There's an analysis up at Slate as to how Hannity operates on Fox News, entitled Hannity is a Nightly Recruitment Video for the Cult of Trump, and I reckon it's entirely accurate.
The Right wingnut side of politics swallows whole virtually any conspiracy spun by the Right wing media, bedroom pundits or paid Russian disinformation disseminators; they have been psychologically primed for this by years of dwelling in the conspiracy mindset of climate change denial.
The effects are absolutely cult like: the world is divided into those who perceive the Truth, and everyone else is evil and corrupt and depraved. The faults of the Leader are readily forgiven, as they are in all cults, as the power of ultimate righteousness are not held back by the mere temporary foibles of the Leader. There's quite the element of a persecution complex, too: the media are out to get their leader by lying about him.
But how is this addressed?
The provision of information contrary to their conspiracy mindset is one thing - but we all know that is not enough to break your average cult.
Surely a huge part of the problem is the refusal of the more moderate Right to call out the cult as a cult. Cults are weakened when former insiders break away and speak publicly about the tactics as viewed from inside.
In particular, any half reasonable journalist or worker in Fox News needs to break from the network and speak openly about the rabid, harmful partisanship of the likes of Hannity.
The ultimate would be, of course, the actual ownership of Fox News disowning the awful obsequiousness of most of its hosts - but Murdoch would have to want to stop counting money for that to happen. Quite frankly, the death of Rupert can't come fast enough if we want any hope of his inheritors actually taking that step.
Besides that, what hope do we have?
1 comment:
It is highly ironic that attempting to portray Trump so well Hanity actually shows up Trump's ignorance too the tee as Trump loves to brag about his great knowledge. Instead what we get is proof of his great ignorance.
I love irony
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