President Donald Trump has been losing support among his base on issues ranging from the economy to his corruption, but despite that it has been conventional wisdom since his first presidential campaign that aligning with Trump's movement attracts audiences to media outlets.
Now the biggest conservative media outlet of all is finding that's no longer the case — and adjusting accordingly.
"It was satisfying to learn that Fox “News,” long the biggest blight on American journalism, is losing viewers just before a momentous election," reported Dan Rather and Team Steady on Thursday. "And it’s not a small drop. Fox has lost more than a quarter of its viewers compared to a year ago. It was the largest decline of any cable news channel in the month before an election in a decade, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Fox still has the largest audience of any American cable news channel. But while Fox has been losing viewers, CNN and MS NOW have both been gaining."
Rather and Team Steady added, "It turns out that this election is just not much of a turn-on for the propagandists at Fox. The downward trend at the cable channel matches the drop in approval ratings of the president, whose numbers have fallen off a cliff. So who is dragging down whom? Fox believes it’s Trump. The channel has long deemed Trump rallies must-see TV. This month, not so much. In October, it aired only nine of 24 Trump events."
They continued, "And when they do air them, the man-on-the-street interviews aren’t what they used to be. At a Trump rally to support Senate candidate Darline Graham in South Carolina on Thursday, a Fox reporter asked an attendee why he was there. “There’s nothing like seeing a cult right up front,” he responded. The reporter quickly abandoned the interview."
Speaking with AlterNet in August, cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan explained that Trump and his movement are indeed cult-like, in large part because they are encouraged to remain loyal to the president even when his behavior actively harms them. He achieves this by creating an in-group/out-group mentality.
"We are social beings, and we're emotional beings primarily," Hassan told AlterNet. "So a key point in my BITE [Behavior, Information, Thought and Emotional] model of authoritarian control is information control. I emphasize how these destructive groups, like the Trump movement, are lying all the time. And part of the appeal is really about using emotionally leading rhetoric to scare people, to create "the other," to demonize. I'll quote Eric Hoffer's 1951 book, "The True Believer." He said, "The strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil." We know that, evolutionarily, we're going to overreact to anything that's a perceived danger or threat to us."
Hassan added, "So "owning the libs" means that they are a danger, and he's going to save people from them."
