"The customer's always right": New Fox News lawsuit explains why the GOP is captured by conspiracies

[marmar]

"The customer's always right": New Fox News lawsuit explains why the GOP is captured by conspiracies
Republican voters, party leaders, and propagandists share a fundamental belief: That the truth doesn't matter

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED MARCH 22, 2023 5:53AM (EDT)


(Salon) "You know, the customer's always right."

Rep. James Comer gave this juicy quote to Jonathan Swan and Luke Broadwater for their New York Times profile of the Kentucky Republican. He was explaining his affection for right-wing conspiracy theories. The "customer[s]" in this case, as Swan and Broadwater write, are the "vengeful, hard-right voters" who "propelled Comer to stardom" in the GOP.

It's quite an admission from the newly crowned chair of the House Oversight Committee. When asked why he is so intent on using his powers, as Swan and Broadwater write, "to investigate unhinged claims about President Biden and Democrats," Comer could have played political word games, pretending either to take these conspiracy theories more seriously than he actually does. He could have feigned outrage at the suggestion that his motives are anything less than honorable. Instead, Comer seems unconcerned to be seen, to the readers of the New York Times anyway, as a huckster for disinformation scraped out of the darkest corners of the internet.

"They don't know that it's QAnon," he even told Swan and Broadwater, "but it's QAnon stuff."

Comer's audacity is especially surprising in light of the ongoing Fox News scandal, stemming from court documents filed by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing the network for defamation. The filings included a staggering number of text messages and emails from Fox hosts and executives, revealing that they knowingly spread Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election, repeatedly amplifying and validating false claims that President Joe Biden stole his victory.

But what is perhaps most interesting about the texts is how the Fox leadership echoes the "customer is always right" rationale that Comer uses to justify his devotion to elevating evidence-free accusations against Democrats. Throughout the texts, Fox News leaders express fear that the "network is being rejected" for not playing along with the Big Lie. Amplifying election conspiracy theories, they told themselves, is "letting the viewers know we hear them and respect them." ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2023/03/22/the-customers-always-right-new-fox-news-explains-why-the-is-captured-by-conspiracies/

[Lovie777]

1. Oh please.................

fake news loves money and stupid people.

[Timeflyer]

2. A cold-blooded selfish power hungry a--hole who'll destroy democracy to further his career but

at least he's not lying here. Jeez...