As Trump continues to Tweet his frustrations away, and blatantly lying or, according to Twitter “making disputed claims” he has turned his back on Fox. As Trump continues to claim election fraud over baseless, desperate, alleged examples, even Fox News has stopped parroting everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth. As Fox News and top Republicans, including Melania and Jared, try to encourage the President to concede to Biden, he has now turned against Fox and is encouraging his followers to instead focus on NewsMax and OANN (One American News Network). As soon as Fox stopped supporting his narrative, Trump threw the network under the bus and has now grouped them in with the rest of the “fake mainstream media”. Fox News Network’s YouTube channel is now flooded with dislikes and comments denouncing their “bias” coverage – all done by former loyal viewers. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the cable channel Newsmax has been highlighted as a competitor media to Fox. The article reports that the channels viewership and popularity skyrocketed after the election, further promoting Trump’s allegations. Though plans remain tentative, it does bring attention to the fact that Trump is not ready to leave the political spotlight. There are rumors that he may run again in 2024, and if he were to find an outlet set on promoting him, who is to say his popularity won’t rise? Though Biden may have won, the race was way too close for comfort bringing attention to the fact that tensions may continue all over the country. As many Trump supporters refuse to accept any mainstream sources of news, what other sensational and out-of-touch outlets will they turn to?
Victoria,
An interesting blog post! Yes, it certainly does appear that the current president has soured on Fox News, after years and years of deep immersion and slavish parroting of whatever their bloviators said on the air. Some have speculated, and I would include myself in this category, that Trump may hope to buy one of the extreme right-wing networks and make it his personal platform, whether or not he decides to run in 2024. Of course, that raises the question of whether he could find the money to buy a network, given that he is reportedly more than $400 million in debt. At this point, who would lend to him?
–Professor Wallerstein