Why the Dominion Suit Matters (Smartmatic too!)

[Dill]

What we have learned so far:

Newsmax and OANN are being sued, along with Giuliani, the pillow guy, and Sydney Powell, but the big target is Fox.

Accurate reporting was rejected by Murdoch et al. in favor of keeping the Fox audience happy with the alternative facts it wanted to hear—i.e.., the election was stolen. This was a BUSINESS DECISION not to anger Trump supporters, according to Murdoch.https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/07/dominion-sued-fox-news-oan-2020-election-fraud-claims/11417946002/

The big three most responsible for giving “the Big Lie” a platform did not, themselves, believe the election was stolen, and considered those whom they gave a platform to be crazy, and Powell a “liar.” (The same three who everyday claim the “fake news” lies to its audience everyday from morning to night.) But others may have sincerely believed the fraud without evidence—Pirro, Bartoliromo, and Dobbs.

The big three worried about how election truth would send viewers to Newsmax and tank Fox stock. Carlson wanted a reporter stopped from fact checking Trump in real time on twitter, fired even. Carlson even affirmed hatred for Trump in an email, wanted him to disappear.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/media/fox-news-dominion-lawsuit/index.html

How Fox is responding:

They have decided NOT to report on the suit on their own networks. And they dispute the documentary evidence:
… Fox Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, alleged Dominion “has produced zero evidentiary support for its dubious theory that high-level executives at Fox Corporation ‘chose to publish and broadcast’ or played a ‘direct role in the creation and publication’ of false election lies.”
So of course this will default to a free speech issue.

Why the outcome of this suit matters:

While NOT reporting about all the behind the scenes revelations of their bad behavior, the Fox three ARE going back after the “fake news media mob” all the more aggressively, working up a counter narrative about Billions going to Ukraine while the Biden ignores East Palestine. And Tucker has received access to all 1/6 footage, with which he is now busy constructing a new narrative about the Capitol riot which exposes Dem “lies” of the 1/6 committee etc.
This worked for the Big Lie, for claims that Trump was “exonerated” by the Russia investigation, that both impeachments of Trump were a “witch hunt,” that Trump was not responsible in any way for the insurrection. Pre Trump it worked for Benghazi. Free floating anger created, shifted, shaped, and directed to the designated targets to create alternative narratives based upon alternative facts. If it works here, again, then our foreign policy—supposedly predicated on standing up to anti-democratic aggressor states—may take another hit as more MAGA Repubs get on the isolationist bandwagon stoked by Fox and aid for Ukraine becomes harder and harder to pass, incentive for Russia to continue.

But over the longer term, our democracy will suffer as one big political lie after another generates support for authoritarian politics and politicians.  Too many American voters continue to be paralyzed and confused as alternative narratives are constructed faster than evidence-based ones. When they don’t push back or take time to sort out the evidence, ideologues fill the vacuum. The Dominion Suit, if successful, might slow this process down a bit, even result in some Fox firings.  It will be harder to reduce the current division to “both sides” as having made up their minds and become impervious to evidence and persuasion, when it appears clearer that one side is making up its mind based upon documentary evidence and law, and the other is rejecting that approach by accepting unsupportable allegations.