I can’t tell you exactly when I, a “Confirmed Independent” became a Democrat, but I can tell you what lead me to that decision in two words: Fox News.
That’s right, the “Fair and Balanced” mouthpiece of the GOP, AKA Bullshit Mountain™, AKA Faux News, AKA “The Obama is a Tyrant Network”, is exactly what convinced me to register as a Democrat. The network designed, built and run to make me vote Republican did exactly the opposite of its goal. You wanna’ know what else? This is good for us, the informed voters.
Now you’re probably wondering what I’ve been drinking (just coffee, thanks for asking). Allow me explain…
Before I knew that Fox News was Biased with a capital “B”, I assumed that the “News” had an obligation to paint a fair picture of things (heck, they even tag themselves as Fair and Balanced). So I let a lot of questionable “news” stories pass without any credibility check, and started to notice a trend. That trend was promoting the “conservative agenda” and damning the “liberals”. This didn’t seem to register in my psyche until sometime during the first Obama campaign, and I can’t tell you exactly what story is was (possibly a birther piece), but at one point on one day about six years ago, my Bovine Excrement meter pegged out.
Something in my head questioned, “How could this POSSIBLY be true? If this is true, this would be the biggest story ever in the history of journalism!” So I started to do some searching, and found that with about ten seconds of research, I could debunk it all. “Curious”, I thought, “Surely they’ll publish a retraction.” Yet that retraction never came.
This became something of a game for me, and I still play it. Read a crazy report on the “Fear and Bullshit” network, spend a few minutes searching Snopes.com, Politifacts, or other sites and see how quickly I could prove it false. Obama has taken more vacations than any president ever? Click click click, Oh look, G. W. Bush took more days off than Obama. The IRS is targeting Teabaggers? Click click click, Oh look, to be a non-profit you are supposed to stay out of politics. Obamacare has death panels?...
Fox News is so focused on finding an impeachable scandal, they are willing to throw anything against the wall to see if it will stick. They know that our current congress (GOP controlled) has the votes to impeach our president; they just lack the offense. So what does the Fox say? “Benghazi!” Over and over again. Besides the Teabaggers, does anybody still take this seriously? And in the process, what did I find out about myself? I’m a Democrat.
While none of what I’ve said so far is likely news, the next part may surprise: This helps Democrats.
That’s right. The fact that Fox News repeats ad nauseam how terrible the current administration is, how he’s a tyrant, how anyone in their right mind would see through it all and vote straight ticket Republican is good for us. Why? Because somewhere in the repeated messaging, the Republicans forget that this is their message, and they actually start to believe it. They scream Benghazi, Fox screams Benghazi, and they think “Wow, just like we thought, the public is upset about Benghazi! We’ll ride this horse into the elections!”
The Republicans say “These poll results can’t be true! True Americans (i.e. straight, white males over 60) love us!” and Fox says, “Find someone to un-skew the polls!” They do so, and the Republicans say “Yay! We were right, Romney in a landslide!” Then when reality strikes, they have a few moments of clarity. “Maybe we need to adjust our message?” They think for a few days.
But then what? They listen to their own network, once again forgetting that it’s their message. So about a year later they shut down the government. “It’s what the people want – I heard it on Fox!” And as a result, GOP popularity drops to record low levels and they make the biggest strategic error I can recall – taking the focus off of the launch issues with the Affordable Care Act and putting in on how Congress is really a bunch of crying toddlers. This is the echo-chamber, and it helps us in the long run.
In conclusion, carry on, dear Fox. Your support is greatly appreciated!
-Jim Peters
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