Dem
51
GOP
49
For years now, on the air, Fox News has steadfastly maintained that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, even though top executives and network stars knew he lost. The executives feared that if they told the truth, viewers would desert them in droves and the company would face ruin. So they lied to protect their business. The lies have cost the company $787.5 million so far, with more to come.
One consequence of their lies is that a large number of Fox viewers and their friends and families now believe that Trump really won and is being railroaded by all the indictments against him. A new YouGov poll shows that while 47% of adult citizens think Trump tried to overturn the Georgia election and 29% think he didn't, among Republicans only 18% think he tried to overturn it and 59% think he did not. Among independents it was 46% yes and 22% no. Considering that multiple eyewitnesses said he did and there is an audio tape to back them up, Republicans are living in a fantasy world, but that's the way it is. As to whether Trump committed a crime in Georgia, 72% of Democrats, 41% of independents, and only 11% of Republicans think he did. Similarly, on the issue of whether they approve of Trump being charged in Georgia, 83% of Democrats, 50% of independents, and only 15% of Republicans approve of him being charged. That surely will have an impact on the various trials coming up.
In other words, it seems like Trump's defense is not going to play out in the courtroom, but in public. We expect that once the trials start, Fox will put "expert" after "expert" on the air explaining why the charges are "trumped up" and why their hero is not guilty. Unless the jurors are sequestered, which is unlikely in a long trial, probably some of them will watch Fox every day and get their information there. (V)