Murdoch versus Trump – Murdoch strikes

The day after Donald Trump announced he was running for president for the third time, he woke up to a humiliating front page in his old favorite newspaper, the New York Post. It was bad enough when, after the midterm elections, the paper called him “Trumpty Dumpty” across the board and blamed him for the Republicans’ miserable leadership election.

This was worse. Much worse.

A nasty little strip at the bottom of the first page reads: “Florida man makes announcement.” No name, no picture. Just a reference to page 26. Page 26! And there, at the bottom of the paper, just a short single column, where he is described as a retired golfer and former reality show host, who “surprisingly” launches himself as a presidential candidate. It is noted that within the next election he will compete with Joe Biden to become the oldest president in history: “His cholesterol level is not known, but his favorite food is roast beef with ketchup”.

What a humiliation. In The New York Post itself, the newspaper that had loved and cultivated him for decades at the end of the last century. That she had almost created the Trump brand through tireless daily reports of his achievements in the real estate market, or perhaps preferably on the female front, and in which he had been divorced and had been a playboy and not least the king of New York.

And that it was owned by Rupert Murdoch.

What a betrayal. Here Trump had become president to fuel Murdoch’s media empire, and this was thanksgiving.

The Storting will cool down on its own

ja, there is undoubtedly disagreement between the two the superego about who created whom. Down in Mar-a-Lago, there was never any doubt that Trump almost single-handedly created the terrifying success of Fox News and their superstars. Without Trump, without Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingram, the golfer will claim. Without Trump, millions of TV viewers across the Midwest would not be glued 24/7 to lies and conspiracy theories about American politics.

Rupert Murdoch will shrug. He was king long before Trump became president. He has already created monsters. Not because they like them. It is said that he despised Trump as much as any Democrat. But Trump accomplished what Murdoch always wanted; tax relief, deregulation and the least possible interference from the authorities.

The Da Murdochs crown Tony Blair in the late 1990s, the award was said to be a pledge by Blair to leave his media empire alone. Plus, both Blair and Trump were stars. They were good stuff. Two birds with one stone.

The signs have been there for some time. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has long been preparing his mighty empire to offload Trump and crown a new heir. This is what Murdoch has cynically been doing for decades and on several continents, but nobody could believe it. After all, Trump was in a class all his own. It’s true that he was no longer president of the United States, but he was still a media phenomenon that had almost created his own universe around Fox News.

Why slaughter the golden calf?

When I wrote about it this spring, I was quickly bullied by pundits for being naïve. I don’t want to boast of being particularly clairvoyant, but the signs were recognizable. It has been leaked that Murdoch heir Lachlan, who after all controls News Corp and Fox Corp, had a soft spot for Ron DeSantis. A few months later, after one of the congressional hearings on the attack on Congress, both of the two Murdoch-owned newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, suddenly wrote quite similar editorials that Trump had failed on January 6, and that this made him unsuitable for president.

Trump was furious. At the same time, Fox News has all but stopped interviewing Donald Trump, some say out of fear he would make unfounded allegations of voter fraud. They were afraid of lawsuits. But obviously something was brewing.

The day after the by-election, Murdoch pushed the “nuclear button.” Both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post blamed Trump for the poor Republican election in unusually harsh terms. They said he was obstructing the Republicans. But not least, Fox News anchors ran wild with Trump. One of his sworn advocates, Laura Ingram, said without naming names: When politicians care more about the past and about lost battles than about the best interests of the electorate, the electorate will move forward.

It’s a meto

A couple of days later it leaked that Rupert Murdoch said he could not support Donald Trump in the next election. He will back Ron De Santis with both money and, if we believe the story, positive media coverage. Bullying and criticism from the New York Post tell us that it also means negative mention of Trump.

There is some kind of justice in that, some would say. For years, Trump has used the Murdoch empire to smear his opponents, and now he’s getting a taste of his own medicine. But it is obviously with a significant aftertaste that I laugh at the New York Post’s demeaning warning about the Florida man. It was fun. But an all-powerful media mogul shouldn’t have such a huge influence over who will be the next US president or UK prime minister. He’s terrifying.

When a political monster makes a deal with the devil, it doesn’t end well for most voters.