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      Fox News and Succession: could the show’s dysfunctional election fantasy become reality?

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      The episode is called “America Decides”. But fans of HBO’s widely watched satire, Succession, will not have been shocked to see scions of the eminently dislikable Roy dynasty showing little respect for who Americans elect as president when it collides with the family’s financial and political interests.It’s also no secret that Succession’s story of a domineering father and the cutthroat rivalries of his offspring draws heavily on Rupert Murdoch’s family, his media empire and its ugliest creation, Fox News.In Succession, the Fox News stand-in, ATN, declares the probable loser – the Republican neo-fascist Jeryd Mencken – as the winner of a presidential election in an attempt to overturn the vote. Parts of the storyline mirror the turmoil of several American elections, from what many regard as George W Bush’s daylight robbery of the Florida vote in 2000 to Donald Trump’s refusal to accept defeat two decades later. But Succession veers from history at a crucial juncture.Clearly, the series writers drew inspiration from Fox News’s nightly ventures into what an ATN executive calls its “unique perspective” on the news, not least the recently departed Tucker Carlson’s campaign to paint the 2020 election as rigged against Trump.But what if Fox News starts taking inspiration from Succession? Could the news channel that cared so little for the truth it was forced to pay $787.5m over false accusations of rigged voting machines go all the way and declare Trump the winner of next year’s election – even if he loses – just to keep its viewers happy? And, if it did, what would be the consequences?Succession has yet to reveal whether ATN and Mencken pull off their coup. But Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, is sceptical that reality would prove so straightforward.“I can believe that Fox would cheat. I can believe that Fox would try to miscall an election or insist that these four, five, six states are just too close to call, and that means the election is up in the air when others are saying it’s over. I can see all kinds of things like that. I just don’t think it would produce a crisis as serious as [Succession] is trying to suggest, because we’re on to Fox. We know what they’re up to,” he said.“And while there’s a tiny chance that some weird scenario could develop because we’ve had weird scenarios develop before, it’s difficult to create a crisis of legitimacy unless there are several other factors besides Fox.”In Succession, we see Mencken facing, but not accepting, defeat.“If I lose, I want it correctly characterised as a huge victory,” he tells Roman Roy, the ruthless, snarky chief executive of ATN’s parent company. “I want to be the president.”The tone of ATN’s coverage is already set. In an echo of revelations about Fox News, the character overseeing election night on ATN, Tom Wambsgans, is worried about losing viewers to other rightwing broadcasters. He pushes to report anything that will call into question the legitimacy of votes for Mencken’s Democratic opponent, Daniel Jimenez.“Did you see the viral thing about the woman who voted, like, 40 times for Jimenez under her dead mom’s name?” Wambsgans asks the station’s news manager.The manager says the woman making the claim is “not a well person”.“You’re not a doctor,” Wambsgans responds. “Until you qualify, why don’t you get her on the air?”Shortly afterwards, a report comes in of a fire at a vote-counting centre in a heavily Democratic part of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The 100,000 destroyed ballots look almost certain to decide the election.Roman Roy characterises the blaze as an “antifa firebombing”, even though it advantages Mencken. On air, ATN’s version of Tucker Carlson pushes that line.“Maybe some of the crazies heard they were underperforming, and decided to stop the counting and destroy the evidence,” he says.Roman Roy seizes the chance to declare Wisconsin for Mencken in a move that swings the entire election in his favour.“We’re not waiting for burned votes, so call it,” Roy demands of ATN’s editors.Mencken gives a victory speech in which he declares his win has been called “by an authority of known integrity” and that, in effect, there is no need to wait for the official results.There are reasons to doubt that such a move would be successful in reality. As cumbersome and compromised as the US’s electoral machinery may be at times, it can also prove resilient.Trump’s repeated efforts to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, governor and other officials to “find” the extra votes to overturn Biden’s victory in 2020 met with a wall of refusal, despite Fox News’s backing. The courts wouldn’t play ball, either. The system held, and the former president may well be on his way to prison for his efforts, along with some of his cronies.In fact, some key events in 2020 played out in a mirror image of the Succession scenario in which ATN calls Wisconsin for Mencken.Fox News’s data team actually played it straight in 2020 and infuriated Trump by going out on a limb and calling Arizona for Joe Biden on election night before other news organisations. It turned out to be the right call, even if it was based on unreliable exit polls, and the outcome proved to be a lot closer than they suggested.But Succession did capture one consequence of the Fox News call.Once Fox gave Arizona to Biden, the numbers meant the network could not call another state for him without also declaring that he had therefore won the presidency and, more importantly to Fox News viewers, that Trump had lost. When Fox News’s Washington team was ready to call Nevada for Biden, it was blocked by some presenters and the network held off on a result until every other network had declared more than 14 hours later.In Succession, Roman Roy understands that with Wisconsin as a win for Mencken, he can use the result from one of two remaining states in play to declare total victory for the Republican even if the votes aren’t really there.That scenario requires that the election come down to a single state, a rare occurrence. Even if Fox News had called Arizona for Trump in 2020, he would still have had to take two or three of the other closely run states to win the electoral college.But Craig Harrington, research director at Media Matters for America, which tracks misinformation in the conservative media, said the election did come down to a single state two decades ago in Florida and Fox News was instrumental in determining the outcome.“Succession was uncomfortable to watch because we have already lived an entire lifetime in a world where Fox News’s decision to pre-emptively call an election on behalf of their political ally arguably changed the course of history. So “Could this happen again?” is the question rather than “Could this happen at all?” he said.Harrington sees the fictional burning of the ballots in Wisconsin as modeled on the wiping out of thousands of votes in Florida in 2000 which delivered the state and the presidency to George W Bush.On the night, the TV networks, including Fox, initially called Florida for Al Gore. But then Bush’s team began calling. As it happened, the head of Fox News election night decision desk was George W Bush’s cousin, John Ellis.Before long, George W and his brother, Jeb, who was Florida’s governor, were on the phone to Ellis telling him that the election was much tighter than the polls said and urging him to rescind the declaration for Gore. Ellis obliged. Then Fox News called the state for Bush. The other networks rapidly followed. Gore called Bush to concede.Fox News had got it wrong. The vote was still too close to call and the networks reversed themselves a couple of hours later. Gore withdrew his concession. But by then a large number of Americans thought Bush had won the presidency, and it had consequences.Hundreds of Republican party staffers and lawyers led what became known as the Brooks Brothers riot, named after shop selling suits, that shut down a recount of votes and froze Bush’s claim to victory in place until the US supreme court handed him the keys to the White House.“Because of Fox News’s decision to make the call when they did not have the data to back it up, the whole nation was informed that George W Bush had won the presidency,” said Harrington. “He started to become the president in waiting. The government began to transition. It set a tone in public that changed the course of history.”Sabato regards 2000 as a “terrible breakdown in the system” but thinks a repeat remains unlikely.Harrington agrees and said that without other factors at play, Fox News could only get so far in trying to push any particular candidate into the White House.“In order to actually rig an outcome, you have to have processes in place or individuals in place to interdict operations and to slow things down intentionally,” he said.In the Succession story, Harrington said it’s quite likely that ATN’s guns would have been spiked in real life by Milwaukee election officials finding a way to fix the issue of the burned ballots. But he added that might be different if the Trump camp had succeeded in its attempt to place supporters in strategic roles.“We saw this effort in 2022 to get election deniers elected to key roles in local government, state government, county governments all around the country during the midterm elections. We saw election deniers run and overwhelmingly they lost. And so we kind of dodged this attempt to infiltrate the election system,” said Harrington.Still, as Fox News attempts to paint the 2020 election as stolen from Trump showed, its ability to stir up trouble should not be underestimated. The network’s persistent pushing of vote fraud claims played an important part in rallying support for Trump after the election, and in fuelling the myths and anger that drove the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol.Sabato said that Fox News may not decide the winner but it can still stir up “small numbers who can cause great tumult in free societies”.“Fox could easily be the match that started a prairie fire, at least in deeply red states or in places where white nationalists or supremacists are prominent,” he said.“I do believe that the democratic process would win out but there are other points in American history where it’s gotten very messy. That’s what I’m worried about.” More

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      Tucker Carlson makes insinuating remarks on women in new leaked video

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      In the latest leaked behind-the-scenes video of Tucker Carlson, the now fired rightwing Fox News host makes insinuating comments about a makeup artist, about what women do in the bathroom and if they ever have pillow fights.The footage was published on Thursday by the progressive watchdog Media Matters for America.In the video, Carlson asks the unnamed staffer, “When they go to the ladies room and ‘powder their noses’, is there actually nose-powdering going on?”The woman says: “Sometimes.”Carlson says: “Oooh. I like the sound of that.”The footage follows the leak to the same outlet of video of Carlson making coarse remarks about a woman and Fox News viewers; a discussion of sexual technique with the British TV host Piers Morgan; disparaging remarks about the Fox Nation streaming service; and comments about a lawyer who deposed Carlson in the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit, who the host calls a “slimy little motherfucker”.That $1.6bn suit, over Fox News’s broadcast of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 US election, was settled last month for $787.5m. Shortly after that, in a surprise development, Carlson was summarily fired.Why Fox News decided to remove its star prime-time anchor is the subject of widespread reporting.Earlier this week, the New York Times published a racially inflammatory text message Carlson sent after the Capitol attack. That message was redacted in Dominion filings but other messages, including abusive comments about Trump advisers and allies, were released.Comments about Fox News executives were also reportedly linked to Carlson’s firing, including one in which he is reported to have called a female executive a “cunt”. A former booker on Carlson’s show also filed suit, alleging a misogynistic working atmosphere.Fox News has not commented on why Carlson was fired. It has called the suit from the former booker, Abby Grossberg, “unmeritorious” and “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees”.Last week, a person close to Carlson told the Guardian the firing was not over abusive messages or crude comments.“An elderly Australian man” – the Fox News owner, Rupert Murdoch, 92 – “fired his top anchor with no warning because he was so offended by a dirty word? Stupidest explanation ever. Please. A big decision requires a powerful motive. Naughty words in text messages don’t qualify.”In the footage released on Thursday, Carlson is seen on-set, having makeup applied by an unidentified woman. He says: “Can I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer, it’s personal.”The woman indicates assent.Carlson says: “I’m not speaking of you, but more in general with ladies, when they go to the ladies room and ‘powder their noses’, is there actually nose-powdering going on?”The woman says: “Sometimes.”Carlson says: “Oooh. I like the sound of that.”The woman says: “Most of the time, it’s lipstick.”Carlson says: “Do pillow fights ever break out? You don’t have to, you don’t have to –”The woman says: “Not in the bathroom.”Carlson says: “OK. Not in the bathroom. That’d be more a dorm activity.”After an unintelligible remark off camera, Carlson apologises.“I’m sorry,” he says. “You are such a good sport. Such a good person. Thank you. I know you do, but you do not deserve that. And I mean it with great affection.” More

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      Tucker Carlson is not an antiwar populist rebel. He is a fascist | Jason Stanley

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      Fox News has finally broken ties with its most popular star, Tucker Carlson. His ousting has been bemoaned by some commentators, who have taken Carlson to be a rebellious anti-war populist, evading easy political characterization. But is it really so complicated to classify Carlson’s political ideology?In late February 2022, then Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, in the face of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, began a pro-Russia monologue urging his audience to ask themselves the question: “Why do I hate Putin so much?” The gist of Carlson’s comments about Russia’s leader is that Putin should not be regarded as an enemy. Instead, the real enemies of America are those who call white Americans racist, those who teach so-called critical race theory in schools, business elites who ship jobs abroad, and those who imposed Covid lockdowns on the United States.In short, Carlson urged, the real enemies of America are internal – racial minorities, doctors and politicians, professors and educators, and large corporations who shift jobs to other countries. Carlson has been resolutely against US support for Ukraine. Insofar as Carlson has since that point gone to war, it has rather been against these supposed internal enemies.So, is Tucker Carlson hard to classify? On the one hand, he spreads tropes central to neo-Nazi propaganda, such as “white replacement” theory, suggesting that leftist elites seek to replace “legacy Americans” by foreign non-white immigrants. On the other hand, he denounces media, intellectual and political elites, as well as US intervention in Ukraine, platforming those who identify as the “anti-war left”, such as Jimmy Dore. How should we best understand this set of views? If Carlson has fascist sympathies, as do, quite inarguably, many of those who applaud him, how do we understand his firm stance against US military and financial support for Ukraine? Surely, historically speaking, fascism is not compatible with the isolationist position Carlson has urged.We should look to history as our guide here. But the history that best informs us in this case is not European history, but American history. Before the beginning of the second world war, all of America’s pro-fascist parties opposed US intervention on the side of its allies against Nazi Germany. Often, the opposition to the US supporting Britain against Nazi Germany was represented as “isolationism”.There were openly fascist organizations during this time, such as the German American Bund. Somewhat more ambiguous was the America First movement. As the historian Bradley Hart recounts, in a packed America First rally in Madison Square Garden in 1941, the Montana senator Burton K Wheeler denounced “jingoistic journalists and saber-rattling bankers” who were pushing the nation into war against Germany.While the agenda of some members of the America First movement at the time might have genuinely been pacifist, it’s quite clear that the main agenda was in fact support for Hitler. The America First movement had strong support from American fascist movements of various stripes. Its most prominent spokesperson, Charles Lindbergh, published the following words in support of his anti-war position in an essay entitled “Geography, Aviation, and Race” in Reader’s Digest in 1939:
      … It is time to turn from our quarrels and to build our White ramparts again. This alliance with foreign races means nothing but death to us. It is our turn to guard our heritage from Mongol and Persian and Moor, before we become engulfed in a limitless foreign sea. Our civilization depends on a united strength among ourselves; on strength too great for foreign enemies to challenge; on a Western Wall of race and arms which can hold back either a Genghis Khan or the infiltration of inferior blood; on an English fleet, a German air force, a French army, an American nation, standing together as guardians of our common heritage, sharing strength, dividing influence.
      It is simply inarguable fact that American racial fascism has a clear isolationist tradition, especially when the wars in question are against fascist opponents.But is Putin’s Russia fascist? In Russia, opposition politicians and journalists are regularly imprisoned or murdered. Russia has passed harsh laws against LGBTQ+ communities. Russia’s ideology is based on a militarized Russian nationalism, and its war against Ukraine is quite clearly genocidal in nature. Just as Nazi Germany represented itself as the defender of Christianity and Europe’s classic traditions against an existential threat posed by leftist atheist Jews, Putin represents Russia as the sole defender of the European Christian traditions against similar existential threats, such as “gender ideology”.Putin’s Russia is the international leader of the global far right, promoting ultra-nationalism, religious traditionalism and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment across the world. If Russia is not fascist, then even Nazi Germany in the 1930s was not fascist. As the historian Timothy Snyder has urged, “we should finally say it”: Russia is fascist.Just as claims to be isolationists by American inter-war fascists were quite rightly taken to be expressions of support for Nazi ideology, there is good reason to take Carlson’s similar claims not as denunciations of American militarism but as expressions of support for Putinism, which he seems largely to share.What about Carlson’s scorn for the media, intellectual, financial and political elite, which he lacerates with regularity on his show? Here too there is little ambiguity. Carlson does not scorn all elites – after all, he himself was making as much as $20m a year from Fox news. He only targets certain elites. In the ideology of American fascism, the elites he targets are associated with liberal democracy and Jewish control.American fascists have always denounced the media, intellectuals and politicians. Carlson is careful to avoid explicitly antisemitic statements. But his show is the home of anti-Soros conspiracy theories. The antisemitism in his programming is clearly dog-whistled, and Jewish organizations have been among the first to cheer his ousting. Indeed, if Carlson did not regularly denounce media, intellectual, financial and political elites, regular targets of Nazi ideology, the case for calling him an American fascist would be much less clear.Nazi ideology supported strict gender roles – one of the central targets of the first mass Nazi book burning on 10 May 1933 was Magnus Hirschfeld’s collection of LGBTQ+ literature, the largest in the world and the largest documentation of gender fluidity (Hirschfeld coined the term “transsexual”). Carlson has used his platform to denounce transgender Americans as existential threats to Christianity. Fascists target cosmopolitan ways as existential threats to masculinity – a viewpoint Carlson also clearly shares.Finally, fascism praises violence against democracy, valorizing violent street mobs attacking democratic processes and institutions as martyrs to the nation. Here too Tucker Carlson fits perfectly into the tradition.It is not difficult at all to classify Tucker Carlson’s political ideology. He is an American fascist, only the latest in a long historical line. More

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      Tucker Carlson breaks silence after abrupt departure from Fox News

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      Tucker Carlson has broken his silence for the first time since his abrupt departure from Fox News, posting a video to Twitter that did not directly address his reported firing.Carlson was one of the network’s biggest stars, and gained a large following while spouting xenophobic and racist rhetoric on his show, Tucker Carlson Tonight. He left Fox News without explanation on Monday. News outlets have reported that Carlson was fired on the personal order of Fox owner Rupert Murdoch for, among other things, using vulgar language to describe a female executive.On Wednesday, Carlson shared a cryptic two-minute video on his Twitter account that did not explain his exit, but offered sweeping complaints about the state of American discourse. He said what he noticed “when you step away from the noise for a few days,” is how nice some people are.“The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are,” he added. “They’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. In five years we won’t even remember we heard them. Trust me, as somebody who participated.”Fox hasn’t commented publicly on why it cut ties with Carlson, but it came after Fox News last week agreed to pay voting equipment company Dominion $787.5m to settle a high-profile defamation lawsuit.Carlson’s stunning departure is reportedly connected to a lawsuit filed by the his former senior booking producer Abby Grossberg, who claimed she faced sexism and a hostile work environment.Fox News said in an official statement that Carlson and the network had “mutually” agreed to separate.On Monday, Fox News immediately replaced Carlson’s slot with a rotating roster of hosts until a permanent replacement can be found, the network said. In his video on Wednesday, Carlson implied his fans had not seen the last of him.“Where can you still find Americans saying true things?” he said. “There aren’t many places left but there are some and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.”Associated Press contributed to this story More

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      Tucker Carlson’s vulgar language in texts contributed to Fox News firing – report

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      Tucker Carlson’s firing from Fox News came after he used vulgar language to describe a network executive, the Wall Street Journal reported.Carlson described a senior Fox News executive as a C-word in a text message obtained by lawyers as part of a defamation lawsuit between the network and Dominion Voting Systems, according to the Journal, which like Fox is part of the Murdoch media empire.In a case settled last week for $787.5m, Fox lawyers reportedly convinced the Delaware judge to redact the message from public filings. Carlson, however, was still reportedly furious the network was not doing enough to protect him.Other messages in which he called the Donald Trump adviser and attorney Sidney Powell attorney a C-word and a “bitch” were made public as part of the lawsuit.The primetime host’s internal messages were among the most embarrassing for Fox, as he said he “passionately hated” Trump, called for a colleague to be fired for accurately fact-checking claims about voting machines, and bluntly criticized Powell.More embarrassing information about Carlson may yet come to light. Rolling Stone reported on Tuesday that the network has a dossier of damaging information about him.The thrust of Dominion’s defamation claims involved other anchors: Maria Bartiromo, Jeanine Pirro and Lou Dobbs. Dobbs’s show was cancelled in 2021 but Bartiromo and Pirro remain.Carlson was one of Fox’s biggest stars before he was abruptly fired on Monday, reportedly learning of his fate 10 minutes before it was announced.The Fox executives Suzanne Scott and Lachlan Murdoch reportedly made the decision on Friday. The Los Angeles Times reported that Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old patriarch of the owning family, decided to fire Carlson with input from top officials.Carlson faces a separate lawsuit from Abby Grossberg, a former senior booking producer who claims there was a sexist and hostile working environment on his show.Staffers sat around joking about which female politicians they would rather sleep with, Grossberg alleges.She also claims she was encouraged to lie when Dominion’s lawyers presented her with the message in which Carlson called Powell the C-word and a “bitch”.Grossberg told lawyers it did not make her feel uncomfortable and she did not know how she would react if that type of language was used by Carlson and those around him. In reality, she said in a court filing, she knew Carlson was capable of using that language and felt “terrible” each time she heard it in the office.Some at Fox had become concerned that Carlson, the network’s most-watched anchor, had begun to go too far in racist themes on his show, got the network in too much trouble with advertisers, and was operating as if he was bigger than the network, the Journal reported.Carlson broadcast his show from a private studio in Maine. He has not commented on his firing.Approached by Daily Mail reporters in Florida on Tuesday, the 53-year-old said: “Retirement is going great so far” and added: “I haven’t eaten dinner with my wife on a weeknight in seven years.”Asked about future plans, he “flashed a broad smile and joked, ‘Appetizers plus entree,’” the tabloid website reported.Announcing his departure on Monday, Fox News said: “Fox News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”It is not the first time Carlson has come under fire regarding vulgar language. In 2015, his brother Buckley Carlson sent an email to Carlson and Amy Spitalnick, then a spokesperson for the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, calling her a “whiny bitch”.“Whiny little self-righteous bitch … and with such an ironic name, too … Spitalnick? Ironic because you just know she has extreme dick-fright; no chance has this girl ever had a pearl necklace. Spoogeneck? I don’t think so. More like LabiaFace,” Buckley Carlson wrote.Carlson did not seem to have any issue with the language, telling BuzzFeed News, which obtained the email: “I just talked to my brother about his response, and he assures me he meant it in the nicest way.”On Wednesday, Spitalnick told the Guardian in an email: “Fox News knew exactly who Tucker Carlson was when they handed him a primetime show in 2016 – and they saw his misogyny and white supremacy as an asset, at least until they faced legal liability.“We should be clear: it’s not just his vulgar comments about women. Like with so many extremists, that misogyny was an early warning sign as he quickly became a fan favorite among avowed neo-Nazis – who saw him as their most effective vehicle to normalize their violent hate.” More

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      Tucker Carlson has lost his job – but the far right has won the battle for the mainstream | Owen Jones

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      It is difficult to begrudge anyone for celebrating the downfall of far-right provocateur Tucker Carlson, ignominiously ejected from Fox News. Slack-jawed, spitting rage, his tirades were calculated at stirring the resentment of angry white America: from declaring that immigrants made the US dirtier and poorer to embracing the “great replacement theory”, which spreads the noxious lie that the authorities were deliberately “undermining democracy” by replacing US-born Americans with immigrants.Fox staff were reportedly jubilant at his departure. Perhaps this quote from a Fox reporter, in which they celebrate seeing the back of the network’s premier conspiracy theorist, will give you pause: “It’s a great day for America, and for the real journalists who work hard every day to deliver the news at Fox.”Oh, really? Were they the journalists who prompted a potential lawsuit from the city of Paris after falsely claiming the French capital had “no-go zones” for non-Muslims? Or aired many negative and sceptical statements about Covid vaccines at a critical point in the pandemic? Or indeed aired the false claims that voting machines had been rigged to steal the 2020 presidential contest, leading to Fox News’ $787m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems? With journalistic standards like these, Carlson will no doubt be replaced by another demagogue committed to stoking the same fear and rage. The focus on specific bogeymen such as him stops us from understanding the real problem.Carlson is merely one figurehead of a misinformation industry that has dramatically reshaped rightwing politics across the world. Defined by conspiratorial thinking, often crude racism and bigotry, and calculated deception, it has succeeded in destroying whatever barrier existed between the traditional centre right and what lies beyond. Carlson – or indeed the modern godfather of this movement, Donald Trump – are easy to single out on account of their vulgarity and open repudiation of respectability. This allows the mainstream right that originally courted and enabled this extremism to evade responsibility.Consider the case study of Liz Cheney, the three-term representative for Wyoming, celebrated as a principled leader of the besieged moderate Republicans for her opposition to Trump. This was the same Cheney who, when offered the opportunity to eschew the conspiracy that Barack Obama was foreign-born, responded: “People are uncomfortable with a president who is reluctant to defend the nation overseas.” Here was a climate denier who almost always voted with the Trump administration. Difficult, then, not to conclude that it was the style, rather than substance, of Trumpism that the likes of Cheney found so objectionable. Cheney was crushed in her Republican primary at the hands of a Trump-backed candidate – consumed by a monster she helped create.It was the “moderate” Republican pinup John McCain who selected Sarah Palin as his running mate. It was the former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney who suggested wiretapping mosques and placing foreign students under surveillance. It was the presidential candidate Ted Cruz who called on law enforcement to “patrol and secure Muslim neighbourhoods”. And a previous generation of rightwing zealot pundits walked so Carlson could run: like the late Rush Limbaugh who identified the “four corners of deceit”: government, academia, science and the media.It was, in sum, a collective effort on the US right to promote bigoted and conspiratorial modes of thinking that radicalised the base of the Republicans and transformed a rightwing capitalist party into a more conventionally far-right movement that increasingly rejects democratic norms. It’s why Trump’s main Republican rival is Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a rightwing authoritarian who has suggested the Federal Reserve will seek to prevent Americans buying guns and fuel, and who has shared a platform with people who appear to echo QAnon and other conspiracy theories.This is a tendency long ago identified by the US historian Richard Hofstadter, who unpacked the “paranoid style in American politics” in a 1964 article. This was a mechanism, he believed, for remoulding society: that by identifying a menace to society – be it Muslims, trans people, or anti-fascists – you could marshal support for radical right causes.It is a phenomenon well beyond the United States. It was the Vote Leave faction that took over the Tories who spread the deception about Turkey joining the EU; Michael Gove who denounced “experts”; and Boris Johnson’s ugly rhetoric around surrender, betrayal and traitors that attracted the support of far-right extremists. It was Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro who synthesised bigotry towards Brazilian minorities and disinformation about Covid and stolen elections. And it is Hungary’s far-right regime that spreads antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish businessman George Soros, and implies that outside forces will force children to have gender-affirming surgery.Indeed, Hungary itself is a striking case study about what has happened to the modern right globally. The ruling party, Fidesz, was long considered a conventional centre-right party until it radicalised in power, hollowing out the substance of Hungarian democracy. Misinformation, bigotry and conspiracism acted as battering rams, radically reshaping rightwing politics.Carlson may well have been booted from Fox News, but what victory does it represent? The brand of conspiratorial demagoguery he belongs to has succeeded in drastically reshaping rightwing politics. The “paranoid style” that was once identified as a dangerous trend in conservatism is now its main operating system. The consequence? Democracy as we understand it is imperilled in the US and beyond. The likes of Carlson played their role, but this political catastrophe would never have happened without those who retained ill-deserved reputations for moderation while throwing open the door for the most radical extremism.
      Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist More

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      Fox and Dominion settle for US$787.5m in defamation lawsuit over election lies

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      Fox and the voting equipment company Dominion reached a $787.5m settlement in a closely watched defamation lawsuit, ending a dispute over whether the network and its parent company knowingly broadcast false and outlandish allegations that Dominion was involved in a plot to steal the 2020 election.The settlement came before scheduled opening statements and after an unexpected lengthy delay Tuesday afternoon just after the jury was sworn in. Neither party immediately disclosed the terms of the settlement other than the dollar amount, and attorneys for Dominion declined to answer questions about whether it requires Fox to issue a retraction or a formal apology.“The parties have resolved their case,” judge Eric Davis told jurors on Tuesday afternoon before excusing them from the courtroom.In a press conference outside the courthouse, Dominion attorney Justin Nelson said the more than $787m represented “vindication and accountability”. The settlement amount is less than half of the $1.6bn Dominion demanded in its lawsuit.“Truth matters,” he said. “Lies have consequences. The truth does not know red or blue,” he continued. “People across the political spectrum can and should disagree on issues, even of the most profound importance. But for our democracy to endure another 250 years and hopefully much longer, we must share a commitment to facts.”In a statement, Fox said the settlement reflects its “continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards”.“We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues,” the statement said.Opening statements were scheduled to start on Tuesday after a lunch break, but the judge and jurors did not return to the room until close to 4pm. During the more than two-hour delay, attorneys huddled and left the courtroom to convene in adjacent meeting rooms.After returning to the courtroom, Davis thanked the jurors for their service, and called the efforts by the lawyers on both sides “the best lawyering I’ve had, ever” in his career on the bench since 2010.The anticipated six-week jury trial was originally set to begin on Monday, but Davis, the judge overseeing the case, postponed the start of trial by a day as the sides worked to reach a settlement agreement.The trial in Wilmington, Delaware, was set to be a blockbuster media trial. Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old chief executive of Fox, was called to testify in the case, along with top Fox talent including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro and Maria Bartiromo.The lawsuit was seen as one of the most aggressive efforts to hold Fox, or any actor, accountable for spreading the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. It was a lie that led to threats against election officials across the country, and ultimately helped fuel the violent attack on the US Capitol on 6 January. Nine deaths have been linked to the event.Though the case was settled, Dominion had unearthed a stunning trove of internal communications from Fox laying bare how top talent and hosts knew the outlandish claims about Dominion and a stolen election were false. The extensive messages offered a remarkable insight into how some of the most powerful hosts in America did not buy the allegations they were broadcasting to their audience each night.Dominion, a relatively obscure company until the 2020 election, sought $1.6bn in damages in the case. It challenged repeated claims made on Fox’s air after the general election that Dominion switched votes, paid government kickbacks, and was founded in Venezuela to rig elections for Hugo Chávez.In the press conference Tuesday, Dominion CEO John Poulos called the settlement historic because of Fox’s admission that it was telling ties.“Throughout this process, we have sought accountability,” he said. “We believe the evidence brought to light through this case underscores the consequences of spreading lies. Truthful reporting in the media is essential to our democracy.”Even before trial, Davis had already concluded that Fox’s claims about Dominion were false. “The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear that none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” he wrote in a ruling earlier this month.The question that would have been before the jury was whether Fox committed “actual malice” in airing the claims. That required Dominion to show whether key decision makers were aware the claims were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.Fox still faces several legal battles related to its decision to broadcast false claims. Smartmatic, another voting equipment company, is suing the company for $2.7bn. Abby Grossberg, a former Fox employee who worked for Bartiromo and Carlson, is also suing the company, alleging she was coerced into giving misleading testimony.The network also faces a separate lawsuit from a shareholder who is seeking damages and argues that executives breached their fiduciary duty to the company by causing false claims about the election to be broadcast.During the press conference, Stephen Shackelford, an attorney who was set to give opening arguments for Dominion on Tuesday, said that the company will continue seeking accountability.“Money is accountability,” he said. “We got that today from Fox. But we’re not done yet. We’ve got some other people who have some accountability coming for them.” More