From Wallwritings
President Donald J. Trump has held the U.S. presidency for 1 year, 3 months and 8 days, as of Saturday night, April 28, the night on which he chose to hold a political rally in Washington Township, Michigan, while skipping his second straight Washington Correspondents dinner.
This is a President who divides. This is a President who shows not the slightest indication that he wants to unite this nation. He knows from polling that he has a "base," a segment of the American public loyal to his worldview based on fear of outsiders, liberal government and dislike for non-whites.
That base, as measured in polls, hovers in the mid 30% of the public. The President gives every indication through his tweets, and his major television ally, Fox News, that he actually believes that through the force of his personality public opinion will come to his side of the national yard.
His actions this week confirm and underscore this.
On Thursday morning, he called the Fox News television program, Fox & Friends. Gleefully, the three hosts, Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade, welcomed him.
For 30 minutes, with no commercial breaks, President Trump shouted out a rambling series of hostile comments aimed at his "enemies," the "fake news" media, Democrats and all others who had yet to enter his embrace.
His hosts guided him, as best they could, with quick questions that encouraged his rambling.
Two days later, this Saturday night, the President is skipping the annual traditional Washington Correspondents dinner. Instead, he is holding a political rally in Michigan, one of the three mid-western states that handed him the 2016 election.
Look carefully at the Thursday morning faces of the hosts for Fox & Friends above. Those are faces displaying complacent loyalty, the same look the President expects to see emanating from his entire staff.
These are not journalists. They are folks whose network is deeply invested in the success of this President. Fox News is owned and controlled by Rupert Murdoch, whose extreme conservative ideology and deep pockets are the driving force behind Murdoch's media power center.
Murdoch uses that center, and his money, to reshape American society, its governments and its culture, in Murdoch's ideological image.
Politico wrote about Murdoch's expanding media power:
"As the Australian-born mogul strips away his entertainment properties to create what he called 'the new Fox' -- essentially, Fox News, Fox Business Network, the national Fox sports networks, his broadcast network and local stations -- several analysts suggested that the deal might provide more opportunities for Fox News to extend its footprint into the broadcast realm."
To be fair, and state the obvious, MSNBC tries to do the same thing for Progressives, though not nearly with the success of Fox.
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