GOP strategist Steve Schmidt said that Fox News is no longer a conservative network, but an authoritarian state run TV channel.
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Schmidt said, “It is important to understand that the abnormality of what’s happening here, this allegation that there’s a deep state, that there’s a conspiracy within, that there’s a fifth column in the intelligence services, in the law enforcement community, deeply embedded in the American justice system, that is attacking the constitution, the legitimacy of the presidency of this president, all of this is the hallmark of autocratic behavior. In every autocratic system that’s ever been, there’s always been the allegation of conspiracy. It, of course, conveniently also includes scapegoating of an ethnic minority. We can think about that insidious and terrible ad that the president’s campaign team had up on the air over the weekend. So this conspiracy is abetted by members of the Republican majority in the Congress and it’s abetted a television network that’s increasingly come to resemble state-run TV in an autocratic society much more than it H been as a conservative television network as we would have recognized it in the past.”
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The Fox News that was spreading extremist conservative ideology and feeding red meat to the base is no more. What used to be conservative is now an around the clock cult-like devotional to Trump. Fox News is preaching to an audience of one. They have created a dangerous bubble where the president is governing based on what he sees on the Fox News propaganda network.
It is equally authoritarian and dangerous to both our media and democracy. Fox News has moved from a fact-free cheerleading outfit for the Republican Party to the echo chamber that guides a semi-literate president. Fox News is what Trump wants all media to become, and it is a dangerous template for the demise of the free press and the hands of a small-minded authoritarian.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
