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Launched in 2006, Epolitics is written and edited by Colin Delany, who has helped nonprofits and political campaigns use digital tools in effective and creative ways to achieve their political, policy and organizational goals for almost three decades. To start the conversation, contact him at cpd@epolitics.com.
Welcome, new readers! Catch up fast with these recent highlights:
- How to Build a Democratic Persuasion Machine in 2025
- NC Democratic Party Gives Grassroots Tech to Down-Ballot Candidates – For Free
- David Hogg is Spamming Me
- How Did Democrats Forget These Three Things about Field Organizing?
- You can also dig into my six-part 2025 digital politics spring training series, now live on YouTube, and my ebook, How to Use the Internet to Change the World – and Win Elections.
Now, on with the show.
Why Democrats & Progressive Should Share Stories from Fox News
Introducing a new feature, Tuesday Tips & Tactics! We’ll raid the vast Epolitics archive, my ebook and the hundreds of pages of notes I’ve collected in panels and conferences for good ideas you can put to use right away. The article below first appeared in February 2021, and though some of the names would change today, the essential idea holds true. Note that ACRONYM was a project of what’s now Courier.
Nobody on the political left wants to share stories from Fox…but we should. The idea naturally rankles. Why should we boost a news outlet that consistently distorts our views and actively turns people against us? For one reason: sharing Fox News stories can help us reach Americans who would otherwise tune us out.
Most grassroots conservatives take it as an article of faith that liberals lie to them, a sentiment encouraged by Fox News itself. But progressives can use the fact that Trump supporters have been trained to ignore information produced outside the right-wing bubble to our advantage. When we can find stories in conservative media that include something beneficial to our work, sharing the Fox version of story or even a clip of Rush Limbaugh can help us connect with people who won’t pay attention to anything else.
This idea came up repeatedly during ACRONYM’s post-election debrief a few weeks ago. Before the election, their team used the reactions to their own digital advertising to identify themes resonating with conservative voters from week. When they found a topic that worked, boosting relevant news stories to potentially persuadable people, including articles and videos from Fox, often performed better than other content. For example, they might create a video ad from Fox News clips or share a relatively straight-news Fox story about the economy or the pandemic. One ACRONYM staffer described Tucker Carlson as their “golden goose” — when they could promote one of his videos, their engagement rate went through the roof. Stories from the New York Times, MSNBC or CNN simply did not perform as well with the voters they needed to reach.
Since content from Fox News or right-wing talk radio comes from a trusted source, it creates a “permission structure” for conservative audiences. Wrapped in familiar paper, the package won’t be ignored automatically as it would when it’s in a story from an outlet they’ve been told to dismiss. Naturally, groups on the left should frame each piece carefully, for instance using a headline or the introductory text or preview image in a Facebook post to highlight the parts we want people to take away. We might also pick Fox quotes for the substance of a digital ad but link to a video of our own that pivots off of them to make a progressive point.
However we manage to jujitsu a story to our advantage, though, information from a trusted messenger can help us get at least a toe in the door. The trick, of course, is to find the stories in the first place, and I do not envy those with the job of sorting through hours of disinformation and bile. Pity the poor interns….
Hah! Now we should extend our pity to a poor, hard-working AI.
– cpd