The US ruling class is composed of its billionaires and the capitalist democracy, i.e. those who have capital, of the top 20% Dream Hoarders. They are united in their class interests, but are a fractious bunch. So billionaire Murdoch, owner of News Corps’ Fox News, was happy to support billionaire Trump, over Clinton in 2016 as a sponsor of the Republicrat wing of the ruling class. But Clinton lost, on the back of emerging right populist discontent from neoliberal losers, which Trump as a political entrepreneur was able to harness.
For the next four years, the ruling class would be happy enough with Trump, since he shoveled a ton of money their way. But, billionaires are jealous, and Trump, being a billionaire, was not bought and paid by the ruling class, since he was already a billionaire. Consensus ruling class class became: Trump had to go in favor of a standard bought and paid figure.
For Murdoch’s Fox, this presented a problem in microcosm for that which afflicted the Republicats, caught in a contest between satisfying the capitalist majority, and the right populists. While Fox News effectively served as state TV during Trump’s time in office, Murdoch and the ex-president had a falling out after the nonagenarian billionaire reportedly gave the network the greenlight to call Arizona for Biden on election night, apparently telling his son, of Trump, “F--k him.”
This ‘problem in microcosm’ would have been recognized by Antonio Gramsci, best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which describes how the state and ruling capitalist class – the bourgeoisie – use cultural institutions to maintain power in capitalist societies. The bourgeoisie, in Gramsci's view, develops a hegemonic culture using ideology, rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. Hegemonic culture propagates its own values and norms so that they become the "common sense" values of all and thus maintain the status quo. Cultural hegemony is therefore used to maintain consent to the capitalist order, rather than the use of force to maintain order. This cultural hegemony is produced and reproduced by the dominant class through the institutions, like the media of which Fox News is a part, that form the superstructure.
January 6 was a failure of that hegemony, as right populism ruptured the values and norms of the ruling class. That is, a failure of the ruling class to accept to incorporate class specific realities. Ruling class acamedia has been working to shut down these dissenters, first by silencing Trump himself on social media, and now we enter the second year of Joe Biden’s “historic crusade to restore “norms.””
Late last afternoon, the ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶H̶o̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶m̶m̶i̶t̶t̶e̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶U̶n̶-̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶A̶c̶t̶i̶v̶i̶t̶i̶e̶s̶House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is part of this “historic crusade to restore “norms.””
It asked Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity—one of the figures channeling right populism—- voluntarily to answer questions about his communications with former president Donald Trump and Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the days around the January 6 insurrection.
In their letter requesting the conversation, committee chair Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and vice chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) revealed evidence that Hannity was deeply involved with White House matters, acting not as a member of the press but as an advisor. In August 2016, he told Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times, “I’m not hiding the fact that I want Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States.” After all, he said, “I never claimed to be a journalist.”
In what would usually considered to be an attack on “independent” media or the First Amendment, the January 6th committee demanded Hannity comment on “a specific and narrow range of factual questions.” The committee made it clear that “our goal is not to seek information regarding any of your broadcasts, or your political views or commentary.” They reiterated their desire only to understand the facts at issue, and they appealed to Hannity’s love of country and respect for our Constitution to ask him to “step forward and serve the interests of your country.” In short, loyalty pledge to the ruling class.
Hannity is apparently being represented in this matter by Jay Sekulow, a lawyer on Trump’s legal team, rather than lawyers from the News Corp/Fox News Channel. While Sekulow has indicated he will object to the committee’s invitation on First Amendment grounds, the fact that the News Corp/Fox News Channel seems to be standing back suggests that Murdochs’ shift to the establishment Republicrats over the right populists. Or, as Murdoch put it… Trump “F--k him.”
The Murdoch-controlled WSJ printed an opinion endorsing just that view:
”last year signaled loud and clear that the country has never needed more urgently a conservative reassertion of American values and ideals—a true return to the policies that can redeem the nation and begin its rebirth.” Or, in Murdoch’s words…Trump “F--k him.”
Flowery language, to be sure, but a clear call for the Republicrats to forget about right populism. Flowery language won’t do the trick of paying and organizing, however. Populism is a structural feature, not a bug, of the neoliberal order, and the ruling class is going to have to start investing in order to pry bought and paid for representatives away from Trump.
Notes
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/11/ruper-murdoch-donald-trump-living-in-the-past
https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-save-america-the-gop-first-has-to-save-itself-partisanship-republican-2022-midterms-jan-6-capitol-insurrection-riot-protest-trump-11641230242
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-jan-6-aftershocks-defy-expectations-11641222500