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DanieRains

(4,619 posts)
Wed Dec 2, 2020, 04:32 AM Dec 2020

Newsmax May Be Deadlier Than Fox News

I don't know what, or how, but something needs done.

They are inciting violence, and attempting to start a coup.

If their "viewers" do crimes, and claim their motive was influenced by the lies they heard on Newsmax, I think they should be sued for one thing.

They are literally yelling fire in a theater.

I can't think the 1st amendment has no bounds.

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Newsmax May Be Deadlier Than Fox News (Original Post) DanieRains Dec 2020 OP
Death knells kurtcagle Dec 2020 #1
According to SCOTUS, yelling fire in crowded theater is protected speech Kaleva Dec 2020 #2
Free speech doesn't include lies does it? blueinredohio Dec 2020 #3

kurtcagle

(1,604 posts)
1. Death knells
Wed Dec 2, 2020, 05:45 AM
Dec 2020

What comes to mind is a Superbowl game. Team Red is on the Blue's 5-yard line, there's 20 seconds left in the game, and the score is tied. Team Red routinely cheats, has bought off the refs, and has sent several blue players off the field on a stretcher. The Red quarterback throws the ball, but it gets intercepted at the two-yard line by the blue receiver, who then breaks through the line of scrimmage and scores a 95-yard touchdown.

Things are now falling apart for the Trumpsters. They've stopped pretending that they want a democracy, and have made it very explicit that to them, the only option is a dictatorship under Trump. Biden was not supposed to have won. It was supposed to have been close enough that they could have a quiet coup at the Supreme Court, but that fell apart when Biden won handily. A soft coup is relatively easy to pull off, but a hard coup is much more difficult. You need support from the military, the judiciary, the press, and the intelligence apparatus. Trump got it backward because he assumed that becoming President was like becoming a feudal king and that once in office he had absolute power. Instead, he alienated most of these same factions and is now trying, kicking and screaming, to stay in power without legitimacy.

Newsmax is noise, like OANN, and to an extent even like Fox. The difference is that Fox's masters recognize reality, know that Trump is going away soon and they need to survive in a post-Trump world. Newsmax is just another propaganda rag, and as the balance of power shifts back towards the center, will find themselves increasingly dealing with the limitations that media has always had - they are dependent upon an audience and upon advertisers, and the latter can be pressured.

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