Over the course of the last month I’ve spent a lot of time watching Fox News. Full disclosure: I am a committed progressive activist and, therefore, strongly disagree with most of what I hear and see in the conservative media. However, I believe it behooves liberal critics of right-wing ideology to take seriously its appeal to millions of its followers and to make a sincere attempt to understand the ways it resonates with many people, and even to emphatize with those people as we may deplore their political decisions.
The world according to Fox News invariably seems to involve some combination of the following seven deadly sins:
- "Illegal aliens," i.e, undocumented immigrants, are flooding into our country and pose a threat to our everyday life.
- Democratic-governed cities are exploding with homelessness and violent crime.
- The FBI and Justice Department have been weaponized by Democrats and are persecuting innocent public officials — the most noteworthy one being Donald Trump,
- The current administration, under the leadership of criminal gangsters Joe and Hunter Biden, has surrendered power and influence to America’s new primary enemy, China. (In contrast, our former archenemy, Russia, turns out to be not so bad, making aid to Ukraine a complete waste of time and money.)
- Medical treatments offered today in the form of gender-affirming care, especially when it comes to helping trans youth, amount to a ghoulish form of castration and butchery.
- Too many schools are teaching kids to feel guilty about America’s history of racism, sexism and homophobia, brainwashing children with leftist “woke” ideology and disempowering parents in the process.
- Poor people just want to get something for nothing, and government programs only make things worse.
There are other common themes, of course, including mocking climate science, exaggerated and excited fixations on the evidence of criminal behavior and debauchery found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, and even outrage at the fact that the Biden family's dog, Commander, has bitten Secret Service agents. But I would argue that some combination of these seven deadly sins, each one part of a larger paranoid narrative, can be found in every single news or opinion show on Fox News and in the right-wing blogosphere. Delivered with some combination of humor, sarcasm and outrage, this view of the world is clearly compelling to many people.
The common thread running through all seven deadly sins is the evocation of fear and envy, fear that the powers that be — often described as "liberal elites" — are threatening “our” freedom or otherwise trying to control us, and envy that these same shadowy forces help and support everyone else but “us.” If we fail to understand these deeper emotions, we can’t possibly understand or influence the loyalties of the MAGA right. Instead we will continue to believe that by disputing and refuting each of these claims on objective factual grounds we can change minds, only to be frustrated, over and over again, that such arguments have no effect.
To begin with, it is important to note that fear and envy are deeply embedded human emotions, and once triggered they invariably come to dominate a person’s psychological experience of the world. Objective, left-brain logic and reasoning become irrelevant.
In my own clinical experience, fear is often rooted in feelings of helplessness or powerlessness — the most toxic of human emotions. If helplessness is prominent in people’s experience of personal and social life then the resulting anxieties become fertile ground into which right-wing media can plant its conspiracy theories.
This is precisely what we see when we understand how many aspects of our economic, cultural and political lives are shot through with feelings of powerlessness and anxiety. I’m not simply referring to grand narratives involving capitalism, racism, climate change and sexism, but all the many ways that people are frustrated in their everyday lives, from confusing technology breakdowns to internet fraud, implacable bureaucracies, waiting lists for medical care, street crime and traffic jams. The mind recoils and rebels against helplessness and looks for a narrative that "makes sense” of these real frustrations and problems, a narrative that Fox News and many conservative thought-leaders provide in their assertions about the seven deadly sins. The need for an Other to blame is powerful, and Democratic or liberal “elites” are made to fit this bill.
Powerlessness also gives rise to envy. Picture a situation in which your economic status is stagnant: You aren’t getting ahead, lack the resources to ensure a comfortable retirement and feel little or no confidence that your children will have a better life than you. All your sacrifices and hard work, in other words, seem to have accomplished nothing. That would be discouraging for anyone, and among other things, conservatives view these threats as undermining masculine values.
Then Fox News directs your attention to others who the network's talking heads say are gaming the system or appear to be getting help without having to sacrifice: poor people or immigrants who you believe are being rewarded for nothing, or people of color who benefit unfairly from affirmative action. You may feel outrage, even bitterness, and direct your ire at the perceived cause of these injustices — namely, affluent liberals and the unfair welfare state you believe they have created. In such a situation, envy is painful while rage can feel redemptive, powerful and righteous.
Progressives encounter the endless, repetitious incantations of these seven deadly sins in the conservative media ecosystem and are understandably horrified and outraged. But these are not debating points that can be logically refuted. Instead, they tell a story about the world that rings true to an audience that feels aggrieved and helpless, and that is looking for villains to blame for their distress.
The deepest and most effective response to the propaganda seen on Fox News is to lessen the feelings of helplessness, fear and envy that so many Americans experience. Only then will people be less receptive to believing in the seven deadly sins.
