In what could be a disturbing forecast of the 2020 campaign season, Donald Trump on Thursday morning tweeted out to his 60 million followers fake polling results that suggested his approval rating is soaring:
But the graphic, taken from Lou Dobbs' program on Fox Business, is completely false. The poll cited, Georgetown University's Battleground Poll, found that Trump's approval rating remains stuck at a weak 43 percent, while his disapproval rating stands at 55 percent. Somebody at Fox switched the polling results, which then somehow just happened to find their way to Trump, who quickly spread the lie. What the Battleground Poll also found was that just 37 percent of likely voters are planning on voting Republican next year, compared to 42 percent who say they'll support Democrats.
Does Trump care if the numbers are bogus or got reversed? Of course not. He revels in lies and misinformation, and couldn't care less if at a closer look his boast doesn't hold up. He also has a long history of retweeting polling data without including context and key references. Do producers at Fox News even care that they made a comically inept error (assuming the move wasn't done on purpose)? It's hard to say. The whole operation is run at such a juvenile level that it's impossible to tell if any journalists actually remain employed there. Fox News does occasionally issue apologies, like when it recently announced to viewers that Trump had cut off financial aid to three "Mexican countries." (At least one person at Fox News thinks Mexico is a continent)
It also makes perfect sense that the phony polling numbers aired on Dobbs' show.
The septuagenarian rivals Sean Hannity in terms of being Trump's most committed sycophant on Rupert Murdoch's payroll. We know that shortly after Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office, Trump sought advice on the government shutdown from Dobbs. Turns out, Trump regularly calls Dobbs for advice:
KEVIN HASSETT (CHAIRMAN OF THE COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS): You're right, Lou, and as you know, that -- I don't know if you covered this on this show, that the president, very often, when we're in there briefing him on the economy, will pick up the phone and call somebody. And we were just in there briefing him on these numbers earlier in the week, and he picked up the phone and called you. [emphasis added]
Dobbs is also instrumental in spreading Trump's message of racism and hate, recently claiming that "left-wing money" and the United Nations are sending migrant caravans to the southern border, and warning that immigration could "consign tens of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans to their deaths." It’s truly rancid stuff.
Fox News' wildly irresponsible behavior is always cause for concern, especially when married with a deeply dishonest person like Trump. What's borderline terrifying, though, is the prospect of an emboldened Fox News and an emboldened Trump heading into the 2020 campaign season working under the premise that there are no rules, period.
The 2016 campaign season was marked by a tidal wave of misinformation, or "fake news," posted on social media sites such as Facebook. For example, the bogus claim that Pope Francis endorsed Trump was shared nearly 1 million times. That scenario is dangerous enough for any democracy, which needs shared facts to engage in debate and elections. But what if in 2020 the blatant lies aren't coming just from anonymous memes online, but directly from Fox News and Trump? What if they join forces not simply to spin the news and blindly attack Trump's opponent, but to start manufacturing polling data and other invented facts?
Today, both Fox News and Trump seem to be gleefully careening toward even more dangerous territory. A Fox host recently questioned the loyalty of a Muslim member of Congress, while Trump wished out loud that he could unleash "rough" U.S. military forces on immigrants at the southern border.
The 2020 campaign will likely test the resolve of America's democratic institutions, as radical players like Fox News and Trump actively try to topple them.
Eric Boehlert is a veteran progressive writer and media analyst, formerly with Media Matters and Salon. He is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush and Bloggers on the Bus. You can follow him on Twitter @EricBoehlert.
This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.