How the Right Lost Its Mind

by Charles J. Sykes

  As striking as Robertson’s descent into conspiracy mongering may have been, the response was equally illuminating. Because the Christian Right had become such a critical part of the conservative coalition, few conservatives were willing to break with Robertson. This remained true long after Robertson had established himself as “Christianity’s crazy uncle.” After the Anti-Defamation League criticized some elements of the religious Right for dabbling in anti-Semitic tropes, prominent conservatives rushed to the defense, accusing the ADL of “anti-Christian” and “antireligious” bias.33

  Most conservatives did not, of course, take Robertson’s ideas seriously. For the most part, his bizarre notions were met with eye rolls, but seldom with censure. Conservative thought leaders looked the other way. As a result, for years elements of the conservative coalition marinated in a toxic stew of conspiracy theories.

  Not surprisingly, that had consequences.

  BIRTHER-IN-CHIEF

  For many on the Right, the ur-conspiracy theory of the Obama presidency was the notion that Obama had not been born in the United States and was therefore not constitutionally eligible to be president. An entire cottage industry of “birthers” sprang up, complete with elaborate attempts to document the “evidence” that Obama was, in fact, a secret Kenyan. Arguably, Donald Trump launched his successful presidential bid by seizing upon the issue, which he milked for the maximum amount of publicity. Trump would eventually disavow birtherism in the final months of the 2016 campaign, while attempting to blame its origins (falsely) on his rival Hillary Clinton. But for five years, Trump had questioned Obama’s birthplace.

  In March 2011, Trump appeared on the Laura Ingraham Show to declare: “He doesn’t have a birth certificate, or if he does, there’s something on that certificate that is very bad for him. Now, somebody told me—and I have no idea if this is bad for him or not, but perhaps it would be—that where it says ‘religion,’ it might have ‘Muslim.’ And if you’re a Muslim, you don’t change your religion, by the way.”34 On CNN, he escalated his rhetoric, saying that “if he wasn’t born in this country, he shouldn’t be the president of the United States.” After Obama produced the certificate in April 2011, Trump briefly acknowledged his legitimacy, but quickly seemed to recant, saying “a lot of people do not think it was an authentic certificate.”

  To be sure, some conservatives with megaphones denounced the birthers. Early on, talk show host Michael Medved called the movement’s leaders “crazy, nutburger, demagogue, money-hungry, exploitative, irresponsible, filthy conservative imposters” who had become “the worst enemy of the conservative movement.” Birtherism, he said, “makes us look weird. It makes us look crazy. It makes us look demented. It makes us look sick, troubled, and not suitable for civilized company.”35

  But despite repeated attempts to debunk the theory, many leading Republicans either stayed silent or refused to forcefully denounce the theories that were springing up. One reason for their reluctance was that “birtherism” was not a fringe notion in the GOP. A Public Policy Poll in February 2011 found that birthers had become a majority among likely Republican primary voters—51 percent said they did not think Barack Obama was born in the United States. Less than one third of GOP voters—28 percent—said they firmly believed that he was born here, while 21 percent weren’t sure.36

  Those numbers helped explain why so many leading Republicans were reluctant to forcefully denounce the attempt to delegitimize the nation’s first African American president. The poll also suggested, as Steve Benen noted in the Washington Monthly, that “candidates hoping to run sane campaigns will be at a disadvantage in the coming months.” Republican voters who doubted Obama’s legitimacy tended to gravitate to candidates like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Mike Huckabee (all of whom would play key roles in Trump’s 2016 campaign).37

  Throughout 2012, Trump used Twitter to attack Obama’s legitimacy. In one tweet, Trump insisted that “an extremely credible source” had told him that the certificate was “a fraud.” Trump continually pressured other Republicans to embrace birtherism. In May 2012, Trump tweeted that Obama “is practically begging” GOP front-runner Mitt Romney “to disavow the place of birth movement, he is afraid of it.” But Romney had notably gone out of his way to accept Trump’s endorsement. “When he accepted Trump’s endorsement during the 2012 Republican primaries,” E. J. Dionne noted, “Mitt Romney was positively giddy.…”38

  The mogul continued his birther rants:

  In August 2012, he tweeted: “Why do the Republicans keep apologizing on the so called ‘birther’ issue? No more apologies—take the offensive!”

  In September: “Wake Up America! See article: ‘Israeli Science: Obama Birth Certificate is a Fake.’”

  Even after the election, Trump trafficked in elaborate conspiracy theories. In 2013, he tweeted: “How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.”* As late as 2014, Trump invited hackers to “please hack Obama’s college records (destroyed?) and check ‘place of birth.’”39

  Throughout his political career, the New York Times’s Michael Barbaro wrote, Trump was known for his “casual elasticity with the truth,” exhausting “an army of fact-checkers with his mischaracterizations, exaggerations and fabrications.” But Barbaro wrote, “This lie was different from the start, an insidious, calculated calumny that sought to undo the embrace of an African American president by the 69 million voters who elected him in 2008.”40 And yet, as they embraced Trump’s candidacy, a majority of conservatives clearly did not think that the lie, or its underlying racism, was disqualifying for the presidency. By failing to push back against the birther conspiracy theories, conservatives had faced a moral and intellectual test with significant implications for the future. It was a test they failed.

  TRUMP’S GRAND UNIFIED CAMPAIGN CONSPIRACY THEORY

  Near the end of his presidential campaign, when Trump laid out his theory of a vast globalist conspiracy it caused barely a ripple on the Right, because the ground had been prepared for years for this kind of rhetoric:

  Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.

  It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities,” Trump continued. “We’ve seen this firsthand in the WikiLeaks documents in which Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special-interest friends, and her donors.41

  Time magazine called this his “Grand Unified Campaign Conspiracy Theory” that drew upon “conspiracy theories that have been nurtured for years by far-right-wing outlets like InfoWars, which has been a home for 9/11 ‘truthers,’ and unfounded claims about the Bilderberg Group and the World Economic Forum.”42

  Jewish groups, who recognized the echoes in Trump’s language, were alarmed.* Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, quickly tweeted that Trump “should avoid rhetoric and tropes that historically have been used against Jews and still spur #antisemitism. Let’s keep hate out of campaign.” He expanded on his concerns:

  We’ve been troubled by the anti-Semites and racists during this political season, and we’ve seen a number of so-called Trump supporters peddling some of the worst stereotypes all through this year. And it’s been concerning that [Donald Trump] hasn’t spoken out forcefully against these people. It is outrageous to think that the candidate is sourcing material from some of the worst elements in our society.43

  PART III

  THE TRUMPIAN TAKEOVER

  CHAPTER 10

  THE FOX NEWS PRIMARY

  THERE IS NEITHER WORLD enough nor time here to recount
the tangled and fraught relationship between Fox News and Donald Trump. At times, the network and the billionaire appeared to be on a collision course, as Trump berated its hosts, attacked its coverage, and boycotted one of its debates. Fox’s initial hesitancy to embrace Trump provoked a heated backlash in the right’s new media ecosystem and a graphic demonstration of the new media culture. Fox was effectively brought to heel after a sustained attack against it by Trump and his supporters at Breitbart. While much of the fire was directed at Megyn Kelly, the attacks were broader and deeper, with a specific theme. A report by the Columbia Journalism Review noted that “the five most-widely shared stories in which Breitbart refers to Fox are stories aimed to delegitimize Fox as the central arbiter of conservative news, tying it to immigration, terrorism and Muslims, and corruption.” A sampling of Breitbart’s juicier offerings:

  The Anti-Trump Network: Fox News Money Flows into Open Borders Group;

  NY Times Bombshell Scoop: Fox News Colluded with Rubio to Give Amnesty to Illegal Aliens;

  Google and Fox TV Invite Anti-Trump, Hitler-Citing, Muslim Advocate to Join Next GOP TV-Debate;

  Fox, Google Pick 1994 Illegal Immigrant To Ask Question In Iowa GOP Debate;

  Fox News At Facebook Meeting Is Misdirection: Murdoch and Zuckerberg Are Deeply Connected Over Immigration.

  As the CJR report observed: “The repeated theme of conspiracy, corruption, and media betrayal is palpable in these highly shared Breitbart headlines linking Fox News, Rubio, and illegal immigration.”1

  After jousting with Trump early in the campaign, and coming under such intense pressure from the candidate and the trolls, Fox News seemed to come down with an especially severe case of Stockholm Syndrome (in which hostages begin to sympathize with their captors). The network’s coverage, especially the fawning treatment from Sean Hannity (who publicly announced his support for Trump), became increasingly friendly. By May 2016, conservative talk show host Mark Levin was accusing the network of acting like a “Donald Trump super PAC.”2

  ROGER AILES’S AMBITION

  For conservatives, there were few gatekeepers more influential than Fox News. A 2014 Pew Poll measured the extraordinary influence of Fox News among conservatives. Nearly half of “consistently conservative” voters—47 percent—named Fox News as their “main source” for news about politics and government. No other source came close. Among those voters, 88 percent said they trusted Fox as a source. While media bubbles also exist on the left, no single source of information used by liberals comes close to the clout that Fox had with the right.3

  “There would not have been a Tea Party without Fox,” the cofounder of the national political action committee Tea Party Express later said.4 Fox News boss Roger Ailes also changed the face and tone of the conservative movement. Ailes gave a platform to and conferred celebrity status on figures like Glenn Beck and, despite his doubts about the former Alaska governor, Sarah Palin. After Ailes’s death, commentators noted that he was a transformational figure—perhaps the transformational figure—for both latter-day conservative media and Republican politics.

  In his book about Ailes and Fox News, Gabriel Sherman quotes one Republican who is close to Ailes as saying that Ailes “thinks Palin is an idiot.” Ailes, he said, “thinks she’s stupid. He helped boost her up. People like Sarah Palin haven’t elevated the conservative movement.” Nevertheless, Ailes had reportedly given her a $1 million a year contract and built her a television studio in her home in Wasilla, Alaska, from where she helped set the tone of conservative discourse over the next few years.

  Ailes was a pivotal figure in the new conservative media in a number of ways, but primarily for the way he aggressively and skillfully blended his political agenda with his network’s programming. Because liberal media bias was considered a given, Fox News and others felt justified in embracing a policy of overt bias. There were notable exceptions, as Fox often did solid reporting (“Fair and Balanced”), featured an impressive cast of contributors, and had a number of credible hosts—including Kelly, Brit Hume, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier.

  But Ailes had an agenda and it was obvious to anyone around him, or anyone who watched his network. Beyond the short skirts and low décolletages for on-air women that Ailes preferred, there were stories that were hyped, narratives advanced, and candidates boosted. Sherman recounts the pressure that some reporters felt. In the 1990s, when reporter David Schuster “pursued Clinton, Ailes personally congratulated him. When he pursued Bush, his bosses questioned not only his objectivity, but his loyalty.”5

  Even as Fox grew its audience and its profits, Ailes had larger ambitions. Shortly after the 2010 midterm elections, according to Sherman, Ailes told network executives that the network was “making a lot of money—that’s fine. But I want to elect the next president.”6 While Ailes would often deny that he was a “kingmaker,” he actively tried to recruit presidential candidates, including General David Petraeus and New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who “had Fox News television values with a ready-made reel.”7 Not coincidentally, the crowded GOP presidential field in 2011 and the chaotic early debates had a distinctly Fox/Ailes vibe. The network held its first presidential debate in May 2011, featuring a mix of presidential wannabes, but no really big names. The debate, Sherman wrote, “confirmed what a mess the field was—a mess partly created by the loudmouths Ailes had given airtime to and a Tea Party he had nurtured.”8 But his influence was undeniable, and as the 2012 campaign became known as the “Fox News primary,” some Republicans were already becoming concerned that it was playing too big a role in the process.

  But Fox’s influence would be magnified in 2016. Even in a year when much of the media simply abdicated their editorial responsibilities and turned over vast acreages of airtime to Trump, Fox’s coverage stood out. Its credibility with the GOP base meant that it played a critical role in normalizing Trump’s candidacy and making it acceptable to conservative primary voters. But it was not always easy. One Fox host told Politico’s Eliana Johnson that when Trump would lash out at Kelly, Ailes would tell him, “Hey, Donald, settle the fuck down.”9 The results were mixed.

  Even so, by the time Trump locked up the GOP nomination in May, he had already decisively won the Fox News primary, getting more than twice as much airtime as any other candidate in the race. A breakdown by Media Matters found that from May 1, 2015, to May 3, 2016, Trump had made 243 appearances on Fox and had appeared on the network for more than 49 hours.10 His closest rival, Ted Cruz, had only 122 appearances; he keenly felt the disparity. On the day his campaign ended, Cruz accused Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch and Ailes of making “a decision to get behind Donald Trump and turning Fox News ‘into the Donald Trump network 24/7.’” Murdoch, Cruz said, “is used to picking world leaders in Australia and the United Kingdom, running tabloids, and we’re seeing it here at home.…”11

  In her memoir, which was published shortly after the election, Megyn Kelly strongly suggested that Roger Ailes was actively colluding with the Trump campaign.12 Before he was ousted over sexual harassment allegations, Ailes reportedly was advising Trump’s campaign, even as he was shaping and directing Fox’s coverage.13 Days before Trump announced in July 2015, he reportedly had a lengthy private lunch with Ailes and the two men met several times over the next year and spoke “frequently” over the phone. According to a report by CNN’s Dylan Byers and Dana Bash, “Even when Ailes and Trump appeared to be at war over Trump’s treatment of Megyn Kelly, the two men kept the conversation going.” (After he was ousted from Fox, Ailes briefly advised Trump directly and helped with his debate prep.)14

  The two men, as it turned out, had a great deal in common. Indeed the blustery, egotistical, thin-skinned Ailes cultivated and nurtured a style and an ethic at Fox that was uniquely suited to the Age of Trump; or to look at it the other way around, Trump was the ideal candidate for the culture that Roger Ailes was putting on the air.

  Throughout the campaign, Trump’s attitude toward women was a chronic probl
em for conservatives. But Trump’s behavior was never close to disqualifying for Ailes or for his top-rated host Bill O’Reilly. As reporter and author Gabriel Sherman noted, the network that “played an undeniable role in reshaping American politics over the last 20 years,” had its own culture where the sexual harassment of women “was encouraged and protected.” It was a culture, Sherman said, “where women felt pressured to participate in sexual activity with their superiors if they wanted to advance inside the company. And it was so—what was shocking to me was not that it occurred but that it was so explicit, that there was no subtext, there was no subtlety to it.”15 So it was perhaps not surprising that after the Access Hollywood video surfaced, in which Trump is caught bragging about being able to “grab ’em by the pussy,” that Ailes and O’Reilly would provide him with valuable air cover at a pivotal moment in the campaign.

  That pattern at Fox News would continue after the election. The appointment of Tucker Carlson to replace Megyn Kelly was a sign “of just how much [Fox Chairman Rupert] Murdoch wants to appease Trump,” observed Gabriel Sherman.16 Along with the decision to drop George Will and hire pro-Trump commentator Mollie Hemingway, the move’s were widely interpreted as a signal that Fox will become even more overtly pro-Trump in the future than it was during the campaign. As president, Trump continues to be an avid viewer and often praises and promotes segments on Fox News, creating a remarkable symbiotic relationship between the White House and the network. Even after the abrupt and dramatic fall of Bill O’Reilly, that dynamic is unlikely to change. As Eliana Johnson noted, the network’s pro-Trump shift had more to do with ratings than ideology. “If the network, broadly speaking, had ever been a serious venue for interrogating conservative ideas,” she wrote, “that mission fell by the wayside as it became clear that Trump-friendly programming meant more viewers.”17