Rupert Murdoch has reportedly warned Donald Trump his media empire will not back any attempt to return to the White House, as former supporters turn to the youthful Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
After the Republican party’s disappointing performance in the US midterm elections, in particular the poor showing by candidates backed by Trump, Murdoch’s rightwing media empire appears to be seeking a clean break from the former president’s damaged reputation and perceived waning political power.
Last week, Murdoch’s influential media empire, including right-leaning Fox News, his flagship paper the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, each rounded on Trump, calling him a loser and a flop responsible for dragging the Republicans into “one political fiasco after another”.
“We have been clear with Donald. There have been conversations between them during which Rupert made it clear to Donald that we cannot back another run for the White House,” a senior News Corp source told the i newspaper.
No politician, journalist or media critic has ever been heard to utter the phrase “as subtle as a Murdoch tabloid”.
So, when Murdoch’s New York Post responded to the Republicans’ unexpectedly meagre gains in the US mid-term elections, you did not need to read between the lines to see whom they blamed.
The headline was “Trumpty Dumpty” with a picture of an egg-shaped Trump sitting on a wall and the sub-head “Don (who couldn’t build a wall) had a great fall – can all the GOP’s men put the party together again?” This is a reference to the great wall that Trump promised in 2016 to build along the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out.
This perfect record is not paralleled in the US or Australia. Murdoch’s support was not sufficient to give Trump victory in the 2020 presidential election or the Morrison government success in 2022, let alone various state elections around Australia.
In Australia, the Murdoch press has been on a downward spiral in its capacity to directly influence election results. There seem to be three main reasons for this.
The first is their declining circulation, which not only has reduced their outreach, but increasingly means their readership comprises disproportionately an elderly constituency already set in their attitudes.
The second is that once Murdoch had a keen populist touch, able to sense coming currents in the public, side with them and make them stronger. But in more recent years his own strong right-wing views have made his media more rigid and less in tune with shifts in public opinion.
The third is that his media have become more crudely propagandistic over the decades. When Murdoch switched sides to Tony Blair’s Labour in the 1997 election, according to the acting editor of the Sun, Neil Wallis, Murdoch told him they were to be 200% behind Blair and everything he did. When he swung back to the Conservatives under David Cameron the news coverage swung at least as strongly in that direction.
In 2013, the Daily Telegraph kicked off its Australian campaign coverage with the injunction to “Kick this mob out”. It was a psychologically ripe moment after the Rudd-Gillard struggles. It is less clear that the anti-Labor campaigns since have been as in touch with the public mood.
Extreme coverage probably energises the base, but may not be terribly effective in swaying swinging voters.
In many ways, it would make commercial and professional sense for the Murdoch media to distance themselves from Trump. The next couple of years are likely to bring a series of controversies focused on Trump and his close allies such as Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani.
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