Former Republican and the founder of The Lincoln Project, Rick Wilson, once again let his smug show when he compared Fox News viewers to a “monster” the network created that has now broken “out of the lab” and can no longer be controlled.
Wilson appeared on MSNBC’s “The Beat” on Friday and, along with guest host Jason Johnson, hurled hateful insults at those who watch the network that is crushing MSNBC in the ratings.
(Video: MSNBC)
Johnson cited an equally offensive New York Times article that claimed “Fox Chased Its Audience Down the Rabbit Hole” with respect to the 2020 presidential election and the network’s fight against a $1.6 billion lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.
“Rupert Murdoch built an empire by giving viewers exactly what they wanted,” The Times wrote. “But what they wanted — election lies and insurrection — put that empire (and the country) in peril.”
Johnson asked Wilson to help him decide whether Fox News created a “racist audience” or if Rupert Murdoch is just exploiting the 35% percent of racists that have always existed in America.
“I want to ask you this question because it’s something I am conflicted with as a professor of journalism at Oregon State University,” Johnson said. “How much of this is Fox-created, this sort of racist audience, created this sort of appetite for tabloid journalism and divisive tops? How much did they create and how much of this was Rupert Murdoch just tapping into what’s always been about 35% of America anyway?”
According to Wilson, there’s “nothing more powerful as a normative force” in conservative politics than Fox News, but the network created a “racist” monster that is now in control of “the lab.”
“Yes, there was always a baseline there,” Wilson said of the Fox News audience. “But this is like a laboratory experiment where they’re trying to give a monster super strength, and it keeps growing and growing and growing. Then it breaks out of the lab.”
“And so, what you have now is an audience more powerful than the network,” he stated. “They had this arrogant idea that they could always move the audience back into the stall, back into the box. They could make them go back to sleep. But they can’t. And now they realize, if they try to educate the ineducable, if they try to reform the irreformable, they will be destroyed themselves by the audience.”
“The Republican Party wanted to activate just enough of the racist vote here and there, they wanted to activate the populist vote here and there, and then suddenly, the people they didn’t really like, but they needed, became the masters of the entire party,” he continued.”That’s the same problem Fox has right now.”
Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch is just “too old,” Wilson said to grasp the reality of his situation.
“I think that Rupert is too old and stubborn to understand, he’s lost all of his power over them,” he stated. “They control Fox, not the other way around.”
Said one Twitter user in response to the segment: “2 stupid scumbags.”
2 stupid scumbags
— dave Johnson (@djj373) April 7, 2023
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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