Fake News?: The Real Danger To Democracy

Ok lets just stop it! Lets stop allowing the Right to conflate Fox News with CNN or MSNBC or most other mainstream news sources. There is literally nothing in common with what Fox News has and continues to do. There is a diametrical difference in what Fox is and these other outlets do. Admittingly outlets like CNN and MSNBC report news from a liberal perspective. We need to realize gone are the days of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather this is a new age of telling the news from the perspective that your audience leans. So If my audience tends to be more liberal then obviously most of my experts and contributors will lean left and the same pertains to right leaning news outlets. I don't like it but this I can navigate around this and ultimately accept it as a flawed network. Now Fox News is a completely different ballgame. Fox News is playing a dangerous game of being what's referred to as a "state news" outlet.

Fox News has cashed in on simply serving up for their viewers an alternative reality that is simply being dictated from a mouthpiece from the West Wing of the White House. This is precisely why Fox News is so dangerous and such a threat to national security. Fox has decided that we won't report from a conservative perspective but rather we will serve up a completely different reality. This alternate reality created by Fox News, the peddling of QAnon conspiracy theories and Russian disinformation campaigns over social media have set the stage for the public to feed into the right wing frenzied attack on democracy.

The United States democracy in recent years has become very fractured. We now find ourselves at a pivotal moment in this nation's history. Over the last four years, the gradual erosion of our faith in the people who report the news has weakened the foundation the democracy we covet sits upon. At this very moment that distrust has escalated to where the nation is questioning the most sacred aspect of a democracy. Open and free elections. The President, the Republican Party, and Fox News have created a scenario that the only fair outcome of an election is the re-election of Donald Trump. They oppose any measures that makes voting easier, they consistently work to limit voting areas where non white voters live, and they continue to promote a conspiracy theory about voter fraud that is just an outright lie. A lie they all know is a lie but continue to promote to their followers.

A liar or in this case a Fake News outlet can only function by breaking down your trust in legitimate news. They exist because they have created an alternate reality that makes you feel good rather then telling you what's real. Consider the Fox News argument when facing a lawsuit. Their argument in support of their top rated show and host Tucker Carlson was that everyone knows that Tucker Carlson, despite always saying that's the facts, his viewers knows he doesn't report the facts!!!! That's it. Here is the actual story for your consumption. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye

The democracy is under attack. The attackers are leading you to believe you can't believe anything. Which by "coincidence" happens to be step one to stealing a democracy. Making you believe you can't trust what's blatantly obvious. Next up" News you can Trust" State News. I said it before and witnessing what just happened with President Trump attempting to install himself as President for a second term, it's painfully obvious. This country was one election cycle away from losing a democracy. While Fox News had certainly carried the load of being a State run News outlet they are being replaced by even further absurd news outlets like OAN and NewsMax. So I fear we could be in the infancy stage of losing our democracy or at the very least headed towards a different sort of Civil War.