https://www.thenation.com/article/the-power-behind-the-throne-is-fox-friends/
"Future historians will summarize what happened to early-21st-century America simply by noting that the Cardinal Richelieu of our time is Steve Doocy. It is bad enough that the president of the United States, with limitless access to expertise and the institutional knowledge of a vast bureaucracy at his disposal, chooses instead to turn to cable news. Morning shows are a necessary evil. Viewers need the news sugarcoated in a way that will not lead to despair. So it is, at its best, news with the edges polished. The delivery is caffeinated, unbearably upbeat, and rapid. It is news for people who can’t handle the news quite so early in the day. But Trump doesn’t just watch any morning cable; he turns to Fox & Friends, the “News for Dummies” show on a news network already substantially oriented toward dummies. For the unfamiliar, Fox & Friends is the morning show for the authoritarian-follower personality type that runs daily at 6 am Eastern time. It combines chirpiness with the endless reserves of anger and perceived victimhood that defines the Fox News brand. The hosts—Brian Kilmeade, Steve Doocy, and Ainsley Earhardt—are, to put it mildly, not quite the McLaughlin Group. Doocy exists in a state of permanent, total exasperation. Think of Chandler on Friends at his most overwrought, and that is Steve Doocy, always. Kilmeade’s schtick is a jockish “regular Joe” who just doesn’t understand and makes constant appeals to “common sense.” His résumé includes a stint in the early 1990s as a commentator for the UFC, back when UFC matches could be held only in certain jurisdictions and resembled human cockfights. Earhardt knows not to talk when the men are talking. Her role is to be the homecoming queen who married the quarterback (both literally true in her case), but doesn’t let that stop her from feeling marginalized, victimized, and, unceasingly, vituperatively angry. These people have substantial influence over the president’s policy agenda and day-to-day priorities."
