This blog post could have been called, “What to Expect from Future Defamation Cases against Fox.”
On Tuesday, just before opening arguments were scheduled in the Dominion-Fox defamation case, the parties announced that they had settled: Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million.
What followed the announcement was an outpouring of shock and rage. Here is a sampling of the comments I received:
- Fox should have had to issue televised apologies for propaganda to the public. I am raging that it didn’t happen.
- Fox News won. Dominion won. The rest of us lost.
- Dominion cared more about money than the future of American democracy.
- Our entire governmental system is completely incapable of stopping individuals of massive wealth from using modern media & technology to outright lie to subvert our democracy. We are doomed.
I’ll get to these comments (and many others), but I think it’s best to start with the facts. Once we agree on the facts, the questions and comments will tend to answer themselves.
The Facts
Dominion, the manufacturer of voting machines, sued Fox for defamation, accusing Fox of telling four basic lies:
- Dominion committed election fraud by rigging the 2020 Presidential Election,
- Dominion’s software and algorithms manipulated vote totals,
- Dominion is owned by a company founded in Venezuela to rig elections, and
- Dominion paid kickbacks to government officials who used its machines in the 2020 Presidential Election
A tort is an act or omission that leads to an injury. Defamation, a tort, is a statement that injures a person’s reputation (or a company’s reputation). If you are injured and suffer damages, you can sue the person who caused the injury and force them to pay to cover the cost of your injury. (Punitive damages are rarely awarded and would be problematic against a media outlet accused of defamation.)
Dominion demanded $1.6 billion in compensatory damages.
Compensatory damages, also known as actual damages, are awarded by a court equivalent to the loss a party suffered. The idea is that a person who causes damage should pay for the damage. It can be difficult to determine what dollar amount will make a person whole after suffering an injury and reasonable minds can come up with different numbers. (Generally, the person claiming an injury will think the dollar amount should be higher than the person accused of inflicting the injury.)
The most Dominion earned in a single year was $17.5 million in 2022, which was after the election and while Fox was lying. so it would appear that Dominion (like, I would assume, all plaintiffs) looked for ways to make the initial demand as high as possible. They never explained how they got from $17.5 million in earnings in their best year to a loss of $1.6 billion.
A plausible outcome at trial would have been for a jury to find that Fox in fact defamed Dominion and caused them damages, but the actual damages were considerably less than Dominion claimed. A jury award of $20 million or even $50 million would not be at all unreasonable.
The Law Governing Dominon’s Lawsuit Against Fox
Because we are dealing with a public company and a media outlet, the controlling law was given in New York Times v. Sullivan.
New York Times v. Sullivan arose during the Civil Rights movement when the New York Times published an advertisement seeking contributions to defend Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sullivan, a city Public Safety Commissioner in Alabama, understood that the advertisement was criticizing him and his subordinates. Hoping to put the pro-civil rights New York Times out of business, Sullivan sued the New York Times and a group of Black Alabama ministers for libel on the grounds that the ad contained a few factual inaccuracies and libeled him. (Sullivan was not mentioned by name in the ad.) He sued under Alabama libel law. A local jury in Alabama awarded Sullivan $500,000 in damages against The New York Times, a staggering amount for that era which would have likely put the New York Times out of business.
The Alabama State Supreme Court affirmed the judgment. The New York Times appealed to the US Supreme Court. The question was whether the Alabama libel law constitutionally infringed on the New York Times’ First Amendment’s freedom of speech and freedom of press protections.
In deciding the case, the Supreme Court set out a standard for deciding when a publication is liable for lies or inaccuracies. The rule is this:
The standard is meant to be difficult. The rationale was that First Amendment was intended to give people (and media outlets) freedom to criticize public figures.
Under the heightened standard, Sullivan lost. If Sullivan had won, segregationalists would have gone around putting any newspaper that “libeled” them (criticized them) out of business.
Under the standard given in New York Times v. Sullivan (assuming Dominion is a public figure), Dominion must prove each of these elements:
- Fox made a false statement purporting to be fact.
- Fox published or communicated that statement to a third person.
- Fox published the defamatory comments with actual malice, defined as “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth.” (In other words, more than mere negligence)
- Dominion incurred damages or some harm caused to its reputation
Pre-Trial Discovery Uncovered Some Bombshells That Would Have Allowed Dominion To Overcome The High Burden of Proving Actual Malice.
Discovery is the process litigants use before trial to gather information. Because the point is to get to the truth, each side is entitled to all the facts and information known by the other side. Parties may obtain any non-privileged information the other side has that is relevant to either party’s claim or defense.
Litigants can take depositions (questioning under oath) of witnesses, so Dominion was able to take depositions of Fox executives.
Here is a sampling of the evidence that emerged during Dominion’s pre-trial discovery that we learned about from the pre-trial documents filed with the court:
- Rupert Murdoch said, “half of what Trump was saying [about the election] was bullshit and damaging.”
- Murdoch testified that by November 5, he was already worried about the election fraud lies.
- Murdoch admitted that Fox commentators such as Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo “endorsed” the “false notion of a stolen election.”
- Viet Dinh, the highest ranking lawyer in the Fox corporate structure admitted that if people in the chain of command who had the power to exercise control over the shows knew the allegations were false, they had an obligation to stop it.
In other words, Fox executives knew that Trump, their anchors, and commentators were lying. We also learn why the executives didn’t stop them from lying:
- Fox’s call of Arizona for Biden set off a flurry of negative conservative commentary and viewer backlash. Fox Corporation executives were aware of this. Fox Corporation tasked an entire Brand Protection Unit led by Fox Corporation Senior Vice President Raj Shah with monitoring and mitigating criticisms of Fox.
- Initially, the top people at FOX agreed that if Trump refused to concede, Sean Hannity should not go down the same path. Then, when the backlash kept getting worse, the top executives worried about losing viewers to Newsmax, so they change their strategy: They would go forward with the lies and phrase it as reporting the news, even though they knew it wasn’t.
Thus we learned that Fox went forward with the lies as a deliberate strategy because they knew if they didn’t, they’d get “hit from the right” and would lose their viewers to Newsmax.
Fun tidbit:
- Col Allan, a former New York Post editor, told Rupert Murdoch that Rudi Guiliani was “unhinged” and the “booze” was getting to him.
Another one:
- Murdoch called McConnell immediately after the election and urged him to ask other senior Republicans to refuse to endorse Mr. Trump’s conspiracy theories and baseless claims of fraud.
And the biggest “bombshell” at all: In a summary judgment ruling, the court found that Fox lied about the elections and lied about Dominion. This made life much easier for Dominion because they had to prove three elements instead of four.
Legal Arguments
Don’t skip this part. 🤓 It is important.
Dominion relied on the rule in New York Times. v. Sullivan and argued that under the law as it stands, they are entitled to damages.
Fox argued that exceptions should be carved into the rule in Sullivan. Fox argued that if something was “newsworthy” they should be able to report it, and a sitting president and his minions claiming election fraud was “newsworthy.” They called this the “neutral reporting” doctrine. They hoped the court would adopt it.
In other words, had Dominion won at trial, the law would have remained the same. A win, however, would have demonstrated that even under the difficult standard given in New York Times v Sullivan, it was possible to win a defamation case against Fox.
Had Fox lost at trial but won on appeal, and the higher courts accepted their arguments, the law would have changed to make it harder to sue media outlets for defamation, thereby making it easier for them to lie.
Settlements in General
Most cases settle before trial. Trials are always risky. The purpose of civil litigation is to resolve disputes between parties. If every dispute went to trial, courts would be very costly to maintain (courts are funded by the public.) Moreover, anyone who has been involved with civil litigation knows that both sides often end up feeling like they lost.
Because settlements are the most efficient and cost-effective way to settle disputes, judges (and some statutes, such as California’s Code of Civil Procedure 998) often encourage parties to settle.
Important note: Discovery facilitates settlement because both parties know in advance what will come out in a trial. Cross-examination at trial is often a lawyer trying to get a defendant to say more clearly what they stumbled through and tried to avoid saying in a deposition. New and shocking revelations uncovered in a trial are a Hollywood invention and make for a good show, but it isn’t what happens in real life. The judge and jury may be surprised, but the parties almost always know what will come out.
The Dominion-Fox Settlement
Before we get into the details, keep this in mind: Even people who sat through every minute of the negotiations would be likely to come away with different impressions. During negotiations, people posture. They huff and puff. They demand things they know they will never get to give themselves room to negotiate. People who were involved with settlement talks are likely to spin their side when talking to the media.
That said, here’s what The New York Times reported: Initially it didn’t appear that the case would settle because the parties were too far apart in their demands. Reading between the lines: Dominion wanted a lot of money and a public apology. Fox was not willing to make a public apology or pay a lot of money.
Fox evidently believed they could win the case on appeal, possibly because they were going to make a First Amendment absolutist argument and calculated that enough crazies on the Supreme Court would agree with them. In the meantime, though, the district court judge kept ruling against them, which was embarrassing, created more obstacles, and postponed any possible win until far down the road at the Supreme Court.
After the jury was impaneled, both sides got worried. We all know that juries sometimes get it wrong. (Look at the Rittenhouse trial.)
Fox, therefore, started putting larger amounts of money on the table. As Fox increased what they were willing to pay, Dominion became more willing to forego the public apology.
The Outpouring of Rage at Dominion
Let’s start with this reply that came to me from someone who claims to be a lawyer:
“With all due respect, one attorney to another… did you describe a legal process basically accurately? Yes. But your analysis of settlement has very little meaning to the future of truthful journalism, justice, and real democracy.”
Dominion didn’t sue Fox to save the future of truthful journalism. Dominion sued Fox to recover the damages and financial losses they suffered when Fox lied about them.
Moreover, no serious lawyer would ever utter this sentence: “Dominion should turn down a settlement offer that would compensate them for the damages they suffered so they can save the future of truthful journalism.” In fact, a lawyer who worked for Dominion and said something like that would be committing malpractice.
The person who made the above comment evidently believed that demanding a public apology (or going to trial) would save journalism, justice, and democracy.
I say hogwash. Here is what an apology on television might have accomplished:
- It might have changed the minds of some election deniers.
- It might have persuaded some voters that they shouldn’t believe everything Fox tells them.
- It certainly would have caused temporary embarrassment to Fox and therefore provided some solid schadenfreude for those of us who have been enraged with Fox for decades.
Had the case gone to trial:
- The trial would have been lit.
- The appeal would have been a nailbiter.
Here is what a public apology won’t do:
- Guarantee future truth in journalism.
- Save democracy
- Guarantee “justice” in America.
We already have a court ruling in this case that Fox lied. We have a deposition in which Murdoch testified under oath that Trump and his commentators lied. Did those things cause Fox’s support to crumble? Nope.
That’s because there are no magic bullets. Anyone who thinks that an apology from Fox or an admission from Fox (or a trial that embarrassed Fox) will save American democracy does not understand the extent of the problem.
Do you really think these guys will say “Wait, what?! Fox lied about the election! We’re done! Fold up shop. Let’s all go home and learn to love a multi-racial liberal democracy!”
Many of those guys know Fox lies. They love the fact that Fox lies. They cheer on the lies because they know the lies destroy and they want to destroy. (For more on that, see this Slate piece I wrote in 2019.)
Even if you did manage to destroy Fox, all that would happen is that Newsmax would grow. Fox viewers are addicted to the entertainment and constant rage. They love hating the liberals. The Fox message speaks to something that they respond to on a visceral level. You can spend the next 100 years playing whack-a-rightwing propaganda outlet—and right-wing extremism will continue.
“Teri, you are mocking us because we thirst for justice and because we are rightfully frustrated that justice was not done in the Dominion case.”
I responded to this person by insisting that we use the word “justice” as defined in the dictionary, to mean “the fair administration of laws,” in which case, justice was done.
She insisted that she had the right to use the word “justice” in a general sense and called me “pedantic” for showing her the dictionary definition.
It seems to me that “justice” in the general sense means, “If the result isn’t what I wanted, there was no justice.”
The Dangers of Thinking a Magic Bullet Can Save Democracy
People who think that those in power can do something and make the problem of right-wing extremism disappear will continue demanding magic bullets and will erupt with anger and rage when the people in power (or with the kind of limited power that Dominion temporarily held over Fox) fail to do the magic thing that will restore justice and harmony in the world.
If people think there is a magic bullet, how will they have the energy to put in the boring, tedious, grinding work of saving democracy? If enough people are not willing to put in the work, democracy will be lost. Don’t be a whiner with unrealistic demands. Be a doer. Need ideas? See this post.
Okay, let’s look at some of the other comments I received on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Fox got off with a slap on the wrist.”
If you think a $787.5 million settlement in a defamation case is a “slap on the wrist,” you will never be satisfied by any outcome in any court case, whether it is criminal or civil. In fact, I believe that the demand for indictments over the past two years came from unrealistic ideas of what indictments might accomplish. (For more on that, see this post.)
As Ken White said, “If your expectations for the legal system are not reality-based you’re going to be consistently disappointed.”
“Dominion had evidence that met and exceeded the standards of this precedent. The odds were astronomically in their favor and Fox’s only real hope was to lengthen the trial and hope Dominion couldn’t afford it. Fox achieved their goal and can easily afford the payout while increasing rates to get cable subscribers to pay for it. They also get to avoid embarrassment with their viewers. They won.”
This person seems to be saying that the problem is that Fox could afford the payout and believed that Dominion couldn’t afford a trial. (Spoiler: Dominion could afford a trial and Fox knew that.)
Compensatory awards are made based on the extent of the damages, not what a person can afford. This makes sense if you think about it. If your property is damaged, you want enough money to repair your property. Right?
“Fox won.”
Literally dozens of people told me that Fox won. Each had a rationale for why Fox, in fact, won.
In fact, Fox lost. Dominion was clearly able to prove all four elements, so Fox could not win. Fox therefore paid a very large amount to settle this case.
“Fox won” is literally false. Isn’t saying things that are literally false exactly what people accuse Fox of doing? Truth and accuracy matter. Moreover, if you go around saying “Fox won” you are doing Fox a huge favor by helping to spin a three-quarters of a billion-dollar settlement as a win.
Here was an interesting variation:
“Fox News won. Dominion won. The rest of us lost.”
The rest of us were not a party to the lawsuit, so “we” could not win or lose.
“FOX Propaganda settling for nickels is more than sad. Dominion settling for nickels is more than sad. Where does Democracy settle in against Propaganda? Please inform me! I am anxiously waiting!”
First, calling a settlement of close to a billion dollars “nickles” is an exaggeration. Accuracy matters. Second, “Democracy” and “propaganda” were not litigants in this action so Democracy cannot “settle” with propaganda.
“Fox should have had to issue televised apologies for propaganda to the public. I am raging that it didn’t happen.”
A court of law cannot and will never force a person to issue a televised apology.
A litigant can insist on an apology as part of a court settlement, but evidently Dominion decided they would rather have almost a billion dollars.
“Fox bullies America.
Dominion gets a check. America keeps the same bullying Fox. End of story.
Where’s the justice in *this* story?”
The lawsuit was not brought against Fox for lying to America (or bullying America). The lawsuit was brought against Fox to compensate Dominion for the financial and other damages it suffered when Fox defamed them. The justice is that Fox had to pay for the damage it caused.
“We have seen how bad actors like Trump have settled lawsuit after lawsuit out of court with no admission of guilt and terms often sealed under NDA. Years later they will claim they did nothing wrong but just settled for financial reasons. And then they continue with their abusive nature.”
Doesn’t it suck that there are bad people in the world? Unfortunately, there is no lawsuit that will turn bad people into good people.
Here was another theme in the comments:
“It should be FCC / DOJ / Congress seeking justice for America, not Dominion.”
And this one:
“Frankly, I’m amazed that Fox’s malfeasance has gone unchallenged by the DOJ. Rupert Murdoch is to January 6th much of what bin Laden and his lieutenants were to 9-11, yet all Garland can do is twiddle his thumbs as he whistles past the graveyard.”
To begin with, lying (except under particular circumstances) is not a crime. Fox cannot be criminally charged with lying. You cannot be criminally charged with lying. Your neighbors cannot be criminally charged with lying. However, if Fox, you, or your neighbors tells a lie that causes damage to a person’s reputation, that person can sue for damages.
Moreover, the First Amendment specifically forbids the government from “abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” That means the government cannot shut down Fox. (There are FCC regulations, but anyone who thought $787.5 million was a slap on the wrist really will not be satisfied with the kinds of penalties likely to be imposed for FCC violations.)
“Going to trial would have been worse for Fox, so this was a win.”
You don’t know that and neither does anyone else. Dominion has more information than any of us have, and Dominion thought they were better off taking this settlement than taking their chances in court.
“Many of us just wanted to watch Fox eaten up in the courtroom and there was a great disappointment that that didn’t happen.”
My response:
- You would not have been able to “watch” the trial because it was not going to be televised.
- What you would have been able to read probably wouldn’t have been much different from the bombshells already in the court documents, and which were forgotten within a few days.
- I also would have loved to watch such a trial, but the legal system doesn’t exist to provide the show I would like to watch.
“Why can’t I sue Fox for all the damage they’ve done to my country? Killing people by telling them not to mask? Covering for lies and crimes of politicians?”
You can’t sue a news outlet for “covering for crimes” (which I assume means “defending a person who committed crimes.”)
As far as the rest, to bring a lawsuit, you have to point to a particular act and show how that particular act was the actual cause of a particular injury. If a person died because Fox told them not to wear a mask, the family might have grounds to sue, but they’ll have to prove actual causation and that isn’t easy. Just because two things happened in chronological order does not mean the first caused the second. Sometimes there are multiple factors. If the person heard the same thing from sources other than Fox, how would you know which source was the cause? If a person is stupid enough to take medical advice from a person on TV instead of their doctor, a jury might conclude that it’s not the person on TV’s fault.
“I am just curious to know if this settlement potentially lays the groundwork for other similar lawsuits – for eg, Fox’s aggressive promotion of hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin during the pandemic.”
This was a defamation lawsuit and Fox lost, so much of it, including Murdoch’s admissions under oath, lays the groundwork for other defamation lawsuits against Fox arising from election lies. I assume Smartmatic is very happy right now.
“People are complaining because this result is an example of the law failing to support the well-being of our society.”
Personal injury law supports the well-being of society by forcing people to pay the cost of the injuries they cause. Defamation law supports the well-being of society by forcing people whose actions hurt a person’s reputation to compensate them for any lost revenue for that harm (if the plaintiff can prove all the necessary elements.
“Support the well-being of society” is a vague standard that will mean different things to different people. I assume that by “support the well-being of society” that person meant “shut down Fox News.”
Along those lines, there was this one:
Our entire governmental system is completely incapable of stopping individuals of massive wealth from using modern media & technology to outright lie to subvert our democracy. We are doomed.
There have always been wealthy people trying to subvert our democracy from the enslavers to the robber barons. Modern media allows bad information to travel faster, but the problem of misinformation and bad information has always been around. We solve problems and work to maintain a democracy the way we always have. The hard way. See this list for how. Also, read a biography of Thurgood Marshall to find out how it’s done.
This is from the comment section: “The weakness of a democracy is that in order to be a democracy it must tolerate the inclusion of those who would destroy democracy.” This is not a paradox. It does not mean we have to let the destroyers of democracy succeed. It means that you can’t kill them all or punish the out of existence. You have to work to keep their danger at bay because they are, after all, a minority.
“Even though this case didn’t go to trial, do you still anticipate that, given the massive settlement & the embarrassing disclosures, it will have a deterrent effect on Fox/Fox-wannabes in the future?”
I don’t believe this lawsuit will deter Fox from lying or defending politicians who are trying to destroy democracy. I do assume Fox will be more careful before they defame companies or individuals. I do assume they will be more careful what they admit or say in writing. After all, it was their written communications, which were discoverable, that would have allowed Dominion to prove actual malice.
This one is from a well-known legal pundit who I will not name because he generally does not say things this wrong-headed:
“A good example of a piece of litigation establishing a social fact was Brown v Board of Education, the fact being separate but equal is not equal. It’s rare that an important social proposition is in the offing, but Fox v Dominion was one such case. Now it ends inconclusively and Fox can keep on doin’ their thing.”
This was a terrible comparison. The plaintiffs in Brown v Board of Education (the case that ended racial segregation in America) were working to overturn established Supreme Court precedent. In contrast, the plaintiffs in Dominion v. Fox were relying on established precedent. Dominion was not seeking to change the law. They were seeking to enforce existing law.
Moreover, the comparison was offensive. Brown v. Board of Education was the outcome of literally decades of work by Black civil rights lawyers who dedicated their lives to changing Supreme Court precedent. Dominion was the result of a company recovering lost profits due to lies told by a media outlet.
How did so many people get such wrongheaded ideas?
One person on Mastodon told me this:
I did hear a lot of predictions on the news channels that Fox News and its hosts would have to make repeated apologies. I think that’s why average citizens like me were disappointed with the settlement yesterday.
Someone else said this:
It is not Teri’s responsibility to educate us. It is the responsibility of the media.
I disagree that it is the media’s responsibility to educate people. It is our responsibility to educate ourselves.
You are the consumers of news. Consumers have a lot of control over what products are offered. Demand facts. Stick with news outlets that deliver facts. If you find that the news programs you watch conflate speculation with fact and keep you riled, consider turning off the television. (After all, conflating speculation with fact and keeping people riled is Fox’s schtick.)
Want to learn more about how the legal system works from books that are (almost) as readable as spy thrillers? I recommend Make No Law by Anthony Lewis and Simple Justice by Richard Kluger as places to start.
Fox’s Legal Troubles Are Not Over: More Lawsuits Against Fox Are In the Works
There are other defamation lawsuits in the works. I will not list them all here. I will say, however, that Smartmatic has an even stronger case than Dominion because Smartmatic had almost nothing to do with the election, is a larger company, and can claim larger damages.
Here is What You Can Expect From These Cases
You can expect the losers to pay for the damage they caused. There may be more bombshell revelations like those that came out in this case.
The best possible outcome for democracy is that when all is said and done, there are fewer election deniers, fewer people willing to vote for election deniers, and fewer people who believe everything right-wing news outlets tell them.
These outcomes are not minor or insignificant. When elections are close and the future of American democracy hangs in the balance, every vote matters.
Can Democracy Work in America?
That is the question.
Plato’s Theory of Democracy
This is from the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy:
Plato argued that democracy is inferior to monarchy, aristocracy, and even oligarchy because democracy tends to undermine the expertise necessary for the proper governance of societies.
According to Plato, most people do not have the kinds of intellectual talents that enable them to think well about the difficult issues that politics involves. But in order to win office or get a piece of legislation passed in a democracy, politicians must appeal to these people’s sense of what is right or not right.
Hence, Plato concludes that the state will be guided by very poorly worked out ideas that experts in manipulation and mass appeal use to help themselves win office.
In other words, Plato’s theory is that democracy is fragile because the person who is an expert in manipulation and mass appeal will win, not the person best equipped to govern. In the words of Angie Hobbs, a Professor at the University of Sheffield, Plato’s theory of the flaw in democracy “provided a chilling account of how democracy can be subverted into tyranny by an opportunistic demagogue.”
Democracy requires an educated population. Plato obviously thought this was not possible. To prove Plato wrong, we need a large enough percentage of the voting population to be savvy and educated enough not to be manipulated by demagogues that stir their emotions.
One difficulty with getting an educated enough electorate in the United States is that our government and legal system have gotten so large and complicated that it has exceeded the capacity of too many people to tolerate it. Democracy is slow grinding work. Rule of law is complicated. Rule of law in a large country with 51 separate jurisdictions is particularly complicated.
Unfortunately, authoritarianism, which offers quick and easy solutions (“Throw them all in jail! Punish the liars!”) has a lot of appeal.
One small step
About a week ago, a person came to my website and asked me this:
“Do you think DOJ’s inaction has led to insurrectionists, who were allowed to run and get elected to congress, running wild and creating havoc?”
First I made sure he was a real person. (Because most TV pundits stopped spouting that garbage, I didn’t think anyone seriously believed that anymore.) When he proved he was a real person, I sent him to my FAQ pages (this one and this one).
I never heard from him again. Dare I hope that he read them and learned?
* * *
I posted this image of myself on social media. It was shortly after the flooding here in California, and we needed to rebuild a brick patio. I thought I’d see how much of the work I could get done myself. You can see that one of my readers, Peter Bell, added his own caption to the picture:
Teri, I just want you to know that I got into a conversation with a Texan on IG. It ended with her expressing helplessness at what all is going on in TX wrt voting. I sent her to your website for actions she can take to (1) help democracy & (2) not feel so helpless.
Thank you for being a voice of reason & giving us an action plan to counteract helplessness & the rage merchants.
Thank you for an outstanding summary. I’m sorry that some folks are harassing you. They are either not reading your words carefully, or not thinking carefully, or both. Keep up the wonderful explanations.
Thank you, Barry: I didn’t feel harassed by the comments I quoted here. I felt that I needed to help people understand. Hence, this blog post.
I very much appreciate your efforts at detailing the Dominion Fox Settlement. I’m a slow reader but will do my best to follow up with you other work. Thanks for moving to Mastodon. I followed you on Twitter but am in the process of leaving it.
Some of my favorite people are still there. It’s difficult.
Great explainer. Thanks for clarifying things so well.
I think that until we stop blaming everyone else except ourselves for the condition of our democracy, we’ll never succeed in keeping it…(it’s really a struggle here in Arizona. We managed to elect a democrat for Governor and she is running out of ink in her veto stamp…for crummy bills. But at least we got her for now.)
Thanks for fighting the good fight. I hope your driveway is fixed.
Since they are both civil cases not sure if the Dominion settlement helps the Smartmatic case or makes no difference. I think your explanations are great and would be totally lost without them. Mean people suck!
Excellent breakdown and responses. A sharp, logical legal mind is a joy to read.
Smartmatic can have access to the Fox executives admitting the election lies were lies.
I notice that you didn’t comment on the remar that “Our entire government is completely incapable of stopping massively wealthy individuals from using… lies to subvert our democracy.. “. I understand that it’s not a legal question, and so not your job to answer it. But it’s nevertheless a crucially important one: when is government justified in stepping in to stop this firehose of lies and insanity? It seems to me that the White House is happy to defend democracy in Ukraine, but unwilling to confront a propaganda campaign at home (much of it orchestrated by Russia, imo). Even though there are emergency powers available to fight back with . Just my observation. Thanks for listening.
My rage over this is that Congress idles as lies are peddled over our public broadcast frequencies. The evidence is clear and great damage has been done. How many of you have lost personal connections over the lies spread by Fox and other media?
It is not Congress’s job to save us from Fox and its lies. In fact, the First Amendment specifically says that Congress cannot abridge the freedom to say whatever people want to say.
You’re right. I forgot to specifically address that one. I will add it.
“I think that until we stop blaming everyone else except ourselves for the condition of our democracy, we’ll never succeed in keeping it . . . .”
Amen to that!
I’m taking this interesting class on the neuroscience of addiction. The presenters have stated that the brain has one goal. That goal is to survive. So the brain focuses on two things:Threats and resources. The brain makes lots of mistakes. It has a tendency to see threat when it’s a resource. It is better to be ready for a threat than not be ready and get eaten-so to speak. It also, at times, confuses resources with threats and we get hurt or killed because we didn’t identify the threat. I thought about this brain science in the context of our culture. The culture changes rapidly but the brain changes slowly. I think we are often confusing threats as resources. I think FOX is a threat but many confuse it, as they do Trump, as a resource. They also said this. The brain is not evolving to identify truth.
Terrific analysis. I don’t spend a lot of time online so I had not heard all the bad takes, but it’s good of you to provide the needed context.
. I thought it was obvious that Fox would eventually have to settle, and it seemed like Dominion and its lawyers were exceptionally good at extracting the best settlement possible. Of course it is not Dominion’s job to save democracy!
One additional thought: if Fox had settled the case a few months earlier, it would have avoided the release of most or all of the damaging evidence that came out in Dominion’s filings (as well as a few months of massive legal fees as the case neared trial). Possibly Smartmatics or other future plaintiffs will be able to use some of that evidence. Someone at Fox screwed this up.
Nevertheless, your post is an exquisite exposition of the facts and law AND philosophical underpinnings of democracy.
Thank you for this post. It’s obvious it took a lot of time and diligent effort, no matter how fluent you already are on the related subjects.
I totally agree with Barry’s sentiment.
btw, Glenn Kirschner (Justice Matters) summed it all up very succinctly saying essentially Murdock blinked and completely gave in.
This is completely fascinating. Thanks.
Someone on Mastodon asked the name of the professor so we can attribute the quotation. Do you have the name?
Thank you!
Hey, don’t I know you? You read my biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Excellent explainer. I doubt it’ll satisfy the folks who are consumed by their own rage just like all those who still think the DOJ isn’t doing anything about the insurrectionists despite hundreds (or are we over a thousand now) of convictions in related criminal trials.
Thank you for your ongoing efforts at educating us all on how our political and legal systems work. Democracy is hard work, but the alternative is so much worse. If we can all help people understand that the courts cannot fix a political problem, it would go a long way toward helping folks set realistic expectations.
It’s why my favorite former job threat was “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!!!” Yes, what a relief. I’d rather chat actual facts with an un-emotionally involved party.
Here, I admit I am emotionally involved in what happens TO Fox because of the intentional harm it has caused TO our nation, and that is separate from what the facts of the law may consider, and that almost a billion is a huge slap in the face from where Fox thought it started. And I understand that this is just the latest American iteration of manipulative anti-democratic propaganda, like Hearst before Murdoch. But I’m still pissed.
But thanks for the healthy dose of “Just the facts, ma’am.” I needed it.
Thank you for sharing this information. I was unaware of this Plato argument you referenced-but have certainly felt those concerns Plato’s argument expressed re: inherent challenges to maintaining democracy…and continue to wonder whether we Americans will meet the challenge.
Fav Churchill quotes I can easily remember …”democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time” and “Never never never give up.” Likely reflecting both my age and dare I admit bit of a cynical bent when it comes to human nature.
Reading you every week and Ken White when he sends up a flare help keep me sane. Thanks for doing such important work.
This sentence in particular stuck out for me: “Just because two things happened in chronological order does not mean the first caused the second.” I’ve struggled for years to get this across to my students, with mixed results. Some sequences, I try to say, are merely additive rather than causative. But chronology is intuitively thought to indicate causality, and it’s really hard, I find, to shake people out of their Post Hoc lethargy. But always worth trying. Keep up the good work, and keep writing. Love the picture.
Outstanding. Even when I do not like what you have to say I love reading you and gaining in understanding. I particularly liked your thoughts on a Fox apology. My take is it would be gratifying to me but meaningless for the committed Trump supporter.
Teri,
Your legal acumen and ability to communicate complex ideas to average people are exceptional.
I would be perpetually lost in a cyclone of rage if you were not here to calm the winds.
Thank you for helping make sense of a very difficult world.
Fox News is a cable station. It is not “peddled over our public broadcast frequencies.”
Once again a voice of reason. Thank you so much Terry. You are absolutely correct that a large, complex society can only succeed as a democracy through the ongoing involvement of citizens who keep themselves informed. My biggest fear is that the US has at least one fatal flaw — the (severely undemocratic) Senate. Nevertheless we beat on, boats against the current…Thanks again for taking so many turns at the oars.
Excellent, as always: patiently educating us all, and drawing us back to reality. Thanks for your work to do this.
Especially excellent column this week. Other have pointed out favorite sentences. One of mine and an observation I had not seen before: “Had Fox lost at trial but won on appeal, and the higher courts accepted their arguments, the law would have changed to make it harder to sue media outlets for defamation, thereby making it easier for them to lie.”
Dr. Dean Edell used to say on his radio show, “most people who get into automobile accidents have recently eaten carrots – that doesn’t prove that carrots cause accidents.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/opinion/oklahoma-bombing-oj-simpson-merrick-garland.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/merrick-garland-largely-left-the-stage-to-trump-with-insurrection-silence-analyst/ar-AA1a4MKy
Stepping back from all of these replies you are answering in this post, it is rather clear that people have so many feelings about our current era, about truth, about justice, democracy, et cetera. I completely agree with all of your points and yet I’m also heartened by the fact that people care (even if they get some details about what suits mean, what the courts are for, wrong). I appreciate your thoughtfulness.
Wisdom is your superpower. Thank you for presenting each of us the opportunity to educate ourselves. For what it’s worth, my favorite part is you patiently explaining human nature and bias to the only species on the planet with the capacity to both understand, and ignore the lessons.
Hi, Pat: Thanks for showing me that there are still legal pundits saying stupid things about the ongoing investigations.
The first piece also provides an example of how a major newspaper can publish a piece that is clearly called “opinion” and people may read it and assume that the person’s opinion is a fact.
A careful reader, of course, will see that the author is saying Garland is “cautious” not in how he is approaching the investigation but in the fact that he is refusing to talk about an ongoing investigation because he respect the law, which forbids him to do that. The reader can decide: Is it good that Garland is following the law? Or should he be breaking the law to inform people.
What the opinion writer doesn’t explain, but what I explained in my FAQ, is that talking about an ongoing investigation can harm and undermine an investigation, so doing so would be stupid.
But too many readers will not understand that (1) the piece is an opinion and (2) the writer is actually arguing for why Garland following the law is a problem.
Of course, the second piece simply repeats what the first opinion writer said.
Teri, thank you for your measured and intentional responses to people’s understandable, yet unfounded frustrations about this case. We truly appreciate your hard work. And on that note, are you considering Substack so we can truly support your hard work?
One of my college professors said something similar to your Plato quote. ‘The weakness of a democracy is that in order to be a democracy it must tolerate the inclusion of those who would destroy democracy.” Whether through ideology or ignorance, there will always be those who oppose the will of a majority that they disagree with.
I am opening a substack, which will be just a duplication of this. But I don’t monetize my social media. I monetize by selling my work to major publishers.
If you want to support a writer, you can always read one of her books and write an online review. (I’d recommend my biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg because it is so relevant to what I write about).
I love that quotation, thank you. I am going to put it in the body of the blog post.
Yes, I am working my way through your books. I just downloaded the Ginsburg book this week. Thank you!
Thank you! I never ask people to buy my books. They are all available through libraries. But sometimes when I write these blog posts, I wish people had read some of my biographies, which really explain how hard it is to maintain a democracy and how change can happen.
Actually, I think Dominion did us all a service in revealing that Fox consistently lied because Fox believed their viewers too dumb to realize it. They may be correct about the diehard MAGA (they don’t live in reality) but I know of several former Fox viewers, including some who were addicted, who have quit Fox because of Dominion’s revelation of the lies. It is a small thing but from small things big things can grow. I’m rooting for SmartMatic to air more of Fox’s dirty doings and to collect the fattest possible settlement. If even a few more viewers quit because of it, it is a good day for democracy.
Thank you for telling me this.
This is everything. All we can do is try to peel off as many as possible.
The thirst for justice (great phrase) is real and widespread. On the right, it manifests in conspiracy theory to explain a world they do not like or understand that does not place their feelings at the center of public discourse and law. On the left, in outrage at the systems that are supposed to protect us and society, especially systems that punish wrongdoers.
Both sides are terrified at what they see and the implications of where it leads. While fear on the Right is based on fantasy and has completely captured the Republican Party, on the left it has so far been limited to complaining about supposed heros with feet of clay. This is not a movie, the witness is not going to break down on the stand and confess. A threat to democracy is going to be resolved by the people who are ultimately responsible, the citizens and voters. Like the Civil Rights movement, this is going to be a long slog, with no silver bullet that will cause our enemies to disappear.
That makes sense. But, is there actually any possible solution(s)? Or do we just cope?
I’ve already identified myself as Don Quixote, yes? Allow me to mount Rosinante:
> It is not Congress’s job to save us from Fox and its lies.
I think it is. Well, it should be. Fox News is a corporation. Corporations (LLCs, 501(c)(3)’s, et al.) are creations of laws and regulations. It should, therefore, be possible to regulate such entities in ways that cannot be applied to natural persons. They currently are: they can not misrepresent their financials. OK, so why are they allowed to knowingly misrepresent anything at all? Truth in advertising? Truth in news? Maybe if Fox were under thread of severe sanctions or even dismemberment for knowingly misleading the public? I understand that there are SCOTUS decisions saying that corporations are people and that people have the right to lie through their teeth. Non-natural persons needn’t be bestowed with that “right.”
I’ll dismount now. 🙂
Teri, one thing I do not see highlighted in your article is that Fox made a calculation of how much damage a trial would do to them. Sure, if the case had proceeded to trial, Fox probably could have gotten damages awarded to Dominion reduced to considerably less than $787.5 million. But the trial itself, win or lose, would have damaged Fox’s reputation and viewership (that is, number of viewers, not damage to the viewer’s themselves), to some dollar amount that they calculated internally to be greater than 787.5 million.
I note also that there is a petition from MoveOn going around to persuade the cable companies to take Fox News out of the basic-cable lineups, making Fox News a premium channel requiring an opt-in additional payment from cable subscribers. If Fox were subjected to that change it would cost them billions of dollars per year in cable revenue, and the publicity of a Dominion trial would have made that change more likely. The publicity of the upcoming Smartmatic case must also be factored into Fox’s calculations on this issue.
Edit “thread” –> “threat” 🙂
I am as frustrated with this outcome as many of those who you quoted. But at the same time I understand all of the dynamics at play as the result of reading your arguments here. The frustration remains nonetheless. So I’ll try to work out those frustrations by pursuing some of the “how to save democracy” suggestions you offer.
That said, one question I haven’t seen explicitly addressed is how does getting all of this money without a public apology help Dominion’s reputation going forward? I’ll attempt to answer it myself in two parts: (1) they can use some of those dollars to fund marketing communications that highlight their win in this case and maybe even more importantly, (2) Dominion is owned by a private equity company and this settlement has already given them the return (and maybe more than) they targeted for their original investment. So they probably don’t really care about what Dominion’s customers think of them in the future.
Congress can impose fines but cannot shut down Fox, for reasons I explained.
See my To Do list. It’s a tab on my blog. https://terikanefield.com/things-to-do/
That was all part of the calculation, yes. Because any possible win was far off in a Supreme Court appeal, the damage they would have endured over the next two years in the form of bad publicity wasn’t worth it. So they forked out 3/4 of a billion.
I assume Smartmatic is ecstatic: Cool! Fox is so afraid of 2 years of bad publicity we’ll be able to get lots of money!
yes, both.
They can use the money to entirely change the focus of their company as well. There is much good they can do.
I have a friend who told me of his vacation to Washington D.C. sometime in the ’70s where he heard a local radio station loudly advocating for the violent overthrow of the United States. And then he said, “Hearing that made me proud to live in a country that could tolerate and withstand that.”
Great point, – I’d amplify it this way. It is because many Fox viewers consider the progressive view of democracy a threat that they view Fox and Trump as resources. Many Fox viewers are ardent in their anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, anti-socialism, etc views. So they seek resources that reassure them their world view is correct. All of us are apt to do this — i.e. be comforted by confirmation bias. A healthy democracy requires all of us to examine our assumptions and test them against relevant facts. Appreciate how well Teri has done just than in this particular blog post.
Well said, Nancy.
I’d like to add Bryan Stevenson’s “Just Mercy” to your list. Mr. Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative contine in the footsteps of Thurgood Marshall. Justice doesn’t come through griping and armchair second guessing–it comes slowly, imperfectly, tediously, and usually at great personal cost. Shouting at the tv, or Teri, only makes you angrier, it doesn’t do squat for changing the world. So just stop. If you want something different, get up and join hands with those of us trying to make a difference.
This is correct, and IIRC it’s also why they aren’t subject to the Fairness Doctrine.
The argument is that in a free market, if people want to buy something, other people have the right to provide it.
Fox News is a product, and it sells – just like a lot of other things (legal and not) that are bad for you. IMO Fox has a lot in common with alcohol & drugs, with a lot of people using it as a coping mechanism for deep-seated anxieties, or as an outlet for displaced anger. Which is a sad commentary on how poorly our society addresses mental health and emotional regulation.
I’d love to see if a grown-up version of Mr. Rogers + Sesame Street could provide a healthier alternative!
Teri,
This is a good post. I agree with your fundamental thrust. Law can do certain things-it can balance claims & redress certain gross inequities, but it can never resolve all the hurts and dangers of how we live together. It’s up to people to have courage and compassion and stick up for what they believe, the courts can’t just wipe our problems away.
I do think, however, that there is something about this settlement that is overlooked. Dominion DID get something that HAD TO BE required in the agreement: Fox acknowledged the finding of the court that they had lied. Now that’s not an apology, but if they weren’t required to say that in the agreement in just the way it was stated, they would not have said it. It allowed the CEO of Dominion to say certain things about their vindication and Fox admitting to lying, that he wouldn’t have otherwise gotten away with. While Fox didn’t agree with his spin, they didn’t call him a liar or anything approaching that.
The language is exactly the sort of language that a mediator comes up with to resolve an impasse. They had a very top level mediator involved.
Chancery Daily observed that on Tuesday morning the judge in Delaware Superior Court issued a ruling that the Special Master would look into the issues of Fox’s lawyers concealing Rupert Murdoch’s role at Fox News. This meant that things were going to be very difficult for Rupert. And for someone with all the money in the world at 92 years old, not going through very difficult times is not very attractive. Did Fox up its offer by another quarter billion to make things go not so bad? It can’t be proved, but it’s only money for Rupert. A non-apology apology isn’t as satisfying as either a real apology or abject public humiliation to those who really hate fox, but it is far more than a confidential settlement with no admission of wrongdoing.
The amount of money was at the very high end of what any reasonable person at Dominion expected to actually get in an actual pay out, and settling for non-apology and publicizing it was the price. But in fact having a public settlement like this was a total win for Dominion. (But democracy will have to take care of itself)
Thanks again Teri for the thoughtful analysis. I was hoping for a little more on Dominion’s ongoing lawsuirts against Mike Lindell, Guliani, News Max, & OAN. Even if its only listing the jurisdictions & current discovery schedule, that would be of interest.
Also, in passing, since the Fox -Dominion settlement is so much more than the market value Dominion, do any of other defendants have a useful claim along the lines of “Fox already made Dominion whole, any further claims to Dominion are inappropriate because they are beyond Dominion’s losses?”
I am not a civil litigator but my educated guess would be no. These things are independent. The jury will consider the case at hand.
Yes, I agree.
I agree – your Ruth Bader Ginsburg book was excellent, and I wrote a piece about it on my website. Then again, I also wrote a piece about your novel, Lawyers Never Lie which was also a great read.
Thank you!!
Agreed. The 1st piece is surreptitiously making a special pleading that the current case is beyond the law because of political risks of following the law. At best that’s short sighted. Less charitably, its self serving, claiming some privileged insight as reason to follow the author.
Taking that a little further: It’s likely the experience of increasing legal fees & worsening embarrassment over the last couple months convinced Fox to offer higher & higher settlements until Dominion couldn’t say “no.” The pre-settlement court sanctions possibly tipped the balance. https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-judge-imposes-sanction-fox-news-withholding-evidence-defamation-case-nyt-2023-04-12/
OK, then what about the FCC? Who sets their rules?
The First Amendment protects speech from government interference. There are exceptions but stop thinking the goverment can silence an entire network or organization.
Thank you Teri. In reading your post, I realized something I think I knew unconsciously, yet still struggle with. First, I do totally understand what you’re saying about the settlement, and I was not one of the ones particularly upset about it.
That said – what I want, even though I know intellectually that it isn’t going to happen, is for folks like Matt Walsh, Kurt Schlichter, Benny Johnson, Tucker Carlson, Poso, Brigitte Gabriel, etc, etc…. all the right wing pundits & podcasters who purposely rile people up & turn them against democracy to be so ashamed & embarrassed that they stop. That’s why I call them out on their lies, disinfo, and hate. And of course, I end up being as much the proverbial meme of Bart Simpson’s grandpa yelling at the clouds as they are.
I totally understand the feeling. The thing is that they know they’re lying and they don’t care. The part that is painful is that so many people are duped.
Teri, I totally get why Dominion took the $787.5 million and ran. Staple Street Capital, a private equity firm, paid $38.3 million for a 76.2% interest in Dominion Voting Systems in 2018. Firms like Staple Street are typically in the business of managing money for institutions such as pension funds or college endowments. Staple Street’s $38.3 million just yielded a return on investment that is ridiculously in excess of any target rate they could promise their clients. And in the likely case that Staple Street is organized like a traditional Wall Street partnership, Staple Street’s partners will personally collect multi million dollar bonuses due to the settlement, once Staple Street can take profits on its Dominion investment. You’d grab the money, too, posthaste.
OTOH, if Dominion had turned down the settlement and gone to trial, Staple Street’s clients would likely have screamed bloody murder and pulled their money from Staple Street as fast as their contractual agreement with Staple Street allows. All this is to reinforce your point, that Dominion’s owners are not in the business of fixing our political system.
Now I don’t care for Fox any more than the readers who “thirst for justice,” and I think that Fox’s election related lies dramatized the need for some kind of reform. Hopefully, through the hard work of democracy that you advocate, we can elect representatives who will find a way to protect us against malicious disinformation spread by broadcast and social media while continuing to protect free speech. But again, that was not Dominion’s job.
This may be more aligned with the work necessary to save Democracy than legal issues: the citizen should always be thinking in terms of what they are FOR, not what they are AGAINST. Being against is easy & lazy. Thinking through how voting should work, taxation should work, healthcare, education, immigration, law enforcement, etc. is much harder & asks more of us, but is ultimately more rewarding. The USA’s founding principle is that of a self-governing people.
For clarity, I never suggested we shut the network down. But they CAN be regulated (and FOX was not).
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-proposes-over-47-million-fines-ebs-spectrum-licensees
https://www.fcc.gov/engineering-technology/policy-and-rules-division/general/radio-spectrum-allocation
I think they must have a license to broadcast.
https://www.fcc.gov/broadcast-news-distortion
Yes. I’ve been following Nick Carmody on Twitter, his tweets and his substack are interesting because he’s writing about fight/flight, risk/reward, and how the brain processes it all. One of his theories is that it’s not so much the confirmation of their priors that keeps Fox viewers hooked, as it is the ANTICIPATION of confirmation, and that it’s actually the anticipation that triggers the addictive cycle. (I barely understand any of this & may have gotten this wrong, but that’s MY version.) He’s at @Nick_Carmody, and has a Substack. Worth a look, I think.
Teri, I am home and learning to love a multi-racial liberal democracy! You’ve gotten us through this for almost 10 years now and it looks like you’ll be keeping us sane for the foreseeable future. Thanks for it all !
Teri. Thanks for another reality check. The Laws of Justice do move slowly but for a good reason. I heard recently that “they” may be looking into the Bush administration’s actions in Iraq. Long overdue but speculative more likely. One can hope.
What about this case?
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/117/red-lion-broadcasting-co-v-federal-communications-commission
Or the Scarcity Rationale?
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1016/scarcity-rationale
The fairness doctrine has been repealed.
I’d suggest doing a Google search for the ethics groups that are bringing violations against Fox for FCC violations and following what they are doing. A few complaints with the FCC were filed after some of the revelations from this case involving Kushner’s relationship with Fox. I had a link in an earlier version but removed it because I thought it would be a distraction.
“Moreover, if you go around saying “Fox won” you are doing Fox a huge favor by helping to spin a three-quarters of a billion-dollar settlement as a win.” – this, this right here was my favorite point. People are so self-defeating that they defeat themselves, steal defeat from the jaws of victory, as the saying goes. Take the win. Of course Fox is going to try and play it off like no big deal, of course your nutty relatives are going to say it is all just deep state harassment, but there is no reason in the world to do the work of calling it a win for them.
I agree, Glenn hits it out of the park at times. At other times…
Were you referring to this one or the one before that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSamqLOf9o0
I agree, Glenn hits it out of the park at times. At other times…
Were you referring to this one or the one before that?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSamqLOf9o0
Some of my rage retreats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8IuMFogQMU
Yup. They are incapable of shame. It angers me because some of them claim to be Christian. And yes re: people being duped. A good friend of my mom’s was one of the early ones to get duped by Rush Limbaugh. And then she & her hubby almost got ME convinced that the Left was to be feared. My dad set me on the correct path.
BTW – the C was a typo I failed to notice. It’s the usual Tania/cycworker on Twitter.
I found your comment about the petition from MoveOn interesting. But I do question the wisdom of it. Yes, forcing Fox out of the basic cable lineup and making it a premium channel will probably serve to limit its immediate impact, but will that be a good thing? I have no doubt that most of the people who support Fox and believe the lies they spread will be willing to follow them to a premium channel, but many people out there can’t afford it or won’t be willing to pay extra for it. The downside is those people won’t be aware of the lies that are being spread. There’s a lot to be said for “knowing your enemy,” and pushing Fox to a premium channel will make that more difficult. It’s hard to fact check their claims and explain the issues to the public at large when the public doesn’t have regular access to what is actually being said.
Thank you. This article explained so much that I did not understand and gave me some ground to stand on – and to work from – in what feels like a hellscape of shifting truths, opinions, hopes, misinformation, questions and feelings of crushing helplessness.
I’ve shared it with people I think will read it. I hope it will give all of us the grit we need to never give up on the work required to keep democracy afloat.
I cannot overstate how much I value you and the work you do.