ARE WE FINALLY SEEING CONSERVATIVES JUMP THE SHARK?
From the Daily Beast, courtesy of a facebook friend:
Why Tea Partiers Are Boycotting Fox News
Is Fox News going soft?
That is what a number of Tea Party activists are saying and they are organizing a boycott to protest the conservative station’s coverage, especially what they view as the network’s relative silence in investigating the attacks on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.
“Particularly after the election, Fox keeps turning to the left,” said Stan Hjerlied, 75, of Fort Collins, Colo., and a participant in the boycott. He pointed to an interview Fox News CEO Roger Ailes gave after the election in which he said that the Republican Party and Fox News need to modernize, especially around immigration. “So we are really losing our only conservative network.”
More here.
From Wikipedia:
So this shark-jumping moment doesn't really have much to do with Democrats mounting an effective response to years of right-wing fear-mongering. No, if this is in fact the beginning of the end, it's because what was once a strength, the desire to destroy everything because modern life is frightening, has become a weakness. That is, Americans are no longer afraid of the things conservatives have traditionally wanted them to fear, and, without meaningful targets, the conservatives have nowhere else to direct their ire but themselves. Thus, the Tea Party, which Fox News had more than a small part in creating, has turned on Fox News. We've been seeing this dynamic coming into play for the last few years, what with the huge number of primary challenges hardcore conservatives have been receiving across the nation. But this Fox News thing is almost laughable. It's, like, really? Fox News is too liberal?
The self-destruction of the American Conservative Movement will be painful for everybody, as the crazies seek to pull the whole house down of top of us all, but there are definitely going to be moments of delicious irony such as this from time to time. It almost makes the ongoing strife worth it. Almost.
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“Particularly after the election, Fox keeps turning to the left,” said Stan Hjerlied, 75, of Fort Collins, Colo., and a participant in the boycott. He pointed to an interview Fox News CEO Roger Ailes gave after the election in which he said that the Republican Party and Fox News need to modernize, especially around immigration. “So we are really losing our only conservative network.”
More here.
From Wikipedia:
The usage of "jump the shark" has subsequently broadened beyond television, indicating the moment when a brand, design, or creative effort's evolution loses the essential qualities that initially defined its success and declines, ultimately, into irrelevance.I'm not sure, but I think it was Rick Perlstein who observed a few years back that Richard Nixon was the first in American politics to understand that one could forge successful coalitions against ideas instead of for them. Since then, this notion has become the unifying feature of American conservatism. Sure, some of their ideas are typically phrased as being "for" something, but don't be fooled: when they say they're for "small government," it effectively means that they're against government; when they say they're for "family values," it effectively means that they're against gays, single mothers, and sex. And they've gotten a lot of mileage out of this approach, essentially removing hope from the political landscape and replacing it with fear. The Democrats never knew what hit them, and still don't, really.
So this shark-jumping moment doesn't really have much to do with Democrats mounting an effective response to years of right-wing fear-mongering. No, if this is in fact the beginning of the end, it's because what was once a strength, the desire to destroy everything because modern life is frightening, has become a weakness. That is, Americans are no longer afraid of the things conservatives have traditionally wanted them to fear, and, without meaningful targets, the conservatives have nowhere else to direct their ire but themselves. Thus, the Tea Party, which Fox News had more than a small part in creating, has turned on Fox News. We've been seeing this dynamic coming into play for the last few years, what with the huge number of primary challenges hardcore conservatives have been receiving across the nation. But this Fox News thing is almost laughable. It's, like, really? Fox News is too liberal?
The self-destruction of the American Conservative Movement will be painful for everybody, as the crazies seek to pull the whole house down of top of us all, but there are definitely going to be moments of delicious irony such as this from time to time. It almost makes the ongoing strife worth it. Almost.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
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