Talk radio and Fox News Channel are lashing out at Democrats with White House talking points and blindly defending their Dear Leader in an utterly fact free, indeed, counterfactual series of screeds, rants and ravings. Trump’s Congressional defenders have a ready and full outlet for more of the same, directed at the rank and file of Cult 45, whose benighted adherents carefully steer clear of any source of information not blessed by the Holy Mother Church of Trump, Fox and Limbaugh. This media/political discipline unavoidably evokes memories of the way that Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels used German media in the 1930’s to convert an educated and cultured people into soulless mass murders.
Trump and the Republicans have the most powerful propaganda weapons, in their hands, that have ever been available to past American political figures. Will it be powerful enough to save Trump from impeachment?
No!
Starting with cable TV, while Fox historically has had more viewers than MSNBC or CNN, that less often has been the case, recently. Further, combined, MSNBC and CNN have a much larger audience than Fox. But, more importantly, the loyal cadre of old white men who stay tuned in to FNC are dwarfed by the much larger group of Americans who get their news from the broadcast network programs. For example, according to Showbiz Cheat Sheet , earlier this year —
With Fox News’s blind dedication to all things GOP and Trump, it can often seem like it’s Fox against the rest of the news industry. However, in terms of raw numbers, it’s really Fox pitted against MSNBC and CNN (which have more combined viewers). Compared to the major broadcast networks (the old Big Three), there’s no real contest.
In the third quarter of 2018, ABC World News Tonight averaged over 8 million viewers, or more than three times the number of viewers taking in Fox News during prime time. NBC Nightly News (7.5 million viewers in Q3) also tripled the audiences measured by Nielsen.
CBS Evening News, by far the lowest-rated broadcast of the bunch, still managed to double the average of Fox News in prime time with 5.6 million viewers.
In the 25-54 age group, NBC (1.85 million) and ABC (1.77 million) evening news programs both tripled audiences in that demographic watching Hannity, Tucker, and Ingraham on a nightly basis.
On a related topic, despite the loyal followers enjoyed by conservative talk radio, listenership on, e.g., National Public Radio’s drive time programs, has outpaced Rush Limbaugh’s audience since 2016, while sports radio and entertainment stations reduce conservative talk radio’s audience to an even relatively smaller demographic speck of, again, old white guys.
Every sign, so far, is that accurate coverage of the Whistleblower scandal will be raining down on the vast majority of citizens from all of the non FOX, non-talk radio, yet, myriad sources that provide non-brain dead Americans with news and current events information. Clear facts, of unmistakable, horrific misconduct by this President and his corrupt enablers, along with detailed knowledge of those facts, is spreading fast, far and deeply.
Trump cultists will continue to be misled and misinformed by the Trump sycophants at Fox News and on conservative AM radio, but those audiences of old, stupid white dudes will be helpless to change the actual facts or the outcome. This will be true at the ballot box in November 2020, too, even if Trump survives his Senate trial through acquittal by the old white Republican dudes (and/or Susan Collins) in the U.S. Senate.
The truth is coming out. Trump can’t stop it. Limbaugh can’t stop it. Fox News Channel can’t stop it.