What kind of effects do we see when large numbers of people are consuming baseless propaganda under the impression that it’s news journalism? Well, a study conducted by Cambridge’s Journal of Politics found that all Americans — not just evangelical Christians or diehard Republicans — are susceptible to Fox News’ message. Democratic members of Congress became more sympathetic to Republican causes after being exposed to Fox News. Their hostility toward Mexican immigration increased, for example, as did their belief in inaccuracies about climate change and the Iraq war. Fox News deliberately misinforms its viewers about things like climate change to score political capital, and most scientists now believe the earth is on the brink of its sixth mass extinction. Fox News not only fosters a culture of terror and hate; it also purposefully contributes to the destruction of the literal planet.
Though Fox News will deny it, one of the reasons Donald Trump has been so successful in Republican Primary polls is that he’s explicitly saying what Fox News has been using coded messages to say for the last decade. Fox has convinced their viewership that brown people are inherently criminal, and black people are inherently lazy, and gay people are in opposition to God, and women don’t deserve the same rights as men or control over their own bodies. It’s not surprising that when Trump bluntly gives voice to these opinions, many Republicans — the majority of whom consume Fox News at least weekly — support him. He is doing nothing more than parroting the message of Fox News with more directness. When two white dudes attack a homeless Latino man and pee on him, citing Donald Trump as their inspiration, that is a direct effect of Fox News propaganda cycle.
My goal with this article isn’t to ridicule people who watch Fox News; my goal is to to make plain this deliberate, manipulative cycle Fox traps its viewers inside, so we can use our knowledge to begin to set our friends and family free.
Armed with these truths, maybe we won’t all feel so helpless during this election season.