Mr. Baron is an attorney who has represented many institutions involved in the international markets and advised various parts of the federal government on economic issues.
The 2024 Presidential election will teach us a lot about how informed our electorate is and why millions of Americans will vote for a man who:
- Had to be stopped by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, from mishandling America’s nuclear arsenal and bombing North Korea with a plane bearing a Chinese flag. No one will be there to stop him next time?
- Will impose tariffs that lead to a recession that he could easily mismanage into a depression. During the Great Recession of 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (previously Goldman Sachs CEO), Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and NY Fed President Tim Geithner saved us from a depression. Trump will pick sycophants who won’t push back on his decisions.
- Won’t say he wants Ukraine to win, and admits he’d “encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want to any NATO member.” Given Trump’s adoration of and financial reliance on Putin, he’d give him a green light and threaten all Western democracies.
- Wants to repeal Obamacare which will lose more than 21 million Americans their healthcare insurance and all coverage of preexisting conditions. He already sabotaged it as President and lost 3.1 million Americans, including 700K children, their insurance.
- Promised to drain the swamp, but:
- Had 18 of his appointees and cronies arrested, indicted or jailed including for lying to the FBI, inviting foreign meddling in our elections, child pornography, and Medicare fraud. Rather than condemn them, Trump pardoned them.
- Was ordered to pay $2 million for using his Foundation to pay political expenses and was convicted of tax fraud and bank fraud and had to pay $25 million to compensate students he defrauded by promising to teach them the “secrets of success” in real estate — this from a man who drove six of his ventures into bankruptcy.
- Swindled small voters out of millions of their donations.
- Absurdly claims that Haitian workers in Ohio eat people’s dogs and cats.
- Claims “We have millions of dangerous people pouring into our country from prisons, jails, mental institutions and insane asylums,” when there’s absolutely no evidence of that.
- Dodged the draft with a fake diagnosis of bone spurs.
- Had 4.2 percent of the world’s population but 30 percent of COVID-19 cases and 19 percent of COVID deaths – more than any other country, including China, whose population is more than four times larger than ours.
This is not political rhetoric. It is the dismal reality backed by Trump’s own promises. Why, then, would any informed person vote for Donald Trump? One reason is Fox News.
Fox News is well-known for its pernicious false flattery of Trump and its specious accusations about Democrats. Yet, it is the most watched network by voters and the most profitable news network by far. Fox also changed it’s accreditation from a news station to an “entertainment” station. Fox News is now in the same category as Saturday Night Live, Laugh-In, and the Swamp People.
Fox’s third quarter topped broadcast news networks ABC and CBS and all of cable news in viewers, marking 91 consecutive quarters as the most-watched cable news channel in primetime. And it was the only network that didn’t have month-to-month declines in both categories.
| PRIMETIME | Fox News | MSNBC | CNN |
| • Total Viewers: | 2,505,000 | 1,430,000 | 853,000 |
Fox also shot up by 48% in total viewers from 2023 while MSNBC was up 17% and CNN was down 21%.
In 2022, Fox News’ revenue increased by 5% to $3.3 billion, while CNN’s revenue decreased by 5% to $1.8 billion, and MSNBC’s revenue decreased by 8% to $903 million.
That’s the good news for Fox. Here’s the bad news. Researchers asked 1,185 respondents what news sources they watched and then asked five questions about domestic and international issues. Those watching only Fox News would answer 1.04 domestic questions correctly compared to 1.22 for those who watched no news at all. The following chart shows the number of national questions that viewers would answer correctly.
The following chart shows the number of international questions viewers would answer correctly. Again, viewers who watched no news at all would answer more questions correctly than Fox News viewers.
Fox viewers were not only the most unformed, they were also the most misinformed. To prove it, two political scientists paid a group of regular Fox News viewers to watch CNN for a month instead of Fox. At the end of the month, some of the prior Fox News watchers changed their minds on a range of issues, including Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and that Democrat’ wanted to defund the police.
And those that switched to watch CNN for a month were less likely to believe that Joe Biden supporters were happy when police officers get shot. In addition they were less likely to agree that if Joe Biden were elected President, we’d see many more police get shot by Black Lives Matter activists.
Perhaps more compelling is that after Fox pushed claims that Dominion Voting Systems voting machines were fraudulently manipulated, 21 percent of Fox News viewers lost their trust in it when it settled with Dominion for $787 million for lying about its voting machines. In other words, they had a credible source of the truth – the Dominion settlement – that laid bare the Fox lie.
Not surprisingly, a profile of Trump voters showed that they were dominated by low-information voters who are unable to correctly answer three questions: How long is a U.S. senator’s term?; Which party currently controls the House? And which party controls the Senate? These uninformed voters voted in significantly larger numbers for Donald Trump than for Hillary Clinton. They may account for only a one- or two-point difference in 2020 election, but frightenly, that could be decisive.
Fox viewers believed Fox Myths:
Fox viewers are far more likely than the average American to believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, that the government exaggerated the number of deaths attributed to the coronavirus pandemic, hid reports of deaths caused by vaccines, that the vaccines can cause infertility and that they contain microchips that spy on individuals.
Two thirds of Republican voters – as opposed to 3 in 10 of all American voters — believe that the 2020 election was stolen even though Fox Chairman, Rupert Murdoch, testified under oath that the 2020 election was free, fair and not stolen.
Fox anchor, Tucker Carlson used security footage he edited to report that the January 6 mob “were peaceful protesters and orderly, meek sightseers” and used the lie that the 2020 election had been stolen to justify the actions of the mob. Carlson’s false claim had results. 89 percent of MAGA Republicans said Biden wasn’t a legitimately elected president.
Fox News is the only main stream outlet that pushed the falsehood that COVID vaccinations can cause death. Their lie was responsible for deaths of many who refused vaccinations.
There’s no denying that Fox News has nothing but disrespect and contempt for its viewers. Even the Bible in Proverbs 26 tells us “liars have contempt for those they lies to.”
