Fox News, under the reported direction of Rupert Murdoch, made its move against Trump recently, and now it has done the same against Tucker Carlson.
Executives apparently suffer the delusion that they’re somehow going to steer the grassroots Republicans back into the safe and trusted (by them) hands of Mitch McConnell and Liz Cheney and all of her daddy’s friends at Halliburton.
After all Tucker’s lies and defamation, it’s about time. https://t.co/RMTytoy1WL
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) April 24, 2023
It’s not going to happen.
Tucker Carlson was the only thing Fox News had going for it. (Laura Ingraham does good work at times as well, and I suspect she’ll also be purged in due time.)
Soon, the only human-resource assets left at Fox News will be Sean Hannity clones throwing flag-themed footballs around the set to remind everyone that they’re totally all-American cowboys and not actually Manhattan millionaires milking their gullible audiences for all they’re worth.
To the extent that there is any substance to Fox News’ programming outside of the now-vanquished Tucker Carlson and soon-to-be Laura Ingraham (speculation), it’s all stale, focus-group GOP talking points supplied by the likes of Frank Luntz, favorite son of the incestuous D.C. swamp machine.
Longtime Fox News chief Roger Ailes was infamously much more interested in how short he could get the female news actresses’ skirts than in speaking truth to power. He cared so little about substance that he monitored his network with the sound muted because aesthetics are all that matters to Fox News.
Fox News has always played footsie with the establishment. It only goes as far rhetorically as it is allowed to and still be able to get a front-row seat to the White House press briefings.
Speaking of which, Peter Doocy’s questions are more surface-level garbage of the sort Fox News specializes in. They are seemingly probing and adversarial enough to maintain the façade but not penetrating enough to ever actually challenge the political power structure. That’s why Doocy and Jen Psaki are actually very good friends; they just played adversaries on television.
Whoa! Is Doocy a towering giant, or is Psaki really short? pic.twitter.com/9EYvCeZP3S
— Theo Jordan (@Theo_TJ_Jordan) May 13, 2022
Bill O’Reilly protégé Jesse Watters, who has been floated as Tucker Carlson’s replacement, is a goofy Boy Scout type who has gotten where he is by enthusiastically reading whatever is in the teleprompter. He has, or appears to have, no appreciable insight into how politics actually works. He’s content to merely repeat GOP talking points and take the checks.
Interviewing ridiculous liberal arts university students and dunking on cringe politicians like Lori Lightfoot is not difficult or interesting, but it is exactly the kind of low-hanging fruit that Fox News loves. More than that, it’s safely partisan and superficial.
Fox News has a large boomer audience for now. Its average viewer age is around 65. But unless the laws of nature are overturned overnight, that audience will dwindle at a quickening pace in the coming years.
What Fox News did by ousting Tucker Carlson was try to make it a safe space again for corporate advertisers, who will never boycott Sean Hannity because Sean is a good boy. Sean loves corporations and the national security state that they run. He most especially loves war — not enough to go fight one but enough to sell them on TV for money.
The Deep State adores neocons. Sean Hannity could renounce his Trumpism today, do a public mea culpa groveling media campaign, and land a primetime MSNBC slot within a week because that’s how much mutual affinity Hannity and MSNBC have for the defense contractors who run American foreign policy. Two peas in a pod, those two.
Of course, they would vehemently disagree. But those disagreements are mostly for theater. They don’t really mean it. They serve the same masters and do so admirably from their knees.
Tucker doesn’t, which is why his odd marriage to Fox News was never long for this world. It’s amazing, actually, that he lasted six and a half years.
The only reason he did last at Fox News, of course, is that he delivered numbers. His show was far and away the most popular not just on Fox News but on all cable news for the reasons I have elaborated on so far, among others.
Jesse Watters or whatever sad hack is currently being groomed to replace Tucker in his slot won’t do half of Carlson’s numbers. Mark it down in stone.
It turns out, which Fox News is fixing to learn, that not so many viewers sadomasochistically enjoy being pandered to by fake conservatives living their best cushy lives in Manhattan. They rather prefer being treated like adults and told hard truths.
Tucker did that for a time at Fox News, and I have no doubt he’ll do it again wherever he lands next.
