Rending a tear in the very fabric of the space-time continuum, a fight has broken out between the country’s leading Republican presidential contender and its number-one source of right-wing propaganda. Perhaps most shocking of all, the fight isn’t a struggle to see who can make their parents roll over in their graves the fastest, though experts have noted such a battle continues to be waged. No, this is a fight over the idea that Fox News might not be as fair and balanced as it claims, which definitely comes as news to people who suffered a traumatic brain injury in 1991 and are unable to form new memories, Memento-style.
Trump took to Twitter to announce a boycott of Fox News, claiming that the network has given him unfair coverage. A surprising claim, given how fairly the man with the cotton-candy-machine-swirled hairdo has treated the journalists at Fox.
Had this been the only development, the continuum could have weathered the blow, as it has many times in the past when cartoon villains—who somehow manage to escape the pages of their poorly written comic strips—enter our reality and make absurdist statements. But Fox News, in a response that could mildly be described as “ironic,” fired back by accusing the press of giving Trump attention, rather than covering “the issues.” Readers already sensitive to rips in the veil of logical coherence that covers our existence are warned to maintain a healthy distance to the following statement, released by the network to Entertainment Weekly.
At 11:45 a.m. [Wednesday], we canceled Donald Trump’s scheduled appearance on The O’Reilly Factor on Thursday, which resulted in Mr. Trump’s subsequent tweet about his “boycott” of Fox News. The press predictably jumped to cover his tweet, creating yet another distraction from any real issues that Mr. Trump might be questioned about. When coverage doesn’t go his way, he engages in personal attacks on our anchors and hosts, which has grown stale and tiresome. He doesn’t seem to grasp that candidates telling journalists what to ask is not how the media works in this country.
Normally, such an internal squabble, between America’s most notable flaxen-haired jagoff and the news network equivalent of your uncle who gets drunk every Thanksgiving and starts yelling about “freedom” and “the Mexicans” would be filed under the category of “schadenfreude.” But the sheer logical disconnect of Fox News’ statement—especially the part about responding with personal attacks when coverage doesn’t go your way—means that all concepts of rational thought are now in doubt, untethered to the collective consciousness of human history that has previously kept them in check. Riven with uncertainty, our nation turns its eyes to our up-and-coming leaders for reassurance.
We have just lost cabin pressure.