Steve Jonas for BuzzFlash: How a James Bond Movie Foresaw Murdoch's Fox News Role as the Trump Promoter
Rupert Murdoch (DonkeyHotey)
August 19, 2022
By Steve Jonas MD MPH
As it happens (in part because I have been on this Earth for such a long time) I have seen every James Bond film, in a movie theater, and for many of them, again on television re-runs. One of my most favorites is “Tomorrow Never Dies,” starring Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh. It is one of the most directly political of the series, for it concerns a plot by a major media magnet (mainly newspapers back in the 90s when it was made) to trick China and the United Kingdom in going to war with each other so that he could (somehow) get an exclusive to the coverage of the war and expand his media empire. The villain, one Eliot Carver, is played brilliantly by Johnathan Pryce (one of the great character actors of our era). His totally evil character (getting tons of people killed and much property destroyed so that he could sell more papers[?]) appeared to be roughly based on Rupert Murdoch, and there was much mention in various media about that happenstance.
Why am I mentioning this piece of cinematic history? Well of course it’s the real-life, really horrifying, parallels that are playing out right now, before our very eyes. Murdoch and his media empire are playing a very real and very important role in the history-as-it-is-developing of the United States and the role of the Republican Party (or what I call the “Republo-fascist Party”) in determining what that history shall be. Of course, Donald Trump has played a major role in the development of the contemporary Republican Party and what its policies/politics are. But he has added nothing new in content. He has just added openness, crassness, and major emphasis, to the policies of: xenophobia which has been with the Party since its founding in the 1850s (with the incorporation of the “Know-Nothings” led by the former President Millard Fillmore), and anti-Black racism, which in modern times began with Barry Goldwater in the 1964 Presidential campaign, but actually goes back to the Compromise of 1877 in which Electoral votes were flipped (sound familiar?) in return for an incoming Republican President, Rutherford B. Hayes, promising to end Reconstruction.
But of course, it’s Trump who has given both xenophobia and racism such life, such visibility, such an “OK-ness” (e.g., the “good people on both sides” at Charlottesville remark), very importantly both for himself and for the Republican Party. And he is not shy about it. He does use euphemisms from time-to-time, but they are hardly subtle ones. Unlike any other previous Republican candidate/office-holder he has embodied the policies, the ideology, and (since he is from New York City) a shtick (that is: “any talent, style, habit, or other eccentricity for which a person is particularly well-known, even if not intended for comedic purposes”) that focuses on it.
Of course, Trump not only embodies racism and xenophobia --- features of the ideology in most of the fascist countries of the 20th century --- in his persona. But he also talks about the attractiveness of dictatorship (with himself as the dictator: “TRUMP MAKES IT CLEAR HE’D BE AN OUT AND OUT DICTATOR IF REELECTED IN 2024”); see also the “Section F” proposal, which would destroy the Civil Service, putting it under his direct control (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-newest-executive-order-could-prove-one-of-his-most-insidious/2020/10/23/c8223cac-1561-11eb-bc10-b25382f1be_story.html).
And of course, it’s Murdoch’s Fox which has been with him all the way, beginning with his promotion of birtherism in 2012, right down to the present, through thick and thin, to the “Mar-a-Lago/removal-of-Presidential-documents-in-controvention-of-the-law” controversy.
All (or at least virtually all) of the Fox TV-personalities, as is well-known, are distorting-lying-about-misleading-the-public-on virtually every aspect of what has been happening. And of course, this all goes back to Murdoch and how he wants to play this horrific game. It certainly could be said (although it never could be proven one way or another) that Murdoch made Trump and that without him Trump would be, as Joe Scarborough likes to describe him, “just another failed talk-show host.”
As for the Republican Party, it can be dealt with very briefly. With every few exceptions (see exhibit one at the present, Liz Cheney) as is well-known it is a total Trump-Party and is becoming more and more so every day. That is, it is becoming a Party that more and more, certainly through its principal spokesman, Trump, is promoting fascist polices, and has been doing so with increasing frequency (as I, and others to be sure, have documented over the recent years). Why is the Party going in this direction? That is no mystery (and this is hardly an original thought with me). It is the result of the demographic changes which are driving its classic voters more-and-more into a minority. So of course, that has led, as is well-known, to gerrymandering and other modes of voter suppression (led first by the Koch brothers) right down to the Trumpite attempts to rig the past Presidential election, and the much more sophisticated plans being put in place to get full control of the outcomes of the next ones.
The answer to the question “why are they doing this” is also well-known. They have classic Republican policies, as-low-as-possible-taxation for the wealthy, as few social services for the non-wealthy as possible, support of the fossil fuel industry, undermining public education, massive cuts to government regulation, and so on and so forth. But it is “how are they planning to do this?” that is the key question. Right now, they have Trump and, as is well-known, several other alternatives who don’t have all of Trump’s negatives (like being really ignorant/just-not-interested in how government really works), such as DeSantis, Abbott, and Cruz. As it happens, they too are all making it clear that they would continue to take the country in the direction of one form of fascism or another, as defined here:
“"There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of a capitalist ruling class that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using the big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."
But, and there is a big BUT here, two of them actually, there are major elements of the capitalist ruling class (as defined just above) that are doing very well, thank you very much, with the country just as it is being governed now, under the Democrats. More of those particular elements are to be found supporting the Democratic Party than the Republicans. But then within the Republican Party itself there are certainly elements of the capitalist ruling that identifies with such voices as Liz Cheney, amplified most recently by her father “Dick” in a speech in which he said: “In Our Nation’s 246 Year History There Has Never Been an Individual Who Is Greater Threat to the Republic than Donald Trump.”
Does this mean that Dick Cheney has suddenly become a progressive, or even a Democrat? Hardly. He is as reactionary as ever. But he obviously represents that ruling class element that supports the U.S. Republican Party --- and its policies ---which sees itself as doing very well under the current poltico-economic system and simply does not want to have anything to do with the proto-fascist wing of the Party, certainly as led by Donald Trump (and he may well not like the DeSantis types either. But that we do not know.) (How his wing the Party would deal with the “Demographic Question” I have no idea. But I should think that they do have one.) And thus, because of his domination of the Right-wing/Republican domination of the air waves, it comes down to Murdoch, in part at least.
Obviously, as noted, just watch the prime-time evening line-up of Carlson-Hannity-Ingraham [and boy, wouldn’t Watters just like so much to part of it] lining up behind Trump on virtually every issue, even “well, the Insurrection wasn’t really SOOO bad, “donchaknow”, and anyway just look at the Democrats.” On the specifics of “Mar-a-Lago, the Fox Folks come up with every attack line they can think of to try to get out from under Trump’s violation of the Presidential Records Act. (First and foremost, they never mention that Act and that Trump’s violation of it stands as a crime regardless of how he may, or may not, have mishandled classified documents and for what reason[s].)
As for those reasons which Fox desperately wants to stay away from, long-time Trump biographer Tim O’Brien has said:
“I think there are three likely reasons Trump wanted to keep all that top-secret paperwork and classified paraphernalia to himself . . ..
“Reason One seems relatively harmless. Trump is a seven-year-old grown old, and he liked some of the cool doodads you get your hands on as president. . . .
“The second and third reasons aren’t harmless at all. They’re deeply damaging and troubling. . . . Reason Two: Money. Unfettered greed has motivated Trump his entire life. He didn’t get into the casino business to beautify Atlantic City. He didn’t propose a mega-development on Manhattan’s West Side because it would have made New York more livable. He didn’t start Trump University to educate students, and he didn’t host “The Apprentice” to tutor entrepreneurs. He didn’t originally run for president to revitalize democracy. Money, money, money. . . .
“Recall that Trump’s businesses have been in difficult straits. When Trump left the White House, his operations were saddled with about $1 billion in debt, $900 million of which comes due relatively soon. He personally guaranteed repayment of about $421 million of that debt. And his businesses — concentrated in urban real estate and leisure — were pummeled by the economic downturn that accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump and his firm, the Trump Organization, also face civil and criminal fraud investigations in New York that could put him out of business. . . . [To which can be added, as some observers have done: what among the various White House papers might Trump have been thinking of selling, both at home and abroad, to parties that might have use for them. Forget about legality. Just think ethics. But then that word and the word ‘Trump’ have never gone together.]
“Reason Three: Reputational damage. Trump reportedly held on to letters he exchanged with North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un. Perhaps vanity inspired that move because Trump has referred to such correspondence as ‘love letters.’ But what other communications are contained in the documents Trump kept? Anything with Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping? [Is there possibly a record of what Trump and Putin talked about in the ‘famous Helsinki meeting?’] How about documents pertaining to Trump’s phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy from that time when Trump was trying to strong-arm Zelenskiy into digging up dirt on his political opponent, Joe Biden. Those communications led to the first of Trump’s two impeachment proceedings.
“Again, maybe there’s nothing of this sort, either, in the documents Trump kept. But it’s not unreasonable to worry that his communications with foreign leaders — and anything disreputable or possibly illegal that took place in connection with those —could have been something he felt compelled to hide.”
So, to repeat, in my view, Trump never would have been “Trump” --- and wouldn’t still be --- without Murdoch and his minions. Murdoch obviously likes the millions (likely billions) he has made off Trump. Part of him also likes the prospect of fascism as defined above (especially because in a fascist U.S. Fox”News” would dominate the airwaves --- for beginners because MSNBC, The New York Times, and etc. would be gone, in one way or another [think libel suits without the “absolute malice” requirement]). But it would appear, not all of Murdoch remains fully behind Trump. For example, Murdoch’s The Wall Street Journal is beginning to publish some criticisms of Trump, especially over the Insurrection. On the other hand, like Fox The Journal has been rising to his defense (way up there) over the Mar-a-Lago raid. But Murdoch may indeed be beginning to separate himself from Trump, even if right now it is for just a bit.
Thus, it is for these reasons that I think that there are developments in this realm that do bear watching. First, there are definitely elements within the Republican wing of the ruling class that would like to separate themselves from Trump. Second, some may think that they can get to fascism without him (again, see DeSantis, Abbot, DeVos, and etc.) Third, of course there are those who think that the best way to defend their interests is keep on doin’ what they are doin’, totally in league with Trump. But Murdoch will have a major role to play in determining what is going to happen here. In large part, Murdoch made Trump. He can have a major influence in undoing him as well. Too bad we don’t have a James Bond figure here to help make sure that things will go in the right direction. But watching what Murdoch does over the next few months in terms of Trump and Trumpism, in the run-up to the 2022 elections, is going to be very important indicator of which way the Trump-wind will be blowing.
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH, MS is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at StonyBrookMedicine (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-editor of over 35 books. In addition to being a contributor to BuzzFlash.com, he is a “Trusted Author” for OpEdNews.com , and an occasional contributor to Reader Supported News/Writing for Godot; and From The G-Man. His own political website, stevenjonaspolitics.com, is an archive of the political columns he has published since 2004. He was also a triathlete (36 seasons, 256 multi-sport races), retiring after the 2018 season.
Dr. Jonas’ latest book is Ending the ‘Drug War’; Solving the Drug Problem: The Public Health Approach, Brewster, NY: Punto Press Publishing, (Brewster, NY, 2016, available on Kindle from Amazon, and also in hardcover from Amazon). In 1996 he published a ‘future history’ of the United States entitled The 15% Solution: How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A Futuristic Novel (Third Version published by Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto Press Publishing, 2013, Brewster, NY), and available on Amazon.
He has a distribution list for his columns. If you would like to be added to it, please send him an email at sjtpj@aol.com.