Even the Wall Street Journal's right-wing editorialists thought that Vice President Kamala Harris "won the debate because she came in with a strategy to taunt and goad Mr. Trump into diving down rabbit holes of personal grievance and vanity," while Karl Rove added in a column that the night "was a train wreck for him, far worse than anything Team Trump could have imagined."
An ebullient Harris campaign immediately called for another debate. (Trump, who once called for debates "ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE," eventually refused the challenge after much hemming and hawing.) But Harris's gesture of confidence prompted Fox News's Laura Ingraham to argue: "They don't think she won. They don't think she's in a position to win this race."
Sean Hannity interviewed Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who claimed Trump notched "a big win."
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Trump had "the best closing in presidential debate history."
Trump himself joined Hannity in the spin room. "I think it was my best debate ever," he said.
And that was just within the first 75 minutes after the debate. The next morning, Trump was back, on "Fox & Friends." "I won the debate by a lot," he said, and "every single poll last night had me winning like 90-10." The hosts did not contradict him.
On Thursday afternoon, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt announced on Fox that Trump "is in the process of winning the debate" because "a debate isn't over in a day" and "upon further review, the American public has decided that debate was rigged."
It was a case study in how the dominant "news" organ of the right cleans up Trump's messes.
It's simply hard to imagine any network before Fox News allowing its airwaves to become an unabashed propaganda outlet for a single political party to the point any semblance of simple objectivity almost completely disappears.This is why defeating Donald Trump at the ballot box remains a daunting task because so many of his supporters simply are never exposed to anything close to the truth of the facts, circumstances, details and sometimes even the unedited news we outside their audience know as reality. On Fox, they hype fabulist tales that enrages Trump's base. Then the mainstream media looks at and discovers the facts, usually dismissing the created-hysteria, while Fox reinforces that the other side is ignoring the imminent danger that only exists as another vehicle to cement outrage inside their bubble.
Those outside Fox's bubble don't realize that they've been drawn into another racist cultural battle while those inside become lock and loaded, overdosing on gaslighted inventions meant only to unify outrage and stoke fear.