It is night on the East Coast and it is sunset on the West Coast. The hosts of both sides in the daily war of American television have spent all day preparing ammunition for the great offensive in prime time, star of the ultraconservative Fox News, denounces a “silent revolution” at the hands of gays and other components of the LGBT community, whom he refers to as “the boys who wear the dress”. They are now “in control” – he assures – and, through Democratic legislators, “they want to imprison parents who do not strongly support changing the sex of their children”: a peculiar way of presenting proposals for the protection of sexual identity with which Joe Biden’s party tries to combat the growing restrictions in this regard in Republican states.
On the opposite front, and also at rush hour on screens across the country, MSNBC’s top reporter and late-night preacher, Rachel Maddow, uses the opinion of the brother of a police officer killed in the January 6 assault on Capitol Hill. 2020 to underline an idea that for her should already be beyond doubt and discussion: “No one can deny that Donald Trump is responsible” for the biggest blow to democracy in the nation, she says.
On the other network from the same camp, CNN, newly promoted prime-time anchor Alisyn Camerota accuses Republican analyst Scott Jennings of outright lying by claiming that the Democratic candidate for the Senate from Georgia, Pastor Raphael Warnock , defends “unlimited” abortion. Jennings insists on her assertion, and Camerota ends up cutting him off and giving the floor to another party.
Neither Maddow, nor Camerota, much less Carlson or other TV stars in this country even bother too much to appear neutral in the election and treatment of political issues. And less so in the middle of the campaign for the mid-term elections on November 8, in which the Republicans hope to gain control of the House of Representatives and the Democrats, at least, to retain their slim majority in the Senate.
In the same way that Trump’s involvement in the assault on Capitol Hill and his maneuvers to hide classified documents in his house are the favorite topics of the two large networks considered progressive (CNN and NBC), Fox focuses most of its deployments on the internal problems of the current president. “Biden, inept in the economy” is one of the slogans that the Murdoch channel has been displaying on the lower banners that inform the viewer of the meaning of what is being discussed at any given time. Fox commentators accuse the president of not acting properly against inflation, a problem that is not in vain the one that most worries voters today, according to all the polls. It follows as a great concern of street safety, which not by chance is the other major issue preferred by the same chain.
And just as the war in Ukraine and tensions with China are prominent topics on all US television, when it comes to domestic issues one can spend the day zapping without the two television sides ever agreeing. in its contents. The logical exception for a few weeks is in the next legislative, but only as a general theme and to a certain extent, since here too the two fronts diverge in their priorities.
The Republican candidate for the Senate from Georgia Herschel Walker won the biggest spaces on MSNBC and CNN in recent days after an ex-girlfriend accused him of having paid for an abortion despite being a pro-life radical opposed to that practice without exceptions. And the Democratic candidate for the upper house of Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, has been a favorite target of Fox for his refusal to fully disclose his medical records after the stroke he suffered in May. Fetterman still suffers from the consequences of the accident, but assures that he is in a position to assume the new position. The ultra chain calls it into question.
A war would not be at all if the contenders did not confront each other directly. American chains do it frequently. One of his current battles has to do with the investigations against Hunter Biden, the president’s son, for alleged crimes of tax fraud and in relation to the purchase of a weapon. Fox has been accusing CNN and NBC of silencing the issue. Last week, CNN host Jake Tapper asked the president directly about the case, who of course backed his offspring. The rival chain then reproached him with acrimony for not cross-examining the president and, referring to the journalist’s recent premiere in prime time, dropped: “It is not clear if Tapper is up to the task.”
In the plasma war in the United States there is no quarter.
