Thread by @JYSexton

All right.

We need to talk about Trump, Fox News, OANN, the history of modern Right Wing propaganda, and how the pandemic will not only push the Right further into extremism but possibly result in a wildly-dangerous, state-run propaganda network.

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Any conversation about the modern Republican Party has to begin with Roger Ailes, a TV producer who shaped GOP messaging, infused it with paranoid racism, and all but destroyed any sense of shared reality.

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Famously, Ailes got his start with Richard Nixon and supplemented Nixon's need for a television strategy. He used his experience as a producer to turn Nixon into a presidential figure on the TV, complete with scripted campaign events that helped win the White House.

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Ailes's town halls for Nixon were scripted within an inch of their life and designed to present a watered-down racist message to the American people. It helped engineer Nixon's victory in 1968 and established the modern Republican roadmap to victory.

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Ailes worked with every major Republican presidential contender, helping Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush to craft racist messaging hidden behind a flag-waving veneer.

It shifted our view of reality, politics as we know it, and the strategy of the GOP.

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Fox News was the realization of Ailes's desire to create a permanent propaganda network for the Republican Party. It was explicitly designed to be a Right Wing alternative to CNN and "liberal media."

This was the intention, design, and goal. An explicit propaganda network.

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The ugly genius of Fox News was the "Fair & Balanced" moniker that hid the explicit Right Wing propaganda behind a veneer of fairness.

The message was that FNC was honest, a fair-broker, while the other networks were actually biased, propaganda machines.

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The "Fair & Balanced" moniker was wildly successful and told viewers that their opinions were actually reality, meaning everyone disagreeing was either brainwashed or acting in bad-faith.

This wasn't just a TV strategy, it was a dangerous and effective political one.

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People need to understand that Fox News actively moved the Overton Window in America and established far-right ideas as centered, meaning that there was still room for farther right-wing ideas to develop and find mainstream acceptance.

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Those who watched Glenn Beck during the Obama years recognized this phenomenon. Beck sold viewers on fever-dream paranoia, alleging massive New World Order conspiracies tinged with satanic undertones.

This was one of FNC's most popular shows and it drove discourse.

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Over time, the far-right components of Fox News metastasized into the fabricated Tea Party Movement that was extremely paranoid and unhinged, but eventually the GOP itself was swallowed up by it and had to endorse the extreme beliefs or else it would be overwhelmed.

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What happened was that Roger Ailes became increasingly paranoid, believing Obama was a Muslim who was trying to kill him.

Former Speak John Boehner said he talked to Ailes and found him with "black helicopters" whirling about his head in a paranoid frenzy.

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Faced with opposition from the Far Right, the GOP embraced the paranoia of the fabricated Tea Party. What we have now is a party that has been replaced with a paranoid death cult that only wins if it expertly reproduces the fever dream conspiracy theories.

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It isn't hard, obviously, to see how this leads to Donald Trump and Trumpism, which is the culmination of grift and paranoid conspiracy theorying. This is how FNC came to embrace Trump and his "movement," but the problem is that Trump wants more.

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This was entirely under-reported, but during his meetings with Kim Jong Un, Trump repeatedly wished for his own media like Kim's.

North Korea's state-run propaganda worships Kim like a living god and lavishes him with endless praise.

That's what Trump wants.

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Trump has repeatedly complained that Fox News, a literal propaganda network, is "tough" on him.

He literally believes, like many Fox viewers, that Fox is "Fair & Balanced," or rather the center of the political discourse. That means there's a far-right alternative.

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You'll notice of late that Trump has been more and more vocal of his displeasure with Fox News and has started pushing OANN as an alternative.

That's because the Overton Window continually moves. Trump is looking for his North Korea-style propaganda network.

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You have to understand.

Fox News belongs to the old GOP. It is the network of Reagan and the Bush's. It is the network of the old architecture that is still trying to stay current with trends and movements.

It was inevitable that a challenger would arise during Trumpism.

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OANN is that alternative.

It has come to prominence in the age of Trumpism and has no ties whatsoever to the old, increasingly-extinct GOP.

It is vying for more audience and more power, and more than willing to worship Trump for his favor.

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While Fox News has tried to praise Trump while still "reporting," OANN has all but jettisoned actual reality in favor of fawning propaganda.

This is how they have won Trump's favor. They are the propaganda network he dreamed of, his source of worship.

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While Fox worries over class action and defamation lawsuits, OANN is more than willing to host every member of Trump's inner circle to peddle literally any conspiracy or lie they want to sell.

The Overton Window has moved and this Far Right worldview is being embraced.

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This is why almost every press briefing includes an OANN question, and they use it to push war against China and conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic and Democratic traitors.

OANN is angling to be Trump's preferred propaganda outlet, and they're gaining ground.

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The narrative OANN is pushing now is the Plandemic conspiracy theory, implicating traitorous US figures, China, and the shutdown as a plot against America and Trump.

This is their main story and it is presented without question.

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There is a difference between Republicans who support Trump and the full-blown Trumpists. When the Trumpists turn on Fox News, they see a network that is cautious and biased.

They see Fox News as mainstream media because it's a relic of a party they're rebelling against.

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While OANN is more than willing to push the pandemic as a New World Order-style plot, Fox News still has to maintain a semblance of "credibility" to appeal to its older GOP base that expects a national news network.

This create a niche opportunity for OANN.

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For Trump, this is an opportunity. His failure and culpability with the pandemic means he's looking for a front that will clean his record and blame his rivals.

OANN is more than willing to do that while Fox still has to exist in a reality that at least resembles our own.

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If that isn't enough to concern you, consider recent reports that Donald Trump Jr. is linked to an investment group looking to invest in OANN.

We're watching the establishment of Trump-run media, one of the final pieces in any authoritarian state.

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We have to understand. Nothing is static. The Right Wing is increasingly become more paranoid and more unhinged. Fox helped birth this, but they will eventually be replaced by groups like OANN who are more than willing to go further, even if it means fascism.

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Listen to what Trump says. He is very open about what he wants.

He wants media that worships him. He has openly lusted for North Korean-dystopian media that presents him as a living god.

This is what he's always wanted, and he's in the process of getting it.

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Trumpism won't just stop. It's increasingly moving further right and dragging the GOP and media along with it.

And there's a marketing/profit opportunity here. OANN and others will find that opportunity and drag America further into the abyss.

See it. Recognize it.

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