Any other DUers notice that since Dems informed Fox that they will not

[malaise]

host primary debates, we're seeing criticism of the Con on Fox?
Small steps - money rules.

[riversedge]

1. yes, also, some advertisers have dropped some of the most vile Hosts. I saw one had dropped

fox news but was back again last night. Sorry but I forget already which advertiser it was

[grumpyduck]

2. Money talks. nt

[Butterflylady]

23. And bull***t walks.

[LakeArenal]

3. Interesting observation.

Seems accurate for sure.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. It's all about the Demo's

and Ad Revenues and Fox has lost tons of Audience share to NBC/MSNBC since 2016.

Why do you think Disney and Murdoch worked a deal,both are losing Audience.

[pressbox69]

5. Speaking of Disney

I've noticed Fox has already changed a ton since Disney swallowed them up last week. Money talks but come to think of it, so does Mickey.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. The Satilite TV and Cable Busniness

glory days have long gone. This a Survial effort by both to get in front of the fast moving Streaming Business Models that are the new Vogue thing.

Amazon and Google are the new Kings in the Viewing Business. And everyone else is depending on their Local Ordinances Model,or what is called the Socialist Government Model where they control access via Cable to the Populace in that area and in turn give that local Governmental Unit some type of fee as a reward.

[LiberalArkie]

11. Satellite and Cable TV both priced themselves out of the business.

[efhmc]

30. I got rid of mine years ago. They don't have what I am interested in watching.

I can hear MSNBC for free for news. Get entertainment from the library; books, audio, videos.

[LiberalArkie]

44. Try this

https://www.livenewsnow.com/american/msnbc.html

[efhmc]

49. Thank you.

[malaise]

8. Could be both

[mac56]

32. As I understand it, Disney bought everything except the news operation.

Fox Corp still exists, independent from Disney. It’s primarily a news and sports company now, though it does still own the Fox TV network.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/3/20/18273477/disney-fox-merger-deal-details-marvel-x-men

[GulfCoast66]

40. Disney did not buy Fox News. Murdoch still owns it.

Disney bought the Fox movie stuff and some other networks. But not Fox News.

No way Disney wants to own that shit show.

[DownriverDem]

17. In charge

Didn't Murdoch put his kids in charge of Fox News? I thought there was a change at the top.

[Pope George Ringo II]

52. I'd like to make an addition to your very good demographics observation.

Fox News' core viewer demographic is old white people. Sometimes stereotypes have some truth to them. Old people don't generally like change as much as young people. Old people do watch TV more than younger people. In particular, old people do rely on TV for news more than younger people. Old people die at a greater rate than young people.

There are exceptions to all of those stereotypes, but there's no getting away from the fact that their business model for twenty years has been based on scaring the hell out of old white people. At some point, they're going to need to get a new generation of viewers from somewhere.

[Miigwech]

7. Excellet point!

[SWBTATTReg]

9. I think perhaps people/advertisers are seeing how toxic rump is? nt

[Jarqui]

10. I do not see Trump being the GOP candidate in 2020

Have a look at this
https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump/

Now, from those results, where Wisconsin and Michigan seem hopeless for Trump as do most of the states Hillary won, play around with the electoral college
https://www.270towin.com/maps/p8GN6

If Trump loses Ohio or PA or Florida - he's toast. His chances to win 2020 is presently really grim.
But if the GOP throw him under the bus and trot out a new candidate, their chances can't be much worse than Trump - they're probably vastly improved.

I think they're sitting back and letting Trump destroy himself and blame it on others so that his base won't turn on them when they provide a successor.

[DownriverDem]

19. At the same time

This morning a commentator said that trump will carry Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. I sure hope that's not true.

[onit2day]

20. Thousands of votes were not even counted in these states.

[Jarqui]

26. Let's look at those three for change in approval

https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump/
State Approval => Jan 2017 to Feb 2019
Florida +22 to -3 (25 pt swing)
Pennsylvania +10 to -7 (17 pt swing)
Ohio +14 to -5 (19 pt swing)

If Joe Biden, born in Scranton, PA runs ... I don't like Trumps prospects in PA. I suspect it is why Trump seems to fear Biden so much.

Trump knows the stakes which is why he's spent so much time on Ohio and boosted the tank orders for that OH plant. And has tried so hard to salvage the GM plant.

Those are not as bad as these based on how far underwater his approval is:
Wisconsin +6 to -14 (20 pt swing)
Michigan +7 to -15 (22 pt swing)
Trump barely won those states in 2016. They look hopeless now.

Iowa +10 to -9
Arizona +19 to -6 (and should get worse as he trashes McCain)
Georgia +18 to -1
Even Texas is in play against a number of the Democratic candidates

The GOP have to know that he's in serious trouble.

[Ohiogal]

28. I think since the mid terms

A lot of Trump support in Ohio has tanked since he keeps insulting the GM union

[FakeNoose]

41. PA will vote blue next year, especially with Joe Biden as the candidate

The candidate will make a difference, but I still believe the Democrats will win in Pennsylvania. (I know, maybe this is wishful thinking!) If Biden is the candidate, I'd say it's almost a shoo-in that Pennsylvania will vote blue. We're seeing a lot of remorse from the ChumpHumper deplorables, at least they've peeled their MAGA bumper stickers off their pickup trucks. It seems the craziness of 2016 turned into a bad hangover for many.

Meanwhile the Democrats in PA got a boost last year with the Congressional District map redrawn, and our Dem Governor Tom Wolf got re-elected by a big majority. On the negative side, we still have misogyny here and I don't think it will change quickly. The good news: People in the suburbs don't want to throw away their votes on Chump next time like they did in 2016. We have a lot of suburbs and small cities in PA.

[Cosmocat]

38. They can't even speak out against him $hitting on McCain

He is their candidate, hell, the RNC is more liable to just cancel the primaries entirely for him than them supporting anyone against him.

Whatever polling might look like now is irrelevant until such time was our candidate is identified and they start to slander this shit out of him or her.

Give them a singular communist, socialist, jew, flag, america, apple pie, dog hating liberal scumbag to loose their minds over, and then we can do the math.

[Jarqui]

42. They do not want to be seen by their racist base as the ones who

contributed to his downfall.

They want Mueller, Democrats in Congress, SDNY or someone else to take him out.
Pelosi isn't taking their bait.

They'll do their swiftboating and lying - like they always do.

The difficulty they have this time is they can't sit back and lay in the weeds for the obvious front runner like they did with Hillary and then, they started hacking her to pieces with Benghazi and the emails, etc. They were testing anti-Hillary ads in battleground states years before 2016. They spent about 24 years and billions of dollars to damage Hillary and they had some success doing that.

This time, who do they go after? Joe? Kamala? Beto? Bernie? Elizabeth? etc
AOC seems to be their interim target ...

I am concerned we're being rope-a-doped with Trump and they're going to let the media pummel the snot out of him ... and then primary him with a candidate that will shake up the bad electoral math they face today to give them a better chance. Few if any in the GOP have any affection for Trump. Their stilettos are out. They're just out of sight and they haven't plunged them into his back yet. They're ruthless. They have no loyalty to Trump. Their loyalty is to clinging to power by whatever means it takes and Trump is a liability for them being able to continue to do that.

[Cosmocat]

48. He has nearly 90% approval with "the base"

Honestly, we are going to be lucky if there is even on person who runs against him to keep Rs from registering in mass to try to flip democratic primaries to pick our candidate ...

If "the base" hasn't turned on him to this point, after EVERYTHING that he has said done, there is nothing that will turn them against him.

The media has "pummeled the snot out of him for two years now - its "fake news" to them and all it does to show him say on thing one moment and another the next is make them cling to him even harder cause it just is us hating him.

He IS going to the nominee, the only question is if we can get him out of the oval office, even if we manage to beat him in the election.

[Jarqui]

50. Shorter term bonds inverted in December.10 year bonds inverted today.

It's a key indicator of a coming recession. Normally, it would be about 2 years away. But things Trump has been doing like his trade war, stupid foreign policy and gigantic deficits, etc may well rattle confidence and accelerate that if they haven't already.

For 2019-2020:
Consumer confidence is forecast downward
Stock Market is forecast to drop close to 2,000 pts for 2020
GDP is projected to fall about 33% (remember his big tax cut promise?)
New homes, building and construction spending are all forecast downward
Manufacturing is forecast downward
3 million fewer jobs are forecast
Inflation is going up

The key question is will it fall off fast enough?
It will erode some of his support as voters respond to the direction of the economy - not just whether it has hit bottom yet.
So will voters filling in their tax returns and finding out that big tax cut didn't apply to a lot of them - they have to pay more.

The manufacturing jobs Trump promised the Rust Belt are not coming and he can't spend an extra 150 billion in defense in part to help build tanks in Ohio, like he just did, without Nancy Pelosi signing off. That's part of the fake economic boom (stimulus) he created with his increase in defense spending of $100 billion in 2018 and $150 billion in 2019.

What has to make folks jittery is the deficit is so high, spending more for a stimulus may well spiral confidence and interest rates in worse ways. He has no sure safety valve due to those tax cuts - the health of his economy is living on borrowed time that is running out.

It was one thing to BS us and the media. But there is a reckoning coming when the promises he made to the deadheads that support him are not going to come to pass. Some of them will be too racist or ignorant to figure it out but a bunch are going to catch on.

With the Mueller report around the corner and SDNY going after all kinds of things Trump, this will also wear some of his rabid supporters down - not a lot unlike Benghazi or emails did to Hillary except what Mueller/SDNY are going after are real crimes.

When the GOP see where this is headed and look at the consequences to the electoral college map, as they probably already have, I think they'll swiftboat him or take him out themselves as their only chance to keep the White House and the coattails their Senators and Representatives want to ride back to Washington on.

Just my two cents.

Edit: he has one insane option. Do what George Bush did to prop up the economy and start a war. Wouldn't put it past him to try. Hopefully, congress can reign that in.

[George II]

12. I never connected the two, but interesting point.

I think one of the reasons, though, is that even Fox people are getting fed up and embarrassed by him.

[irisblue]

13. Trump and Fox get the Jane Mayer treatment, and surely this helped

Source--https://www.cjr.org/analysis/trump-fox-jane-mayer.php

Snip--1st paragraph--
TRUMP TV.” That’s the print headline of an exhaustive article by Jane Mayer, published yesterday in The New Yorker, outlining the growing symbiosis between Fox and the president. The image accompanying the piece shows an antenna reaching up from the roof of the White House, flanked by fluorescent “Fox News” signs against a stormy sky. As magazine illustrations go, it’s not the farthest-fetched. Since before Trump took office, Mayer writes, Fox has boosted his signal, he has boosted theirs, and the American public has had to live with the output."



New Yorker Article --https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house

snip--"
But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadn’t been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen “huddling” with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannity’s seventh interview with the President, and Fox’s forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as “fake news.”

Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Fox’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”

Much more at article, as well as an audio down load.
New Yorker has 4 freebies/month.

[malaise]

14. Agree

That was an important exposure but remember the Dems said they would not participate just after that great report. Jane may have influenced even the Dems.

[onit2day]

22. It was first pitched as GOP tv which is what it is.

[yaesu]

15. That's a good observation & also the break up of Fox & the control by a younger generation

seems to be playing a role. There are some, Bill Maher being one, who thinks it was a bad idea to dis Fox, I think it was a great idea to tell fox to go to hell. Also, I think they may be seeing less viewers as the older population dies off & may be thinking about the future as rightwing nut talk 24/7 just won't pay the bills.

[JI7]

16. that's not why. it's becsuse Trump attacked Fox news

for suspending pirro.

[malaise]

18. Another factor

Thanks

[salin]

21. I think that in the new interation (Fox Corp as a stand alone company) it is under Lachlan

rather than Rupert. Lachlan is reportedly more libertarian than Trumpian - and doesn't like Trump. Some of the "talent" (re: Sean Hannity) are allegedly nervous that they are moving in a less extreme direction.

In that context - the dems staying away and the recent publicity about how close Fox and Trump are - would make the plan to be less extreme partisan harder to accomplish. So yes, it could be a factor - but its one in a greater context. Which I hope bodes well in the future for a less conspiracy peddling toxic stain that tarnishes the minds of many in this country.

[malaise]

24. Is Lachian a US citizen or an invading immigrant?

[kooth]

25. You Know ...

Malaise, I always like your posts: They are usually short but to the point, and wise. Thanks as always!

[malaise]

27. Thank you

and you're welcome

[oldsoftie]

29. Trump has BEEN getting criticized on Fox. But you'd have to be watching!

The man i do the most of my work for has Fox on in his office during the day so i see them a good bit. There are several people who have criticized him from way back. And BOY do they hear about it. Cavuto especially. And Napolitano. Fox viewers screamed for him to be a SCOTUS but now he's the devil for pointing out the damn LAW and how trump breaks it

[Texin]

31. I only notice if/when MSNBC runs a clip of a Fox talking head criticizing Shitler.

That only happens occasionally, otherwise I'd never know (and I'm not altogether clear on why MSNBC would be showing them to begin with!).

[malaise]

33. Same here

We don't have Fox by choice

[47of74]

34. I think we humored them way too long.

Someone needed to sit President Obama and the Democratic leadership down the first year in to his term and explained to him that Sean Hannity, Dildo O'Rielly, Fucker Carlson, and so on would've called them names no matter what so they should have stopped trying to make nice with them and stood up to them a bit more forcefully. No one on ones with Faux News, or appearing on debates, and so on.

[malaise]

37. +1,000

How are you feeling today?

[47of74]

43. Ok. And Fuck Trump and his GOP enablers.

[malaise]

45. LOL

[Pepsidog]

35. If Fox evers turns on Dotard start the countdown clock to resignation.

Fox are The Great Enablers. Co-conspirators. Murdoch and family should be stripped in US citizenship and sent back to Australia. Better yet, next Democratic President should deckRe a National Emergency and take diwn or force them to sell. I know, due process blah,blah, blah but this country needs shock therapy and the righties who don’t like it can move. Which brings me to Comey’sOp-Ed about placating the right by not impeaching. Comey is a spineless dork. I really dislike him.

[malaise]

46. and the rest of ReTHUGs

[ToxMarz]

36. The last time the Democrats held a primary debate on fox was 2004

One was scheduled in 2008 and the DNC pulled it. The only difference now is that the DNC has made a public statement prior to scheduling the debates that none will be held on fox, so everyone is now clutching their pearls on the fainting couch. Nothing is new except the public acknowledgement of existing reality.

[Nitram]

39. It could be amplified by the fact that Murdoch's son is now in charge,

He has no love for Trump.

[malaise]

47. Agree

[CentralMass]

51. I'll never watch Fox. I haven't since the 2008 primary