The headline and subtitle in this HUFFPOST article published today tells the story:
The HUFFPOST article begins:
The almost consistently Donald Trump-friendly New York Post called the president out in a surprising, scathing editorial Sunday on his attempted “coup” attacking a legitimate, democratic election — and told him to get back to work.
“Mr. President, it’s time to end this dark charade,” the editorial began in the tabloid, owned by Trump’s right-wing backer Rupert Murdoch.
“We’re one week away from an enormously important moment for the next four years of our country,” which he should be focusing on, it added, referring to the double Senate runoff in Georgia on Jan. 5.
“Unfortunately, you’re obsessed with the next day, Jan. 6, when Congress will, in a pro forma action, certify the Electoral College vote. You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have ’courage, they can overturn the results and give you four more years in office. In other words, you’re cheering for an undemocratic coup,” the piece slammed.
“You had every right to investigate the election,” the editorial added. “But let’s be clear: Those efforts have found nothing.
The New York Post is not widely read outside of New York City where it and the liberal NY Daily News are the two most read tabloids. Fox News of course reaches millions with their pro-Trump message coming from their influential hosts like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, John Watters, and Laura Ingraham, and whoever the hell these people are:
Donald Trump is addicted to watching these shows and often takes advice from their hosts not just from what they suggest on TV but in phone conversations.
It makes the news when the Fox pure news reporters accurately reports actual news about Trump which he denies. See “Trump v Fox News: why the president is furious at the conservative network” for example.
Trump has an off again on again love affair with the most watched cable news station. He tweets against them when they don’t tow his line, but even in his egotism he knows it isn’t possible to steer many viewers away from Fox News to OAN or Newsmax.
He went bonkers when Fox News reported this joining the other networks in calling the election for Biden:
Recently he no doubt went ballistic when Fox News reported this:
On Nov. 7th Brian Stelter wrote this on CNN: Analysis: Are Fox News and Murdoch world turning on Trump?
Keep in mind the following was from Nov. 7th:
For the past several days, there has been significant speculation that Murdoch world is shifting positions as it prepares for a post-Trump world, with people trying to read various tea leaves.
Yes, there are some signs that arms of Murdoch's empire have taken a more assertive position against the President. But there are other signs that Murdoch is still in Trump's camp. So let's run through some of the key developments.
Fox propagandists aren't letting up
This is the most obvious point: The most visible faces in Murdoch's media empire, his pro-Trump propagandists, have not taken their foot off the gas. If anything, they've chosen to floor it.
The rhetoric coming from Fox's biggest stars is not only irresponsible, it is dangerous. And the Murdochs and Fox executives are the ones green-lighting it, allowing it to happen on their air. If Murdoch has actually flipped on Trump, it sure isn't coming through in what is arguably the most powerful arm of his media empire...
The salient question is whether Rupert Murdoch in allowing this N.Y. Post editorial to be published has signaled a major change which could do more to influence those members of the Trump cult that he has convinced the election was stolen from him by cheating corrupt Democrats to reconsider. If Trump wants to reach his cult and Fox News doesn’t cover his rants and rallies all he really has left is his Twitter account with 88.5 million followers. Considering that if he had received 88.5 million votes with enough in the right states he would have won the election, it is debatable how effective his tweets are. It remains to be seen whether Twitter and the other pro-Trump media are enough to get his messages across without Fox News.
Of all his followers we can’t know how many read a given tweet although because he is the account holder he can determine this. For example I can see that 556 people clicked on this tweet of mine:
The people to watch on Fox News are Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and to a lesser extent, John Watters and Laura Ingraham. I suppose since Trump watches Fox and Friends it will be significant if they start sending him the new message too. If all the hosts change their tune it will mean the boss has decided to send a clear message to Trump through them to get over what the NY Post called an obsession.
You can bet that if Murdoch calls Trump directly today to tell him to give it up he will take the call. Whether he will heed his admonition remains to be seen. Who can tell the scorpion not to sting the frog?
Here’s a take on this story from my perspective as a retired psychotherapist who has posted many stories about Trump’s psychopathology in my Trumpology story group on Daily Kos going back to 1/14/17 (here in list form).
The N.Y. post used the word “insanity” in their giant headline. Of course this is a legal term which in common parlance is synonymous with crazy, and is not a psychiatric diagnosis. In the editorial they wrote that Trump had an obsession and say he was having a tantrum, and even though they didn’t use the psychiatric term delusion, obsessions are described in the DSM-5 too.
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Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance as intrusive and inappropriate, and that cause marked anxiety and distress.
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The person attempts to suppress or ignore such thoughts, impulses, or images or to neutralize them with some other thought or action.
It is possible, perhaps likely, that Rupert Murdoch has finally admitted to himself that it isn’t in his interest to keep allowing his media empire to back someone he has probably known for some time was mentally unbalanced, and who won't be in power after January 20th. Media moguls get to be media moguls by predicting what their audiences will be interested in down the road, not what interests them today.
It is possible Murdoch has seen the handwriting on the wall, a most apropos way to describe this since “the phrase originated from an Old Testament story about Daniel. While a king was holding the Jews captive in Babylon in the sixth century BC a mysterious hand appeared, writing on the wall of the king's palace. The king called upon Daniel, who interpreted it to mean that God intended the king and his kingdom to fall. The king was slain that night.”
Let’s hope so.