The Ascendency of Extreme Right Wing Propagandistic Media

Imagine that the United States government had been taken over by an authoritarian — basically fascist — regime. There would soon be only one network of radio and television stations, one state-sponsered chain of newspapers. News and opinions would be promulgated without regard to their truthfulness. The sole criterion in crafting them would be whether they serve the political purposes of the ruler or the ruling party. Instead of informing and enlightening the public, the daily stream of so-called news would have the effect of misinforming and misleading the public, an ignorant, confused populace being the gold standard for authoritarianism.

A propagandistic authoritarian State media is already in place in the United States. The extreme right-wing disseminators of misinformation haven’t achieved total control of the media, but they have achieved control of a large chunk of it. MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid reports that the extreme right-wing-controlled behemoth Sinclair Broadcasting owns 186 stations in 86 markets, everyone of them devoted to spewing truth-free propaganda, emulating the pernicious streams of misinformation generated by Fox News and other mouthpieces and supporters of the Authoritarian Party, which is what the Republican Party has become.