The average American watches TV more than five hours a day. Most of that is “live” coverage. Fox news is the most watched network and a must for President Trump. He purportedly watches daily especially in the morning hours. His understanding of what is happening in the U.S. and worldwide comes not from his aides but primarily from watching Fox news.
It is sad, because what passes for the news on Fox TV and talk radio is a daily diet of anti-American propaganda driven by a Republican agenda based on negativity and fear.
This agenda invariably presents a dystopian view of America as losing because of Democrats, liberals and non-white immigrants. Distrust is the watchword. Conspiracies are everywhere. Even our own institutions are supposedly run by the mythical “deep state” according to Fox and Limbaugh orthodoxy. Overseas, bogeymen like ISIS, Iran and Muslims in general—just about everyone but Russia—are ranked as major enemies all out of proportion to their real power.
It is a blatantly false narrative motivated by ratings and profit. It is the principle reason the country is now saddled with a bitterly partisan Republican party led by a President who veers wildly from issue to issue depending on what he sees and hears each morning on Fox News.
The truth is we have the largest, best equipped and funded military in the world. It is larger than the next six countries combined. Our economy is strong. California, constantly portrayed on Fox news as a failed welfare state, overrun with illegal minorities and welfare recipients and taxed nearly to death is thriving. Most Red states are not. If it were a separate country, California would be the sixth largest economy in the world. Christians are not under attack as routinely touted by Fox news. The diversity and religious freedom Americans enjoy are the envy of the rest of the world.
The good news is that in 2018, the angry vocal minority nurtured by the lies on Fox news and talk radio is being confronted by the majority. Alternative facts are being exposed for what they are and their President for who he is. Values like honesty, fairness, science, and tolerance are winning over the sleaze and distortions that won in 2016. America is returning to the values that made us a great nation and beacon of hope in the world.
