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I really shouldn’t say that Democrats gave up on news, because MSNBC and CNN don’t really qualify as news coverage anymore. 

But you get the idea: Democrats are so done–at least for now–with obsessive Trump coverage and the steady stream of propaganda that the other major news networks have been pushing. Whether that is because they are depressed by the election outcome–and no doubt many are–or whether they feel burned by the constant reassurances about the campaign that turned out to be gaslighting, we may never know. 

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But the ratings tell the tale. 

About half the viewers for both MSNBC and CNN have left the networks, which have both been struggling already. Comcast has given up on MSNBC, and CNN is laying off reporters and reportedly cutting salaries even for their big “talent.” Fox, it seems, is chugging alone with 15% more viewers than before the election. 

At least some of those new viewers have to be people who switched from one of the liberal networks, one would have to imagine.

The poll, conducted in early December, found that about 7 in 10 Democrats say they are stepping back from political news. The percentage isn’t as high for Republicans, who have reason to celebrate Trump’s victory. Still, about 6 in 10 Republicans say they’ve felt the need to take some time off too, and the share for independents is similar.

The differences are far starker for the TV networks that have been consumed by political news.

After election night through Dec. 13, the prime-time viewership of MSNBC was an average of 620,000, down 54% from the pre-election audience this year, the Nielsen company said. For the same time comparison, CNN’s average of 405,000 viewers was down 45%.

At Fox News Channel, a favorite news network for Trump fans, the post-election average of 2.68 million viewers is up 13%, Nielsen said. Since the election, 72% of the people watching one of those three cable networks in the evening were watching Fox News, compared to 53% prior to election day.

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I’m not certain how you square the circle of Republicans stepping back from political news and the increase in Fox ratings, but then again, even with Fox’s outstanding ratings, the vast majority of Republicans are not glued to the tube following every step of Trump. 2.86 million viewers is a lot, but Trump received 77 million+ votes. That leaves more than 74 million Republicans who live Fox-free, at least as regular viewers. 

In normal times I think it is healthy that Americans mostly ignore politics; it is actually a sign of political health that people can focus on their day-to-day lives and only check in when big things are happening. Obsession with politics, outside geeks like us, is a sign that something is wrong. 

And plenty has been wrong the past few years, which accounts for the uptick in interest. Trump, who is himself anything but normal for a politician, seems poised to return America to prosperity and quench the worst fires in the world. We can hope, at least. 

Some of the Americans who have turned away from political news lately also had some advice for getting them engaged again.

Gude said, for example, that MSNBC will always have a hard-core audience of Trump haters. But if the network wants to expand its audience, “then you have to talk about issues, and you have to stop talking about Trump.”

Kathleen Kendrick, a 36-year-old sales rep from Grand Junction, Colorado, who’s a registered independent voter, said she hears plenty of people loudly spouting off about their political opinions on the job. She wants more depth when she watches the news. Much of what she sees is one-sided and shallow, she said.

“You get a story but only part of a story,” Kendrick said. “It would be nice if you could get both sides, and more research.”

Aunallah, similarly, is looking for more depth and variety. He’s not interested “in watching the angry man on the corner yelling at me anymore,” he said.

“It’s kind of their own fault that I’m not watching,” he said. “I felt they spent all this time talking about the election. They made it so much of their focus that when the main event ends, why would people want to keep watching?”

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This may be a stretch, but not much of one: Democrats as a group have more persistently defined their identities with political and cultural figures, while Republicans more generally focus on specific issues such as immigration and the economy. When they surf the news they want to know what is happening and why, and are generally less focused on the personalities. How many Trump voters will tell you they support Trump despite his personality, compared to how many Democrats name opposing Trump in particular as a motivating factor?

That is a very broad brushstroke, but I think it explains at least some of the differences between the viewing patterns of the two groups. Trump’s victory was decisive, opposition to him as a person seems less attractive, and listening to pundits excoriate him–fairly or not–just doesn’t appeal even to Democrats. 

Of course, lots of people tune into Fox to get their own prejudices confirmed, and the evening shows are more personality-driven than the daytime coverage on Fox. And lots of people identify more with Trump than any particular issue set. But I think the proportions are different among the two groups. 

And, of course, Trump’s cabinet is so out-of-the-box that its formation is interesting in itself. Nobody really cared, rightly or wrongly, about the technocrats Biden brought in. Jake Sullivan? Who’s that? Tony Blinken? They are not Pete Hegseth, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Elon Musk; in other words, the Democrats were boring and promised Obama II. 

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The collapse of the Pravda Media is apparent. It may not be dead–heck, Pravda is still around. But if it wants to become relevant again, it has to radically reform, which seems unlikely. Fox may remain a mostly Republican outlet, but news junkies are fleeing to alternatives like The Free Press, which just hit one million subscribers yesterday, or five times CNN’s evening viewership. 

I subscribe to The Free Press not because I want my prejudices confirmed but because I appreciate the talent and interesting reporting. 

Fox has talent–Gutfeld is killing it, for instance. CNN has Scott Jennings and not much else, and I don’t just say that because Scott is on my side but because he can outdebate four or five liberals without breaking a sweat because they know next to nothing. Ignorance is boring. 

Will Democrats come back to watching their favorite cable stations? Indeed some will, but the cultural shift post-November and the sour taste the campaign coverage created will hurt those channels for years to come.