Fox News “personality” Tucker Carlson was fired without notice on Monday morning. There’s lots of coverage of this around the internet (although there’s very little on the Fox News website) – I don’t intend to repeat what others have said. But I have some thoughts on this I want to share.
Fox News is in trouble. They settled the Dominion lawsuit for $787.5 million. The AP says Fox has $4 billion in cash reserves and can defray much of the cost through insurance and tax write offs, but that’s still a lot of money. And there are more lawsuits coming. I haven’t seen anybody seriously suggesting that Fox will go bankrupt, but rich people who lose money tend to get angry. I’m pretty sure Rupert Murdoch is angry right now.
The truth still matters. The most important thing that came out of the Dominion case was clear evidence that Fox personalities knew Trump’s claims of a stolen election were false. They promoted the claims anyway because it’s what their audience wanted to hear. It’s one thing to promote vile political philosophies – that’s freedom of speech. It’s another thing entirely to promote things you know are lies.
Carlson is also being sued for sex discrimination and harassment. The facts of that case reflect poorly on Fox management, and represent another liability to them.
The bottom line is that as popular as Carlson was, he became more trouble than he was worth to Fox and to the Murdoch family. Make no mistake – he was worth a lot to them. Fox was paying him $20 million a year because he brought viewers to the network. We see the same thing in pro sports all the time. Stars get away with behavior that would get ordinary players cut in a minute, because they make a difference on the field. But eventually, even the most talented players can become more trouble than they’re worth.
This was a move by the Murdoch family to protect their business. They’re betting that getting rid of Carlson will minimize their losses short-term and allow them to rebuild their audience in a few years or even a few months.
My first reaction to this was happiness that a mean-spirited purveyor of conspiracy theories was gone. Though he’s likely not gone – speculation is that he’ll end up on Newsmax, the channel for people who think Fox is too liberal. My second reaction was that finally, the adults on the right are starting to act like adults. But I’m not sure that’s true.
Make no mistake – Rupert Murdoch believes the philosophies Fox News preaches: laissez faire economics, environmental exploitation, conservative social positions enforced by law, rigid social hierarchies with himself and people like him at the top. He started Fox News to promote those ideas as much as he started it to make money.
And also, he started Fox News because he saw how popular Rush Limbaugh was. Limbaugh was an entertainer first and a political analyst second. He often said he was successful because he “said what other people were thinking but were afraid to say.” People watch Fox News because it tells them what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not.
To be fair, Fox’s reporting is usually factual, even if it’s framed in a conservative context. I watched and read them a fair amount during the 2020 election – their facts were usually in line with what other sources were reporting. They were among the first to call Arizona for Biden, which enraged Trump. But their programming moves seamlessly from factual reporting to editorializing and from editorializing to promoting conspiracy theories – something their average viewers fail to notice. Or they notice but they don’t care, because it’s what they want to hear.
Here’s what I think is most important in this situation, and what I’m watching going forward.
Remember Occupy Wall Street, when we were complaining (with great justification) about “the 1%”? Rupert Murdoch and Fox News exemplify the 1%. They want to do two things: promote conservative ideology and make money. Making money may not always come first (those who insist “it’s always about the money” miss the point that rich people can also be true believers) but money is always important.
But the 1% are just one segment of the current Republican party. The other major segment are the populists and the culture warriors. These are the people who have been economically and financially “left behind” by the 1%, but who are most angry with the cultural changes of the past half century, changes that are celebrated by the left. Individually these people have very little money or power. Collectively they have a lot of votes and a lot of TV sets. Fox News has always pandered to them. Donald Trump did a fantastic job of pandering to them in 2016. Ron DeSantis is trying to ride “stop woke” to the Presidency.
Is Tucker Carlson’s firing part of a push by the 1% to reclaim control over the populist mob? Or is this just about Carlson himself and the fact that what he brought to Fox was exceeded by his liabilities? Honestly, I don’t know.
In 2016 I thought the adults in the Republican party would step in and make sure their nominee was at least qualified to be President. They didn’t, we got Trump, and it’s going to take many more years to repair the damage… and that’s assuming Trump (or DeSantis, or someone like them) isn’t elected in 2024 and does even more harm.
I’ll be watching the lawsuits against Fox carefully. Will they be able to pay them off like they did Dominion? Or will some of them go to trial and even more dirt will come out in the process?
It’s very early in the 2024 election cycle, but I’ll be watching for an establishment Republican candidate to declare for the Presidency. Will an adult run, or will Republicans have to choose between Trump, DeSantis, and a bunch of no-names?
The conflict going on in our wider society is a lot more than Team Red vs. Team Blue. American political parties are all coalitions, and segments can turn on each other in a hurry – particularly if the party is losing. As with so much else in life, binary thinking is quick and easy but ultimately unhelpful.
Fox firing Tucker Carlson is a good thing, but what it means in the big picture remains to be seen.
Pay attention.
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