Save America: Boycott Fox Advertisers

America is in deep trouble. The glue holding it together is dissolving. To say we’re divided into mutually hostile tribes is stating the obvious. But it’s not just differences of opinion. That you’ll always have in a vibrant democracy. What we’ve got are two tribes inhabiting very different realities.

I’ve written (in 2013) of my “ideology of reality.” That means one’s opinions being shaped by reality — as opposed to letting your opinions shape the reality you see. Applying that, I can see one of our conflicting tribal realities is basically true and the other is false. Tellingly, the latter is that embraced by what was previously my own tribe. The reality I saw changed my opinion. That’s objectivity.

It helps to have a deep grounding of knowledge about history, the world, how institutions work, science, etc. Not false “knowledge” from conspiracy theorists. The background knowledge I’m talking about equips one to properly judge what’s believable or not. Unfortunately such a knowledge base is rare.

Still, people ask me how Republicans can blind themselves to a reality so obvious as the Trump administration’s vileness. Trashing every value they supposedly once held dear. A key factor is today’s internet and social media echo chamber culture. I recall a study showing that with a group of generally like-minded people convened in a room, their average viewpoint tends to shift toward that of the most extreme among them. The internet and social media propel this.

But it’s increasingly clear the single biggest cause is Fox News. That about 40% of Americans still — still!— approve of Trump is largely thanks to the Fox alternative reality machine. People imagine there are two sides to every question, so you’re free to believe the one you like. And Fox, if nothing else, gives seeming legitimacy to its false reality, enabling people to feel okay believing it.

Fox was originally conceived as a counter to mainstream media’s liberal slant. Not an unreasonable concept. Mainstream media’s people do tend to share the generally liberal viewpoint typical among America’s educated intelligentsia. However, mainstream media nevertheless strives hard to play it straight. Take PBS’s “Washington Week,” with reporters discussing the news. Watching them, it’s always hard — maddeningly hard — to discern their personal opinions.

Not so with Fox. “Fair and balanced?” Well, they’ve dropped that slogan. Real news outlets draw a bright line between news reporting and opinion. On Fox, it’s all spin. Full of nonsense to boot. Fox people don’t go on “Washington Week.”

Still, if you want a broadcaster providing right-wing opinion, even right-wing nonsense and lies, it’s a free country. But Fox is not merely that either. It’s the regime’s propaganda mouthpiece. As in Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and today’s North Korea and Russia. We’ve never before had such a thing in America.

Scary enough if there were a normal presidential administration. But, worse yet, ours is not, with its war on democratic institutions, on truth, and on truthful media. Melded with a broadcaster accomplice, that’s a deadly combination.

So Fox is a central culprit in creating the false alternate reality its viewers inhabit. Where Trump is the good guy full of accomplishment making America great again, while his critics are the corrupt wicked traitorous lying criminals. A total black-is-white bizarro reality. Just look at Fox’s promotion of Trump’s vicious “Obamagate” hoax.

That’s not just my opinion. Most sensible people understand what Fox is doing, it’s such a blatant disgrace. And it won’t stop with Trump’s defeat. Expect Fox to mount a guerrilla war of lies against the Biden administration.

Fox corrodes the very fabric of our democratic society. When a future Gibbon chronicles America’s decline and fall, Fox News will be front and center, and readers will shake their heads in bafflement that we let this happen.

So what can be done?

Fox News could be bombed. Maybe catching Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham, Pirro, Dobbs all present. You could do that. “But it would be wrong.”

Or a Biden administration could investigate Fox to death, killing it with criminal prosecutions and fines. Or even just yank its broadcasting license. But that too would be wrong. (Very Trumpian.) Our First Amendment gives even the Fox creeps the right to spew their disgusting bilge.

My better answer: boycott Fox’s advertisers. That’s its lifeblood. They buy ads to make money, and if they’ll lose more business than they gain, they’ll quit. Tell them enabling Fox’s lies will tarnish their brands.

Small quiet acts of conscience by decent-thinking Americans aren’t enough. Make it loud and public to get advertisers’ attention. “Boycott Fox Advertisers” — BFA— has to go viral.

Googling, I found this list:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/these-are-fox-news-leading-advertisers

Also at least two online petitions for such a boycott:

https://act.freepress.net/sign/media_drop_fox/?source=web-action

https://action.mediamatters.org/secure/dropfox/thank-you?sid=767868

And, of course, please share widely what I’ve written here.