The sentiment of mutual understanding accross polticial lines expressed in many comments here is beautiful.
However, let's not forget that on election night the current US president clearly proved his staunchest critics right.
What might have happened if Fox News had adopted his "stolen election" narrative?
This is, quite literally, how autocratic strongmen destroy their countries for personal gain. There's more than enough historical precedent from around the world to know the playbook.
I watched Fox News all morning yesterday. I couldn’t believe how much it resembled the other networks.
The GOP is also relatively mum. I’m thinking that I’m some sense, many of these folks are secretly hoping for the end of Trumpism, that a more normal GOP may return.
> THE GOP NEVER WANTED TRUMP. Why do you think the DNC has “super delegates”? Exactly to prevent what Trump did.
Well, no, the superdelegates are principally (solely, now that post-2016 their first ballkt voting powers have been limited to situations where they don't matter) to prevent an extended convention battle in the event of a failure of a clear majority.
The GOP tried to avoid the same problem without superdelegates by building a system that creates a strong artificial majority out of plurality support, to force a quick decision for the early leader (which Trump benefited from, because the establishment didn't really have it's act together to effectively push a clearly preferred candidate at the outset, and ended up chasing the early leaders tail the whole election with a succession of different favored alternatives.)
> The establishment GOP hates Trump as much as anyone on “the left”.
The old GOP establishment might. The party-in-government (GOP members in elective office don't), the evidence of which is them staying in the Party when Trump took it over. For dissatisfaction with a party for more mild than what the left has for Trump, officeholders leave and become independents or even flip to the other party; if establishment members of the GOP in government hated Trump even with 1/10th the fury the Left has for Trump, or even that the center-right Democratic establishment does, they'd have all left, and either become independents, joined the Democrats or, given how many of them there would be if it really was the whole establishment, formed their own party.
Instead, they immediately dropped most of their pre-nomination complaints and jumped on board, because while he might not be their favorite, he's a devil they have no real problem living and working with.
While Murdoch holds and supports the spread of staunchly conservative views, I don't think he wants to go down in the history books as attempting to plunge the US into dictatorship.
It's not about the scenario where Trump actually wins the electoral vote. It's about Biden actually winning the electoral vote, but Fox, Trump, and right wing media sowing enough doubt in half the country that a "coup" is taking place and Biden isn't lawfully President and that their supporters need to support the "legitimate" President by any means necessary.
However, let's not forget that on election night the current US president clearly proved his staunchest critics right.
What might have happened if Fox News had adopted his "stolen election" narrative?
This is, quite literally, how autocratic strongmen destroy their countries for personal gain. There's more than enough historical precedent from around the world to know the playbook.