The Dominion vs Fox defamation lawsuit is ruffling a lot of right wing feathers. No, not conservative feathers — radicalized right wing feathers. Today’s GOP still has conservatives in their ranks, but most of the people and politicians in the Republican Party who call themselves conservative are nothing of the sort. What Ron DeSantis is doing in Florida isn’t conservative — it is authoritarian. The government telling schools what they can and cannot teach isn’t conservative. It has nothing to do with smaller government or liberty. It is just authoritarian. Banning drag performers isn’t conservative, it is authoritarian. Drag performers are actors. Male actors have performed in “drag” since the days of Shakespeare.
When it comes to the Dominion suit, it is those same radical right wing authoritarians who are upset — not conservatives. Conservatives still care about honesty. Yes, they have their world views just like everyone does, but those are principles built on experience and education — just like everyone else on the spectrum. Radicalized right wing authoritarians just want power. They want to win. They want to impose their world view on everyone else no matter what it takes. the ends justify the means.
And yes, there are left wing authoritarians as well. They have the same goals as the right wingers. They want their world view to prevail over everything.
But the rest of us aren’t part of either of those fringes. The rest of us still seek truth and base our decisions, from the personal to the political to the professional, on facts and evidence. Yes, we all have bias. But bias isn’t just lying to achieve the end goal. Bias can co-exist with honesty and good faith debate. Radical authoritarianism can’t. Whether left or right wing, authoritarianism needs to win. Winning and power is the only way to enforce their view — as they cannot survive in a world where good faith debate and facts matter.
The Dominion suit is exposing such things like nothing really has before in the world of Trump and his Fox allies.
You can’t swing a dead cat on the internet or social media where the Dominion suit is the subject without someone chiming in about how “they all do it” or “what about CNN, MSNBC, or whatever the radical views as “the other guys.””
But the facts aren’t even close to that narrative the right wing authoritarians want to push. No one else they mention have ever been sued for lying on this level. When “the other guys” find someone has lied, there are consequences. Retractions happen, people get fired. Just ask Brian Williams or The Cuomo family. When a host wants to push their own agenda no matter what (and become impossible to manage), they tend to get let go — just ask Keith Olbermann.
At Fox News, however, the opposite seems to happen. When people at Fox fact checked or called out the election lies that certain hosts were pushing on behalf of Trump, they were the ones who had their jobs threatened and were ostracized.
If any other serious news organization based reporting on someone who openly claimed to get their information from “a time traveler” with other “powers” — they would be laughed out of the newsroom, perhaps permanently. At Fox, that is not only tolerated but celebrated.
False equivalency is the enemy of the truth. False equivalency is the lazy and/or disingenuous person’s way of avoiding the truth. For the person who doesn’t want to talk or even think about politics, false equivalencies allow them to live in a world where they can justify their apathy and non-participation. For the person who doesn’t want the truth to be known, like the radical authoritarian, false equivalency allows them to avoid any honest and good faith conversation while they continue to pursue their agenda.
Fox has been exposed in the Dominion defamation lawsuit. With all the court filings showing internal documents like emails, memos, and text conversations showing that they knew the election was legitimate and people like Powell, one of Trump’s lawyers, were off their rocker, Fox has been exposed like no one ever thought they could be. Add to that their own under oath testimony where Sean Hannity says that he never believed the election was “stolen” for a second (while going on air and claiming it was) and Rupert Murdoch admitting the lies were something he “could have stopped, but didn’t” and it was “all about the green.” No, they are not all the same and no, they don’t all do this.
Yes, organizations make mistakes. Yes, sometimes they get a detail wrong or misquote someone. But responsible organizations correct themselves. Yes, they never correct themselves with the verbose volume that they have when they report the story, but they do correct themselves. Fox has never corrected the record on the election lies they sold, including the slander of Dominion — a company that does one thing — they make machines that need to be reliable in elections. Fox ignored all that for money and the fear of upsetting Trump and their viewers leaving. As Tucker Carlson wrote in real time during all of it — a fear that stock prices will tumble and fall.
It would be interesting to find out how much of Carlson’s compensation comes in the form of stocks.
The Dominion case isn’t the only place where it is apparent that Fox was afraid of the truth reaching their viewers. Fox refused to air the 1st primetime hearing done by the January 6th committee. Instead, they had Tucker Carlson on, which in itself wouldn’t be too incredible since it is his timeslot. But, not only did his program air, but it ran commercial free so the viewers wouldn’t have a chance to switch over to the hearings. Maybe it isn’t provable in a criminal court of law that they were afraid of the truth there, but to anyone with a bit of sense, it is painfully obvious they were afraid of the truth there.
Oh, and what did Tucker talk about during his commercial free show? Disinformation about January 6th being an “FBI plot.” To be blunt, one would have to be very intellectually challenged to not see they were dodging the truth that evening.
There are comparisons we can make about people in different spots on the political spectrum. There are places where they can act similarly when situations are reversed. The Dominion defamation lawsuit and the court filings are clearly showing that this isn’t one of them.
Fox’s blatant disregard for the truth after the 2020 election doesn’t make anyone else “more honest.” They too, must be held to a standard. But until someone can show anyone else has done anything close to what Fox did, we must differentiate and not make generic false equivalencies. If we can’t, we are surely doomed and the radical authoritarians, on both sides, have already won.
