在其他任何选举周期，一则走红的Fox News失误顶多只会引发一阵短暂的哄笑。上周，记者卢卡斯·汤姆林森正在报道南卡罗来纳州一场现任共和党参议员达琳·格雷厄姆的竞选集会，她正寻求在其兄长、参议员林赛·格雷厄姆去世后，完成一个完整任期。实际上，此次活动更多围绕唐纳德·特朗普展开，他飞往棕榈树之州，为格雷厄姆的竞选助威，而该竞选越来越显得岌岌可危。
In any other election cycle, a viral Fox News gaffe would have registered only as a momentary laugh. Last week, reporter Lucas Tomlinson was covering a South Carolina rally for incumbent Republican Sen. Darline Graham, who is seeking to serve a full term following the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham. In reality, the event was more about Donald Trump, who had flown to the Palmetto State to help shore up Graham’s candidacy, which increasingly appears to be at-risk.
汤姆林森看到一位留着胡须的中年白人，以为自己即将拍到一段特朗普铁杆粉丝激动表态的精彩画面。然而，汤姆·霍伊尔以令人钦佩的冷幽默开玩笑说，他参加集会是因为自己太年轻，没能亲眼目睹1978年瓜那镇大屠杀，当时918名吉姆·琼斯牧师的追随者在饮用掺有毒药的果汁后死亡。“近距离看到一个邪教，真是太棒了，伙计，”他补充道。
Spotting a middle-aged white man with a beard, Tomlinson assumed he was about to get some choice footage of a gushing Trump superfan. Instead, Tom Hoyle, with an admirable deadpan, joked that he had turned out for the rally because he was too young to have witnessed the 1978 Jonestown massacre, in which 918 followers of Rev. Jim Jones died after drinking a fruit drink laced with poison. “There’s nothing like seeing a cult right up front, man,” he added.
“好吧，也许这不是特朗普的支持者，”汤姆林森说着，匆匆溜走了。
“All right, maybe this is not a Trump supporter,” Tomlinson said, scurrying away.
这个超现实的时刻，为Fox这个自称“新闻”网络的乏味中期选举季画上了句号，该网长期以来被支持者和批评者都视为共和党宣传机器。尽管该网对总统的报道大多充满崇拜，但特朗普一直抱怨说，该网没有做足够的工作来挽救共和党的竞选活动。
The surreal moment capped what has been a desultory midterm election season for Fox, a network that bills itself as “news” but has long been seen by fans and detractors alike as Republican propaganda. Despite their largely worshipful coverage of the president, Trump has been complaining that the network isn’t doing enough to salvage the campaigns of the GOP.
“FoxNews花了太多时间，让共和党候选人的反对者上节目，”他最近在Truth Social上发帖说，呼应了他此前的抱怨，即该网过分关注本轮选举中的民主党候选人，而非他们的共和党对手。
“FoxNews is spending far too much time putting on the OPPONENTS of Republican Party Candidates,” he recently posted on Truth Social, echoing his prior complaints that the network focuses too much on the Democrats running this cycle than on their Republican opponents.
特朗普关于报道倾斜的说法并非没有道理。据媒体事务组织（Media Matters）称，在这个选举周期中，该网络提及民主党候选人名字的频率是共和党候选人的三倍多。不过，这种差异并不意味着报道持同情态度。恰恰相反：福克斯的制片人可能意识到，今年共和党的候选人阵容乏善可陈。有些候选人，比如竞选俄亥俄州州长的维韦克·拉马斯瓦米，以及竞选参议员席位的得克萨斯州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿，令人如此反感，以至于连终身共和党选民都无法假装喜欢他们。
Trump is not wrong about the coverage tilt. According to Media Matters, during this election cycle the network has mentioned the names of Democratic candidates at over three times the rate of Republicans. That disparity, though, doesn’t mean the coverage is sympathetic. To the contrary: Fox producers likely recognize that this year’s GOP field of candidates is deeply uninspiring. Some, such as Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for governor of Ohio, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is seeking a Senate seat, are so repulsive that even lifelong Republicans can’t pretend to like them.
本季，民主党候选人制作出了更具吸引力的电视节目，尤其是魅力十足的现任参议员乔恩·奥索夫（民主党-佐治亚州）、密歇根州参议院候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛德博士，以及与帕克斯顿竞争的得克萨斯州州议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科。福克斯新闻所能期望的最好结果，就是劫持这些候选人吸引注意力的能力，然后利用它通过无休止的“这些人自以为是谁？”式愤怒来推动负面极化。但话说回来，该网络了解自己的受众。
This season, Democratic candidates are making more compelling TV, particularly the charismatic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Michigan’s Senate nominee Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Texas state representative James Talarico, who is running against Paxton. The most Fox News can hope for is to hijack these candidates’ ability to command attention, and then use it to drive negative polarization with endless “who do these people think they are?” outrage. But then again, the network knows its audience.
正如沙龙网的索菲亚·特斯法耶近期所指出的，福克斯新闻也并非不知该如何是好。她写道，主持人们一直在拼命抓救命稻草，祈祷能找到任何故事来引发文化战争的歇斯底里，从而转移选民对通胀、与伊朗的战争以及日益恶化的驱逐危机等严肃问题的关注。该网试图借法国骚乱炒作，但即使是福克斯的观众也难以看出巴黎的学生抗议与美国有什么关系。
As Salon’s Sophia Tesfaye recently noted, it’s not like Fox News knows what else to do. The hosts, she writes, have been grabbing wildly at straws, praying they can find any story to spark culture war hysteria that will distract voters from serious issues like inflation, the war with Iran or the metastasizing deportation crisis. The network tried to make hay out of the French riots, but even Fox viewers struggled to see why student protests in Paris matter to America.
它还试图假装密歇根州参议员埃莉莎·斯洛特金在最近一次露面时被问及如何让共和党承担责任时，是在呼吁大规模逮捕年轻的共和党人，但这也从未真正引起关注。最后一刻试图假装对贝拉克·奥巴马最近将特朗普白宫装饰比作芝士蛋糕工厂的玩笑表示愤怒的策略也失败了，很可能是因为这只是让人想起现任白宫住户正在玷污人民之屋。
It attempted to pretend Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., was calling for mass arrests of young Republicans when she was asked during a recent appearance about holding the GOP accountable, but that never really caught on either. A last-minute gambit to feign outrage over Barack Obama’s recent joke comparing Trump’s White House decor to the Cheesecake Factory fizzled out as well, likely because it simply reminded people of how the current resident is defiling the People’s House.
福克斯面临的部分问题是眼前的。许多选民的经济困难严峻，使得文化战争的无稽之谈难以显得相关。但该网还面临一个更长期的问题，那就是他们不再像过去那样有说服力了。
Part of Fox’s problem is immediate. Many voters’ economic woes are sky-high, making it hard for culture war nonsense to feel relevant. But there’s also a longer-term problem for the network, which is that they don’t make as much sense as they used to.
福克斯新闻长期以来的存在目的，就是用体面新闻报道的外衣包装低级偏见和极右翼偏执，主要通过使用暗语和影射来实现。过去，对某些肮脏观点的暗示就足以逗乐观众，同时维持体面的假象。但现在，这些东西似乎过时了，脱离了现实。
Fox News has long existed to dress up gutter bigotries and far-right paranoia in the clothes of respectable news coverage, mostly through the use of dog whistles and innuendo. In the past, winks at some of the fouler ideas out there was enough to titillate the audience while keeping up the pretense of respectability. But now, that stuff seems dated and out of touch.
正如《纽约时报》的贾梅尔·鲍伊在YouTube上所说，这是一个实际总统在竞选演讲中散布“三K党级别的种族主义”的时代，他称黑人“智商低下”，向民主党政客抛出针对跨性别者的歧视性言辞，并暗示埃尔-赛义德的穆斯林信仰使他成为恐怖分子。右翼社交媒体，尤其是埃隆·马斯克拥有的X，读起来就像20世纪90年代的Stormfront论坛，马斯克本人经常推广白人民族主义观点和模因。
This is an era when, as Jamelle Bouie of New York Times said on YouTube, the actual president offers “Klansman-level racism” from the campaign stump, calling Black people “low IQ,” flinging a slur for transgender people at Democratic politicians and suggesting that El-Sayed’s Muslim faith makes him a terrorist. Right-wing social media, especially the Elon Musk-owned X, reads like Stormfront message boards from the 1990s, with Musk himself regularly promoting white nationalist ideas and memes.
前福克斯主持人梅根·凯利和塔克·卡尔森通过比前雇主更不诚实、更耸人听闻，为后者提供了激烈竞争，后者因担心诉讼而有所顾忌，他们的节目暗示只有超模级别的女性才会被强奸，或者大屠杀否认者有道理。
Former Fox hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson offer their former employer stiff competition by being more dishonest and outrageous than the lawsuit-wary network can be, with segments suggesting only supermodel-hot women get raped or that Holocaust deniers have a point.
想要更多犀利的政治评论？，《站立席位》，作者阿曼达·马科特，现在也是YouTube或你收听播客的任何地方的每周节目。
Want more sharp takes on politics? , Standing Room Only, written by Amanda Marcotte, now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
但根据沙龙的亚历克斯·加尔布雷思的说法，一位福克斯主持人似乎对其网络的文化战争策略感到厌倦。杰西·沃特斯公开在节目中抱怨共和党表现有多糟糕，以及福克斯的报道对激发观众兴趣帮助不大。在一个特别耐人寻味的片段中，他猛烈抨击福克斯新闻对WNBA非新闻的持续关注，包括对跨性别球员的歇斯底里，而实际上跨性别球员人数为零。
But according to Salon’s Alex Galbraith, one Fox host seems to be getting sick of his network’s culture war strategy. Jesse Watters has complained openly on air about how bad the GOP is doing and how Fox coverage isn’t doing much to excite their audience. In one particularly telling segment, he lashed out about the relentless attention Fox News gives to non-stories from the WNBA, including hysteria over trans players, of which there are zero.
“我不想再推这个话题了！”沃特斯说。“我想放下这个话题！我不再谈论WNBA了。从现在起，我抵制这个环节。”尽管他的理由可能不同，但这位主持人的说法没错：福克斯对WNBA的执迷是愚蠢的。这个联盟之所以在右翼那里成了如此执念，说白了，是因为许多男性保守派痛恨看到女运动员完成他们年轻时都做不到的壮举。
“I don’t want to push this story anymore!”Watters said. “I want to leave this story alone! I am no longer talking about the WNBA. As of now, I boycott this segment.”Although his reasoning may differ, the host is right that the Fox fixation on the WNBA is stupid. The league has become such an obsession on the right because, plainly put, many male conservatives hate seeing female athletes perform feats they couldn’t even manage in their youth.
他们想终结职业女子体育，回到那种性别歧视的幻想中去——所有男人都比所有女人更强更快。现实中的右翼分子对WNBA的所作所为就清楚地表明了这一点，比如他们甚至买票进场，只为向球员投掷性玩具。我们需要你的帮助来保持独立。
They want to end professional women’s sports and return to the sexist delusion that all men are stronger and faster than all women. This much is evident in how real-life right-wingers behave toward the WNBA, such as going so far as to buy tickets so they can throw sex toys at the players. We need your help to stay independent.
福克斯的主持人小心翼翼地从不直说女性不该从事体育；他们很清楚，那样做可能会疏远数百万共和党选民，尤其是女性以及女运动员的父亲们，他们在这个问题上立场更为温和。相反，该电视台试图利用许多保守派对女子篮球运动员的反感，沿用他们惯用的那种心照不宣、旁敲侧击的报道手法，假装他们想要“净化”这项运动。这维持了一种假象，即右翼并不憎恨女运动员，同时把球员——至少是白人球员——描绘成脆弱的，以此安抚缺乏安全感的男性观众。
Fox hosts are careful to never say outright that women shouldn’t play sports; that, as they well know, could alienate millions of Republican voters, especially women and fathers of female athletes who are more moderate on this issue. Instead, the network attempts to hijack the antipathy many conservatives feel toward female basketball players with their traditional wink-and-nudge coverage, pretending they want to “clean up” the sport. This preserves the illusion that the right doesn’t hate female athletes while portraying the players — the white ones at least — as fragile, helping to reassure an insecure male audience.
过去，这种闪躲腾挪的把戏一直奏效。如今，正如沃特斯所暗示的，它正在失灵，与福克斯的在线竞争对手和那些满嘴脏话、口无遮拦的实际政客相比，显得太过温吞。沃特斯在另一个环节中也表达了类似的意思，他主张共和党人要想获胜，就需要更多的“恐惧色情”。
In the past, this kind of tap dance has worked. Now, as Watters implied, it’s floundering, feeling much too tepid when compared Fox’s online competitors and actual politicians flinging unprintable slurs. Watters suggested as much during another segment, when he argued that Republicans need more “fear porn” if they want to win.
他使用“色情”这个词很有意味。沃特斯认为，不再遮遮掩掩，只有硬核内容才能打动基本盘。但对福克斯新闻来说，这将以失去广告收入和温和观众为代价。这是一个真正的两难困境——而这个困境，再合适不过了。
His use of the word “porn” is telling. Watters was arguing that it doesn’t do to be coy any longer — that only the hard-core stuff will move the base. But for Fox News, that would come at the cost of losing advertising dollars and the eyeballs of less radical viewers. This is a true dilemma — and it’s one that couldn’t happen to a more deserving network.