself, are garbage in the shape of a person."

'Cause that's what the audience will hear when you open like that. And it will immediately make them defensive, and then the entire thing is an exercise in futility.

You can't force people to learn better, no matter how cathartic it might be to shit on the enemy in front of them. The moment a person you are trying to influence goes into Defensive Lockdown, you have failed as an persuading force.

Short-term catharsis does not produce long-term change.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 16th 2019 at 8:31:21 AM

If one wants to deprogram a cultist, one can't do it within the cult's own platform.

The first step to deprogram a cultist is to move them away from the cult.

So any attempt to wean a FOX News viewer away from FOX News has to happen while they aren't actually watching FOX News.

Edited by M84 on Apr 16th 2019 at 10:31:23 PM

This wasn't an attempt to wean them off FOX News. This was an attempt to get them to accept and internalize platform ideas despite FOX News. And it sounds like the audience ate it up.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 16th 2019 at 8:35:03 AM

Let's hope they still feel that way come Election Day. And that it's enough to overcome the reasons they tend to vote GOP.

Let's also hope that this didn't somehow convince anyone who wasn't already a FOX News viewer to give FOX News a shot. Odds of that are low of course, but the idea of even one new FOX News regular viewer gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Edited by M84 on Apr 16th 2019 at 10:36:10 PM

Hope is for suckers. Let's actively fight to keep them feeling that way come Election Day, and work very hard to overcome the reasons they tend to vote GOP.

Any plan for winning 2020 that does not account for the fact that FOX exists and will still exist in 2020 is a plan doomed for failure by its own overinflated optimism. FOX is terrible, but we can't just stick our heads in the sand and pretend it's not a huge cultural influencer.

We need to be countering the misinformation they're spreading. And we can do that on our own programs, sure, but the people watching our programs aren't the ones who need that message countered.

Ending FOX's stranglehold on American culture is a decades-long endeavor. It won't be done by November of next year.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Apr 16th 2019 at 8:36:48 AM

It's less pretending it doesn't exist and more refusing to pretend it's not a propaganda network. Which is the DNC's rationale for refusing to allow FOX News to host any of their primary debates.

I think we can all agree that it's an uphill battle. Especially when other voices on the network, like Sean Hannity, undermined the town hall soon after it aired.

And there you go. FOX News immediately went to work trying to erase any impact that town hall could have had.

Tobias Drake is correct. Insulting people might be cathartic, but it's not going to win them over and we do need to win them over to our ideas even if we have to repackage them. The fight isn't just 2020, but every election until the mess is cleaned up.

Worth noting that Fox didn't actually stoop to stacking the town hall with their own target audience. Vox mentions one of the people who asked Sanders a question was even a Clinton campaigner. So as enjoyable as it was to see Sanders turn the audience against the hosts, this wasn't your typical group of angry racists Fox viewers.

Meaning the results of the poll might have been different if it was.

Honestly, my concern about Sanders going on Fox would be that I'd assume that he'd spend time talking about how much the Democrats/Hillary sucked and how they abandoned the working class. Of course, I'd figure that he'd say bad things about Trump too, but that's the main reason why Fox would invite him on and why he'd expect an at least semi-receptive audience.