I try to limit my intake of 24-hour cable TV news, because as a medium, on balance, I think it's bad for America. It was cable, not social networks, that went gaga pumping up Trump during the campaign. Today, it's the toxic feedback swirl of Twitter and cable - and a president and a press corps that spend all hours feeding on one another's digital droppings in a dystopian circle of life - that has rendered our political culture so vulnerable to reflexive, narrow-minded conspiracies, tribalism and groupthink.
Lately, however, I've found myself gorging like a bear in salmon season on the worst, most brain-corroding corner of cable, the network I've called a "forked-tongue colossus" for its two-decades-long project of dismantling our collective hold on the truth. I refer, of course, to Fox News.
I won't lie to you: Watching Fox isn't easy. Much of it is still a fetid sewer of venom that bears little resemblance to the real world.
But when news breaks on television, Fox should be your go-to place to watch, especially if you are on the left.
There is a simple reason: While other organizations report the news, Fox News is the news. There is now a growing rift on Fox: Its news side is asking increasingly tough questions of Trump, while its opinion side pushes his raving conspiracies. The drama speaks to real tension on the right, and Fox will inform political reality.
Even before the Trump era, Fox exerted striking influence on the Republican Party. But with Trump, Fox has reached the zenith of its powers. Its anchors regularly advise the president about politics and policy. Its story lines inform his hourly moods and his strategic decisions, including his staffing. And its commitment to indulging the president's conspiracy-fueled ravings has helped pull political culture ever farther from reality.
Fox is now not just a reflection of what happens in the world; instead, how a piece of news plays on Fox determines what happens in the world.
Tucker Carlson didn't think it was a good idea to bomb Iran, so we didn't bomb Iran.
He didn't like John Bolton, so shut the door on your way out, John!
Lou Dobbs thought Kirstjen Nielsen was weak. Bye bye, Kirstjen!
Watching Fox now is like getting a peek into Trump's war room.
Now there is an extra layer of intrigue. Suddenly Fox News feels like a nation up for grabs, and there is growing, palpable drama on its sets.
The network's daytime anchors - people like Shep Smith and Chris Wallace, who fall on the news reporting side of Fox - have always grumbled about the network's nighttime pundits, talkers like Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. Now the two sides are at open war, sniping at each other daily over the seriousness of impeachment and the very legitimacy of any inquiry of the president.
On impeachment, Fox News' news side has been excellent.
On Friday, Wallace called the White House's "spinning" on the Ukraine call "astonishing and deeply misleading." On Sunday's "Fox & Friends," reporter Ed Henry asked conservative radio host Mark Levin a series of substantive questions about the propriety of the Ukraine call. Levin roared his response, earning Twitter praise from the president, but Henry's sharp questioning stood out to me: There he was upsetting Trump's narrative on Trump's favorite show.
And later on Sunday, in one of the most devastating performances by an administration official this week, Trump aide Stephen Miller fell apart like a used tissue under Chris Wallace's withering questions.
In those moments of truth on Fox, I couldn't help feeling a rush of optimism for America.
But then I watch Fox's opinion side and my optimism vanishes. For much of the past week, on Fox's prime-time lineup, the president's narrative has held total sway. On Carlson, on Hannity, on Ingraham, on "The Five," the big story has been much the same: The president did nothing wrong, impeachment is a witch hunt and a coup, they're coming to take your guns, to corrupt your children and to ruin all that's great about the country.
There were times, watching Carlson and Hannity, that I felt truly terrified for the nation.
But this, too, is important news about America: The president, quoting a Fox News guest, says that his impeachment could bring about civil war in America. Watching Fox's prime-time lineup, I totally believe it.
The New York Times