Biden will have to overcome the post-fact climate of the Trumpist Right

by | Jan 21, 2021 | Politics | 1 comment

Fox News has done more damage to America than any institution in my life time. Starting modestly as a purveyor of hard news, the network went hard right during the Bill Clinton impeachment trial and has spent the ensuing quarter century systematically loosening its audience’s grip on reality. Fox’s hosts have created an alternative universe of pseudo-facts so pervasive that simply announcing Joe Biden’s win in Arizona sent millions of loyal viewers scurrying to Newsmax and OAN. The post-fact climate that predominates in right-wing circles will be the single greatest threat to Joe Biden’s presidency.

Biden began his presidency with a well crafted olive branch extended to conservative America. His desire to unite the country is genuine and backed up by decades of bipartisan work in the Senate and as Barack Obama’s vice president. But perhaps over learning the lessons of deals he cut years ago, Biden risks an insufficient understanding of the obstacles that the Tea Party-ized, Trumpified American Right poses to his unifying project. Our new president faces not only an opposition party that has waged total war on the last two Democratic presidencies, but a grassroots Republican base in thrall to mass delusions.

Consider what the Trumpist hard core believes. By over two-thirds margins Trump voters tell pollsters that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump–implicitly, by people of color in urban areas. This false belief reflects a deep distrust of the machinery of American elections and a frank refusal to recognize the legitimacy of Democratic presidents. Millions of conservatives view Joe Biden’s occupancy of the Oval Office as an usurpation.

But even that doesn’t hold a candle to another widespread falsehood in right-wing opinion. Peruse any conservative blog and you are likely to see claims that January 6’s Capitol riot was carried out by antifa terrorists disguised as Trump supporters. That such a large chunk of the country could honestly believe that far-left militants dressed up in MAGA hats and waved hundreds of Trump banners in a false flag assault on the Capitol, when Trump himself and his son and North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn were actively cheering on the assault, is breathtaking. We are looking at a right wing so paranoid and alienated from the facts that they will believe things almost anyone else would recognize as wildly irrational.

So: a large bloc of the United States of America enters this new era predisposed to see President Biden as an usurper, a dotard, and a radical backed up by antifa. That’s not the picture of a faction that is likely to conciliate a Democratic administration. Not to say that Biden, a veteran pol and a patriot, cannot reach across the aisle and find conservatives of goodwill with whom to make deals. But the challenge he faces from a radicalized extreme Trumpist base is immense, and will test every fiber of his political skills in his uphill battle to restore trust in government.

1 Comment

  1. Thomas Magnuson

    The US is one of the few advanced countries in the world that allows ungoverned dishonesty in public spaces. Can we revive “the fairness doctrine?” Maybe we should examine the laws of countries that govern speech in the public space, like Finland and Iceland. Because the majority of Icelanders are unchurched, Iceland doesn’t even allow religious use of its airwaves.

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