Be assured, if you had not heard or read about Fox’s analysis of McCain’s funeral, but simply presumed that Fox would never ever ever deviate from supporting Trump propaganda you were, of course, , 100% correct. It did not take them long to get into the normalization of authoritarian dictatorial process, a social science long-studied, manipulative, cynical, and anti-American to the core. That’s Fox.
Before I get to the Fox stuff, I do want to expressly state – because it cannot be stated enough – how significant it is that the current President of the United States is simply not welcome at events exceeding the magnitude of the presidency, those state funerals where we all (most decent people) come together as one. Indeed, even Trump supporters know it would be awkward at best, disastrous at worst. This is singularly unique to Trump. If Trump’s idea of making America great again included creating divisions so strong that our civic structures would be endangered. These events transcend “political” rivalry. Trump calls his opponents “enemies.” American presidents used to attend state funerals. It wouldn’t be unusual for a Canadian PM to show up. You want to know who did not? America’s enemies. It’s just all so fking weird and awful.
Now, Fox.
The Sunday-morning team at Fox and Friends would like you to know that – though they respect McCain’s service – they considered much of the funeral to be an effort at “shaming” Trump supporters. Notice the premise that it was singular in message, only to the right – there was no message to me, as a Democrat, loaded with self-importance, while at the same meticulously crafted in order to deliver the maximum propaganda impact. The message to viewers was that McCain intended to demonstrate how wrong they are to support Trump, and they should support others. Now, we know that you can’t put country first while supporting Trump, because we get to presume some facts from Mueller’s investigation. But, why do they believe that a call to put country first can’t be supporting Trump, and supporting cooperation and bipartisanship?
Well, for one, it doesn’t help Trump politically to utter anything about bipartisanship because it infers something “good” about Trump’s “enemies,” and that will not be had. So, there’s an element of pure utility in the propaganda machine. But, they go further, and truly become manipulative, and dangerous: By way of Rawstory:
We can also be in a different chapter, where different tools and different leaders can take the mantle and carry forward what America represents.”
Wrong, jackass. By definition, a move toward authoritarianism, dictatorial-behavior, self-dealing, is NOT “American” and thus cannot be characterized as carrying the nation forward. It is dragging the nation into entirely new territory which has been avoided purposefully, and with good reason.
This is the normalization process that dictators undertake. Done properly (and perhaps our institutions are far too big a match for Trump, that is our hope, but nothing is guaranteed) this is the well-studied process by which people come to accept that gross deviations from all public norms become the new “normal.” In isolation, with perfect conditions to fester, it results in an entire religious culture shuffled off to gas chambers. Nothing becomes too shocking, too extreme. Germany was the world’s most sophisticated country in the 1920s in every way, science, arts, music, yet by 1936 the most powerful tanks known to man rolled down the streets of Berlin to crowds cheering on a strong dictator.
It is Fox, which means it is state propaganda, no different than Pravda. It also means, if you didn’t expect Fox and Friends to rise to the level of civic solidarity where McCain’s funeral soared, you were, of course, correct.
TWITTER: @MiciakZoom
