Elizabeth Warren turned down a Fox News invitation Tuesday for a televised town hall and denounced the cable network as a “hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists.”Some people have argued that it's payback for all the Pocahontas talk on Fox. Others say it's a shrewd play for base votes:
I think Warren gets—and Bernie mostly doesn't—how to appeal to Democrats' partisan cues. I don't know about the utility of appearing on a Fox News town hall, but Democratic primary voters (at least the ones that would consider voting for Warren) mostly hate Fox.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 14, 2019
Sure -- it's all that. But Warren didn't just lash out in a politically savvy, base-pleasing way. Even in anger, she's a teacher:
Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists—it’s designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 14, 2019
Hate-for-profit works only if there’s profit, so Fox News balances a mix of bigotry, racism, and outright lies with enough legit journalism to make the claim to advertisers that it’s a reputable news outlet. It’s all about dragging in ad money—big ad money.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 14, 2019
But Fox News is struggling as more and more advertisers pull out of their hate-filled space. A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors it's safe to buy ads on Fox—no harm to their brand or reputation (spoiler: It’s not).
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) May 14, 2019
She could have just said that Fox is racist. She could have said it's conspiratorial. She could have said it offers a token hour to Democrats now and again, but lashes out at them the other 23 hours of the day.
Instead she explained how Fox works. It's not just a hate-and-conspiracy channel -- it recklessly peddles right-wing hate and conspiracies to distract voters from the real agenda of the Republican Party, which is to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. She explained that advertisers won't advertise on Fox if the channel seems like a loony bin all day and night, so legitimate-seeming news coverage is worked into the mix to gull ad buyers into thinking that their products are being seen on a high-class broadcast. Democratic town halls are part of the window dressing that bamboozles advertisers (and, I'd add, most media critics from the mainstream press), while the real work of Fox goes on.
These tweets are short and could use more detail, and I hope someone asks Warren to provide it, because I'm sure she'd have no trouble elaborating on what she's written. But this is good. She's rebuffed Fox while outlining a Theory of Fox. Good for her.
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