This is the next of a new series of missives on our unfinished work to restore the promise of our country and its government. Each will focus on a single element of the many opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. Each will provide three steps we can all take to build upon our huge victories winning back the House in 2018 and the Presidency in 2020.
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Lachlan Murdoch, Co-Chair, Newscorp (owner of Fox News):
“A news organization (1) has an obligation to report the news (2) without fear (3) or favor (4). And that is what Fox News has always (5) done and always will do. (6)”
(1) The term “news organization” is more correctly applied to organizations that do not knowingly lie about the outcome of a presidential election.
(2) Commonly the term “news” refers to things that have actually happened, not things that you are set on lying about, including your presentation on the “tourists” that overran the Capitol on January 6.
(3) The term” without fear” is compelling to be sure. Saying things you have admitted internally are crazy so that you won’t lose viewers to the right wing Newsmax shows that you acted with fear, not without it.
(4) Lachlan, it is stunning to say that you have acted without favor, since texts discovered in the Dominion lawsuit show that you concentrated every day on how to please Donald Trump.
(5) You should be saying never, not always.
(6) When do you expect what you always will do to begin?
William Randolph Hearst called Franklin Delano Roosevelt a “Socialist, Communist, and Bolshevik”. In our nation’s history, there are plenty of political rags or soapboxes masquerading as news organizations. It is harder to find one that has done more damage to this country than Fox News. Because of Fox News coverage and the pronouncements of their commentators, a third of Americans still think the 2020 election was stolen, even though Fox News (which convinced them it was so) itself did not believe it to be so!
The damage to American confidence in elections going forward is huge, and the monetary damages that Fox will owe Dominion Voting will be huge as well, despite Lachlan Murdoch’s ludicrous statement that Fox acted “without fear or favor”. There is little consolation that the Murdoch owned New York Post headlined Trump’s new bid for the Presidency “Florida Man Makes Announcement” and put it on page 26. Their new man is Ron DeSantis, who is already being afforded their brand of fearful favoritism.
The fact that for seven years Trump and Fox shared ownership of Trump and Fox has misled people into considerable misunderstanding of Trump’s future.
If you have been a Fox follower during this time, you are trained by endless, repetitive Fox stimuli that all media disclosures about Trump (no matter what conduct is being disclosed) is not evidence of any perfidy or iniquity but rather another of a series of attempts to unfairly wound or remove Trump. The rest of the nation wants these Trump supporters to say, “This time Donald Trump has just gone too far” by taking classified documents, or organizing or praising insurrectionists, or loving Putin and bribing Stormy Daniels, or pandering to Putin and loving Stormy Daniels. “Gone too far” are words that will never escape the lips of this cohort. There is no use wishing this will happen. Trump’s bad deeds and the resultant public criticism are their elixir.
As the preeminent narcissist of his time, all this makes Donald Trump happy, to have undying support among a third of Republicans. He could show up at 98 years old in a blizzard in Ashtabula and there would be a small crowd there waving MAGA signs and saying the blizzard was a media plot.
This makes Republican election officials very unhappy because what makes Donald Trump and MAGA loyalists’ lives complete are the very same acts that convince everyone else not to support him ever again. He is poison to independent voters and a proven guarantor of high Democratic turnout. He has gone too far to turn back, locking himself in as a permanent loser for himself and his party. Thus, Republican elected officials are divided into these four groups, now separately populated by one person, two people, dozens of people and the largest group, everyone else:
- Lindsay Graham, once John McCain’s best friend who has now reached an astonishing level of sycophancy. To be able to know in advance what the highest level of obsequiousness would be and to be able to regularly exceed that level is a rare talent. There is no school for this.
- Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, who love their Twitter following and thus love Trump.
- Chris Sununu, Larry Hogan, Asa Hutchison, Chris Christie and others who know Trump is taking their party down with him and say so.
- All other Republican elected officials, who are afraid to make it clear for fear of retribution, but who desperately want Trump to withdraw from public life.
Watching these elected officials is a lot like viewing Odysseus trying to get past Scylla, scary for the rest of us to know about, but epic, nonetheless. It shouldn’t keep us from doing these three things:
| 1) Enroll in Media Matters | |
 | Finally, a nonprofit has emerged to relentlessly monitor and expose Fox News and other conservative media. Their analyses of what is being said and what is being purposely ignored is invaluable. Their latest reports include how the media is ignoring the background of the federal judge who is a about to rule on the abortion pill, and how Fox News has ignored Trump’s engendering threats against Prosecutor Alvin Bragg. Connecting with Media Matters does not itself represent political action, but it is the necessary underpinning. Get on the list and/or offer support at https://www.mediamatters.org/. |
2) Understand What is Happening on Choice at the Local Level | |
| The 2022 Congressional elections and successful battles in several state legislatures in Michigan, North Carolina and elsewhere demonstrate that post-Dobbs choice activism is very strong. In addition to supporting such national political powerhouses as NARAL Pro-Choice America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, activists need to focus on strengthening support networks for women and grassroots political action in states that have criminalized abortion. Now from the National Network of Abortion Funds comes this very complete list of organizations gathering resources for local support. | |
3) Start Now to Beat Lauren Boebert | |
 | In 2022, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz won re-election by sizable margins in very conservative districts. Nearly equally destructive Lauren Boebert barely squeaked by in Colorado’s 3rd District, beating City Councilman Adam Frisch by 563 votes. Boebert calls for more “grace” in government. Her demonstration of grace is toting a gun on Capitol Hill and shouting at Joe Biden while he was trying to deliver the State of the Union. Adam Frisch has already launched his 2024 campaign. If you aren’t ready to donate, leave a message on Lauren Boebert’s office phone 202-225-4761 saying that graceful people eschew shouting during the State of the Union. If you want to boost Adam Frisch, there is no time like the present. |
It seems like the course of events in America means activists are called upon to enter the fray every single week. That’s the way it is going to be. There isn’t any alternative, and the rewards are plentiful.
David Harrison
Bainbridge Island, Washington
