Lucky for Fox Trump No Longer President

VOICE RECOVERED. Fox News has returned to its core values: roaring criticism of the left. It has been a confusing few months for the news channel. Trump's fiddling with corona, his alleged misrepresentations about the election results, and the Capitol's storming on January 6 - the Fox news desk reported it all like honest reporters, which angered Trump and his supporters.

How lucky for Fox that Trump is no longer president! Now they can return to their familiar position on the right. Presenters like Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity had not left that position for a second. Still, the compass is also traditionally adjusted in the regular news broadcasts, say: 'Joe Biden is a left-wing idiot who has opened the borders, and the rest of the press is silent about it.'

The outpouring of Fox's criticism of Biden (and the other media) has ranged from his dog's messy appearance to Biden's failure to praise his predecessor for the rapid development of corona vaccines - for which the Trump administration certainly deserves credit. But what you can't say without pointing out the excessive toll the epidemic has taken in the US - right down to Biden's crashes on the airplane stairs last week.

For now, Fox, formerly a superpower in the American media, does not help. The station still has the most extensive viewership in the US. Still, business magazine Forbes showed from last month's viewing figures that Fox's audience has fallen by 30 percent in the evening compared to February 2020 and even deeper into the favorite audience. of each channel 25- to 54-year-olds: a decrease of 38 percent.

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS? Of course, that's not to say that Fox keeps getting it wrong. The channel has become committed to the election theme among Republican voters: migration, linked with security. The most popular presenter, Tucker Carlson, even traveled to the largest source of immigrants on the southern border, the so-called "northern triangle": El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala. All to prove that the attitude of the Biden government is luring migrants to the US.

 
This shows how polarization works. Right-wing politicians and right-wing media inflate the problems to insurmountable proportions and criticize the limped Biden and his Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. For example, Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas who himself somewhat prematurely lifted all kinds of corona restrictions this month, is now suddenly concerned about corona outbreaks among migrants.
 
On the other hand, the government is digging in, pretending everything is under control, and denying the press access to the overcrowded shelters that currently house some 15,500 migrant minors, some for longer than the 72-hour allowance. Meanwhile, spokesman Jen Psaki must fight to avoid the word "crisis." (She doesn't always succeed.) Indeed, she promised in her daily press conference on Tuesday that the government is "putting the finishing touches to the final details" for a visit by journalists to shelters. "You will hear more about it soon."

"YOUNG VULNERABLE CHILDREN. " It remains difficult: fostering high morals, saying that your predecessor's policies were inhumane, while at the same time trying to influence the reality of the migration dynamic. 
 
Trump dismissed migrants, even asylum seekers, which is unprecedented and, especially when it comes to refugees, immoral. But what is the humanitarian benefit of a "more humane" policy towards underage migrants when you see hundreds of unaccompanied children suddenly appearing at the border?
 
For example, American TV viewers saw Minister Mayorkas explain in three U-turns that 'the border is closed,' that 'families and adults are being sent away' concerning the corona measures, that 'young vulnerable children' are on the other hand admitted and that then-President Trump made an "orderly, humane and efficient way" of receiving children impossible.
 
Well, I once stood among a group of migrants on another border (Greece-North Macedonia), and I think that the dynamics among Latin American emigrants are not that much different. When people in a poor, violence-ravaged country hear that "young, vulnerable children" are not being sent away from the border, as was the case under Trump, it means to them that the border is half open and it pays off. to let your children, go on such a journey. At the time, Jutta Chorus and I wrote in Greece that "children are used as the forward post of the family."
 
It won't help Biden argue with the press. The first photos came out this week, released by Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar from Texas. Cuellar said the children have to live there "under terrible conditions." What can help is Biden's promise to supply the surplus of US vaccines to Mexico (and Canada). It is a bargaining chip for Mexico's support in keeping Mexico's southern border closed. Indeed, the Mexican government announced the next day that it would restrict access to the country from the south.
 
It is a makeshift measure: if the corona epidemic has been combated, Biden will have to have a clear migration policy to limit the US's natural appeal to its southern neighbors. And that will not be easy with political opponents who feel very well that this is a very vulnerable place for the Democrats in the run-up to the 2022 elections.