When things aren’t going well for President Donald J. Trump Fox News has a few tools in its arsenal to keep its viewers terrified, paranoid and glued to their television sets. One of the network’s biggest propaganda weapons of mass distraction is the fear of a communist revolution in the United States.

So far this year the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) endorsed 150 candidates in primary elections for federal, state and local offices banking 38 wins. Last week in New York City nine of the ten candidates backed by the DSA won their races in deeply blue districts.

Although the DSA is further to the left the Democratic Party on many issues it would be a stretch to call the political organization communist. There’s nothing in the political movement’s platform that would indicate the DSA is planning to seize the means of production or outlaw private property rights.

Fox News has seized on the DSA’s use of the term ‘socialist’ as an indication that the organization is secretly plotting to topple the largest free market economy in the world and replace it with a totalitarian Soviet style managed economy.

This would be quite the feat in a country with 33 million small businesses, a high rate of home ownership (65.2%), and where roughly 156 million Americans own publicly traded stocks.

Americans also love to buy a lot of products and services as over 70% of the U.S. economy is based on consumer spending. The United States is about as far away as a communist economic model as an any economy could be but that is not going to stop Fox News from manipulating and terrifying its viewers.

The network is desperate to distract its audience from the reality of Trump’s failed conflict in the Middle East, high gas prices, rising inflation and the president’s obsession with his building projects.

Trump’s proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the U.S. and Iran is so dreadful that even the network that helped get him elected cannot muster much enthusiasm for it.

The producers at Fox & Friends trotted out several experts who said the pending agreement was worse than no deal between the two countries. Brian Kilmeade even snapped an experienced military expert who tried to downplay the agreement’s shortcomings.

Sean Hannity shifted his focus to criticizing the newly opened Obama Presidential Center rather than try to promote the deeply flawed MoU. The cast of The Five spoke about it in vague terms but spent far more time and effort on what they were called the socialist revolution in the Democratic Party.

The only holdout was Jesse Watters; a man so dim he once asked during an episode of The Five if seals could breathe out of water. Seals are covered in fur and have puppy-like faces - two obvious signs of mammalian traits.

In the four and a half years I’ve covered Fox News I have never seen the network abandon Donald J. Trump as they did last week. Normally Fox will simply ignore stories it cannot spin as it did during the Israel-Hamas conflict, the many scandals surrounding the Epstein files, and countless embarrassing gaffes and alarming social media posts made by President Trump.

Instead of pretending the MoU didn’t exist multiple Fox News hosts and guests openly criticized it. It was shocking to witness as this is incredibly unusual for a network that thanked its viewers for voting for Trump and enthusiastically celebrated his inauguration.

Fox News is the Trump administration in many ways as over 20 former Fox News hosts or contributors have government positions in the president’s second term. While several former Trump officials, such as Kayleigh McEnany and Kellyanne Conway are now Fox News employees.

There is no line between the propaganda network and the president’s mind as Trump has been known to change policy soon after a Fox News host suggests it on air. The president has also posted slogans, conspiracy theories and policy ideas on social media minutes after they were broadcast on Fox News.

Most of the pushback against Trump’s MoU came from the folks on Fox & Friends. The corporate heads at Fox News have the most influence over the popular morning show than any other programming.

It seems that the corporate leadership or even the Murdoch family is trying to send the president a message since they know he’s a devoted fan of the morning show.

Other topics the network spent a lot of airtime covering last week:

* The socialist takeover of the Democratic Party

* European World Cup attendees falling in love with America

* Liberals lack of patriotism

* How the FBI foiled a terrorist attack planned for the UFC fight at the White House.

There was little talk of the affordability crisis or domestic issues, but Fox did mention that Ukraine managed to strike military targets in Moscow. Fox has gone weeks without including much of anything about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This week’s newsletter is solely dedicated to how the network framed the pending MoU between the United States and Iran. It’s so unusual for Fox News to openly criticize the Trump administration that I felt it was far more important to cover this than the usual ‘Democrats are terrible’ schtick on the network.

The Fox News propaganda machine normally promotes the same triumphant rhetoric for its glorious leader. The network portrays President Donald J. Trump as a master negotiator, a maverick and an unconventional leader who is changing the world through his unique personality and force of will.

All of Trump’s flaws are excused as part of his genius. His many deficiencies are completely ignored. The network also pretends that he is incredibly popular with the American people.

Last week for a moment in time the network’s enthusiasm for Trump started to wane. Laura Ingraham couldn’t hold her frustration in any more after weeks of avoiding the conflict in Iran.

Sean Hannity mostly sat back and let his guests talk about the conflict rather than share his own opinion. The folks on The Five appeared annoyed that they weren’t talking about Jill Biden, Rosie O’Donnell or a transgender athlete. The cast of Fox & Friends continued to express their doubts and slight misgivings about the conflict as they have since the first missile strike in late February.

The outlier last week was Jesse Watters a man who will justify anything Trump says or does and then completely forget he did so the next day.

Fox News also continued to attack Democratic candidates in multiple races across the country. I’ve included a chart at the end of the newsletter that shows how much airtime the network spent on each race.

This week’s newsletter will be solely dedicated to how the network handled the dramatic shifts last week in the Iran War.