Rupert Murdoch acknowledged last week that his flagship American media outlet Fox News has systematically lied to its vulnerable audience about critical national affairs.
Murdoch agreed to pay voting systems company Dominion a staggering $787.5 million to settle defamation action, the biggest payout to a single plaintiff in history.
This is one of several developments bolstering the Turnbull thesis and offering hope for violence to return to pre-Trump levels.
The Turnbull thesis vindicated
Criminologists and others in the USA and beyond were dismayed at the surge in physical attacks across America beginning in late 2015. What was causing this dramatic increase in all categories of violence, after decades of steady decline? See mauve chart, below.
Of the few theories offered only one fits the evidence. The violence has been driven by the pact between Donald Trump and Fox News to concoct and spread a long list of malicious lies which have generated widespread fear, anger and hatred. The intended outcomes were elevated visibility and more votes for Trump and higher revenues and greater control for the Murdochs.
The inevitable consequences – dramatic increases in injuries and deaths – were sacrifices they were willing to make.
This unwritten pact gave Trump ready access to Fox programs. His monologues – usually by phone, usually uninterrupted – sometimes lasted 50 minutes. He frequently called for violent attacks against political enemies.
Among observers to have identified the Trump/Fox News pact as the cause of the surge in killings since 2015, the most prominent is former conservative Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, thus giving him naming rights.
Turnbull told NPR in the USA last August that,
“Fox News has played by far the largest single part in the polarization of American politics, in the amplification of political hatred. I would challenge anyone to nominate which individual alive today has done more to undermine American democracy than Rupert Murdoch ... Fox News is not the only source of this madness, but it is by far the single most influential one.”
Latest evidence for the Turnbull thesis
At least four recent developments bolster the thesis. First, the ongoing trial of five Proud Boys in Washington on charges including seditious conspiracy confirms Trump’s calls to his followers on 6 January 2021 led directly to violence.
One defence lawyer told the court it was Trump, not the Proud Boys, who "unleashed the mob" that breached the Capitol.
Second, the judge in Trump’s upcoming rape trial made the extraordinary ruling that jury members would remain anonymous. Judge Lewis Kaplan said “the jury needs the protection” because of “a very strong risk that jurors will fear harassment, unwanted invasions of their privacy and retaliation.”
Third, analysis published recently by Third Way shows murder rates are higher in pro-Trump states than in others. See grey graph, below.
What Third Way’s article does not highlight but their graph shows clearly is that the divergence between the red and blue lines increased significantly from 2015 onwards.
Fourth, the World Bank development indicators confirm the surge in violence post 2015 was confined to the USA. It was due to domestic rather than global influences. See white chart at the top of this diary.
Hopeful prospects
Overall, this has been a good month for America and the world. Crime data for 2022 gradually being released shows a decline in violence as the influence of Trump and News Corp recedes. See mauve chart, above.
If the world can finally be rid of both forever, things will be even better.
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This is an abbreviated version of an article published today in Independent Australia. The original article is available here in full for free:
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/latest-evidence-for-turnbull-thesis-good-news-for-battered-americans,17449
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