Fox News Is Creating a Fictional Version of President Trump That Never Existed

Here are some things we know for certain about Donald Trump. He spends a good portion of his day watching cable news. He spends almost every weekend golfing. He makes a fool of himself and devolves into word salad whenever he tries to talk about issues. These aren't opinions. They are either obviously true, or they're reported over and over again to be true. Yet much of the country will never hear about this Donald Trump. No, that's because in our current splintered media environment, many Americans exclusively get their news from Fox News and other right-wing media companies.

Now this is hardly new information, but I have to admit that I was naive to the sheer extent of its effects on the opinions of the American people. Obviously, people who watch Fox are going to have a more positive opinion of Donald Trump, but that opinion is still going to be about the same guy. Where I see a guy obsessed with cable news and golfing, they'll see a guy who keeps his finger on the pulse and deserves his relaxation, right? Nope. This excerpt from Politico about a small town that loves Trump sums up just how fundamentally different (and fictional!) the Trump painted by the right is from the one who exists in reality. Here's an exchange with a 61-year-old Trump voter named Joey Del Signore:

“Everybody I talk to,” he said, “realizes it’s not Trump who’s dragging his feet. Trump’s probably the most diligent, hardest-working president we’ve ever had in our lifetimes. It’s not like he sleeps in till noon and goes golfing every weekend, like the last president did.”

I stopped him, informing him that, yes, Barack Obama liked to golf, but Trump in fact does golf a lot, too—more, in fact.

Del Signore was surprised to hear this.

“Does he?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

He did not linger on this topic, smiling and changing the subject with a quip. “If I was married to his wife,” Del Signore said, “I don’t think I’d go anywhere.”

It's not like he sleeps til noon and goes golfing every weekend?! That describes Donald Trump better than any other sentence you could come up with that doesn't involve the phrase "has been accused of multiple sexual assaults." The exchange continues:

[Del Signore] added: “Some of these things are like that thing he said to Billy, Billy Bob, Billy Bud”—searching, unsuccessfully, for the name Billy Bush—“on the bus, that comment he made.” Del Signore shrugged. “He’s a human male. I’m glad he wasn’t saying, ‘Hey, I like little boys.’ You know? So he’s not perfect.”

Del Signore said he’s been following politics far more than before because of Trump. Trump, he said, is just “more interesting.” So now he likes watching the news. “Ninety-nine percent of the time I watch Fox,” he said.

Should we be surprised that this is what Fox News and the right-wing media has done to much of the country? No. Look what happened last night when DNC chair Tom Perez was on Maria Bartiromo's Fox Business show. This is what happens when that fictional world that Fox News tries to will into existence butts up against reality.

No wonder people are confused and frustrated. Half of the media is convincing them they live in a world that simply doesn't exist.