It’s not that we couldn’t have guessed, but New York Magazine’s Gabriel Sherman seems to have confirmed that Rupert Murdoch has gotten past his reservations about Donald Trump and is now fully behind Trump. Along with Fox News, of course.
From Sherman’s May 17 article:
The Murdoch-Trump alliance is the result of at least two private meetings between the billionaires this spring as well as phone calls from Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Murdoch’s view, according to those who’ve spoken with him, is that Trump is a winner whom the “elites” failed to take seriously. “He doesn’t like people to be snobs and treat Trump like a clown,” one person explained. Murdoch’s outlook is also informed by his take on the winnowed GOP field. When it came down to the final three candidates, Murdoch simply saw Trump as the best option. “He never liked Cruz,” the source explained. Kasich made a personal pitch to Murdoch that he could win on a second ballot at the convention, but failed to persuade. In March, Murdoch tweeted that the GOP would “be mad not to unify” behind Trump.
That’s no problem for Fox News:
According to one Fox News producer, the channel’s ratings dip whenever an anti-Trump segment airs. A Fox anchor told me that the message from Roger Ailes’s executives is they need to go easy on Trump. “It’s, ‘Make sure we don’t go after Trump,’” the anchor said. “We’ve thrown in the towel.”
I’d love to know which Fox anchor talked to Sherman. Any guesses?
Murdoch caricature by DonkeyHotey, via Creative Commons license.
Fox News has already laid the groundwork for its attempt to dismiss Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The narrative they’d like everyone to believe is something about how Clinton is a loser candidate who can’t even finish her campaign, or how she cannot win her nomination without rigging the system. And of course, Fox News’ polling always seems to mysteriously show her in increasingly negative numbers.
I keep thinking back to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns, where the right wing media sources repeatedly told everyone that Barack Obama had no chance to be elected and confidently predicted a big win for the GOP candidate. I’ll be curious to see what the real polling numbers are following the conventions. I still have no idea how Trump can overcome the fact that he only has one core constituency – angry white male voters. It’s true that if all the Clinton voters stay home, he has a chance – but that simply points up how important it is for everyone to not take this election for granted.
The base? They eat what they are spoon fed. There won’t even be a hiccup…
