Saturday, December 16, 2017

DO FOX VIEWERS THINK TRUMP IS NOT OFFERING THEM ENOUGH LIBERAL TEARS?

Ellen at News Hounds directs our attention to signs of Trump disillusionment spotted by The Washington Post's Philip Bump in some recent polling:
... according to new polling from Suffolk University, those voters who have the most trust in Fox’s reporting have increasingly begun to view Trump unfavorably....

In March, Fox viewers were 40 points more likely to view Trump positively than were voters overall. By December, they were only 24 points more likely to do so — even though the numbers for Republicans — with which Fox viewership overlaps to some extent — remained fairly high....

And while Trump’s approval among Republicans was still fairly high, the number of voters who said that they strongly approved of him sunk from 55 percent in March among Fox viewers to only 32 percent in October....

Views of those who trust Fox News the most have diverged from Republicans overall in recent months, against Trump, even as Fox continues to regularly stand in Trump’s defense.
Ellen is perplexed, but she offers this as a possible explanation:
... my theory is that viewers who trust Fox the most are independent-minded contrarians, meaning they are prone to mistrust the “mainstream media” but do not necessarily swallow Fox News propaganda unquestioningly.
I have a different theory: Fox viewers are upset at Trump because it's been a whole year and he still hasn't crushed all of their enemies yet.

What is Fox programming? It's one talking head after another accusing the usual suspects -- Democratic politicians, non-white activists, people who are LGBT or Muslim, Hollywood celebrities, even mainstream Republicans -- of unspeakable evil. The first anniversary of Trump's inaugural is a month away and Hillary Clinton is still not in prison. Neither are NFL players who kneel for the national anthem. Neither are Robert Mueller and Peter Strzok. Obamacare still exists (if barely). There are still Muslims and undocumented immigrants living in America. There's no wall. Not only do Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer still hold some power, but so does Mitch McConnell. Roy Moore lost -- probably, if you're a Fox viewer, because George Soros paid for tens of thousands of illegal votes.

Why hasn't Trump solved all these problems, dammit?

If you're a Fox viewer, you're told how awful everything is all the time. Fox could have let itself become a pure propaganda channel dedicated to the glorification of our Maximum Leader, but its bread and butter is scaring and angering its viewers, so the viewers continue to feel discontent. They thought Trump was the guy to solve all their problems, but now he's in office and they want more.

That's my theory. Anyone have an alternative explanation?