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Andrew Kirell writes: Fox News mentioned Sydney Sweeney more times on Monday than any other day since the "outrage" over her jeans ads began. Why? Because Trump weighed in and gave the nontroversy a fresh news hook.
"The woke mob continues to lose their minds over Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle ad, President Trump weighs in," Sean Hannity said last night. "Democrats tried to cancel her because she said she had good jeans," Jesse Watters added on his show. But no prominent Democratic leaders or officials have even commented on the ad.
This is a crystal clear illustration of how right-wing media's outrage-industrial complex works. It all begins with a viral, often audacious post, typically from an obscure social media account, which then gets amplified by MAGA media influencers who dishonestly declare that it represents the entirety of the "left." From there, it reaches critical mass at Fox News — the final boss of conservative media — until Trump personally weighs in, generating more coverage and breathing new life into the outrage cycle. Rinse, repeat.
Meanwhile, stories like Trump's BLS chief firing or ongoing questions about his connections to Jeffrey Epstein go relatively ignored by Trump's media allies.
>> Last Thursday, we reported that over the course of four days, Fox had mentioned Sweeney and her ad 181 times versus Epstein 18 times. Update those tallies for a full week and you get: Sweeney 766, Epstein 53.
Fox can pull out all the stops, but the cake is baked on Epstein. Here’s the latest UMass Amherst polling:
This poll was released on Monday, but other polls have shown similar findings. Most of what I’ve seen also shows that Democrats and Republicans pretty much agree that there’s something bad for Trump in the Epstein files.
People aren’t going to forget Epstein, but what’s going to happen here, politically, isn’t clear. It’s a damning fact about Trump, and he’s been damaged by it. Democrats have made a lot of noise about it. The lack of a media machine that can Benghazi this thing to death is the reason it’s going to fall out of public view, at least for a while. The $600+ million that Mothership pocketed when raising money from Democrats could fund a media machine unlike any other. Instead, it bought yachts and summer homes for a few grifters.
Still, another revelation could breathe more air into the story because the media has finally decided that it’s worth reporting on a pedophile ring, in the same way that they finally decided that showing pictures of starving kids in Gaza was worth reporting on.
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