Fox News Election Freak Out of this Year

Every two years Fox News picks some topic to harp on in for the election. This year they have 3 issues to push. But first, let's look back at their hits.

• ObamaCare 2010 & 2012 - This was a great drive of the "tea party", which pretended to be fiscally conservative - surprise after a Republican was elected, the "tea party" didn't bring up the deficit anymore, Even though Trump tripled it BEFORE Covid.
• 2012 - The Gay Marriage Crisis AND ObamaCare
• 2014 - The Ebola Crisis and the fear of Africans and anyone who had been to Africa.
• 2016 - Migrant Caravan and Hillarys Email
• 2018 - Migrant Caravans and the Affordable Care Act*
• 2020 - Migrant Caravans and Election Fraud

What is shocking (in retrospect) is that their issues always have black people at the center of the problem (that was sarcasm). Either Obama or migrants or Africa. What is less shocking is that these "priorities" always fade to nothing after the election. Fox News and the Republican party depend on riling the base because they don't really have an agenda they can discuss. Tax breaks for the wealthiest among us and packing the courts don't drive voters.

And, you really can't blame FOX News, at least as the propaganda arm of the Republican party. They have been successful in this. They scare the older people that watch the news, in order to turn out voters. Noe because any of these threats are real.

Now we have three problems they are pushing to scare people.

First: Critical Race Theory

This is oddly effective for viewers. Many states have passed laws against Critical Race Theory even though it isn't taught anywhere except college. But the reaction has been crazy to this phantom threat. 

• Texas has outlawed any teaching that makes white people feel bad. So they can't teach that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. They can't teach Jim Crow. They can't teach that Texas declared independence from Mexico when Mexico banned slavery. They can't teach that support of slavery was in their original Constitution. And they cannot mention school shootings if the shooter was white (and they nearly all are).
• Florida passed a law that REQUIRES that every year teachers and students are polled for their political leanings and then adjusted (which is EXACTLY the same as China and the old Soviet Union!).
• Iowa is trying to put body cameras on teachers to ensure that this (non-existent in Iowa) teaching doesn't effect the minds of the most venerable.

So that is pretty stupid, but scarily effective.

Second: The freak out about transgender athletes.  Talk about crazy reaction. 

Fox News ran 126 SEGMENTS in the first quarter of the year and 58 mentions by their anchors. But  they could only find 9 transgender athletes (NINE) the country and used interviews stories about 2 of them (both black) in over 1/3 of their stories. Neither black girl was a factor in their school athletics. ONE of the girls once won 1 race. That is the image they use everywhere (really, search images for Fox News, transgender athletes).

Fox News may have peaked too early for this one. Most reactionary states have already banned those athletes.

Third: The endless commentary on the election fraud. 

Here is the bottom line: There was no election fraud beyond less than 20 people (out of 158,000,000 votes). BUT they were 61 election law suits filled by January 6. All were dismissed many with prejudice - many by Trump judges. IN, order to make it harder for minorities to vote, 23 states (all with Republican control) passed new voter restriction laws.

The Trump justice Department (under Bill Barr - who usually does Trump' bidding) said there was no fraud. But states have reacted and now the Supreme Court has jumped in.

The Supreme Court overturned Congress to say that you had to prove intentional bias against minorities to have the laws overturned. This goes against the Voting Rights Act - which was amended, under bipartisan Congressional laws, to say that said that even incidental violation of minority voting rights is cause to void a voting law.

So there you go. The smarmy army of Fox News is acting like zoo monkeys - throwing all the shit against the wall to see what sticks this go around.

*After Obama was termed out, the name ObamaCare was referred to as the Affordable Care Act (the real name),