November 2024: The beginning of the end for America’s monsters?

November 2024 could see the beginning of the end of two monsters and the end of the Frankenstein which created them: Donald Trump, Fox News, and News Limited.

Hopefully, we might see the end of a quarter-century trend of profits-before-truth and the relentless diversion of resources from the wider public to narrow powerful corporate interests.

If not, there is another monster in the making when the 78-year-old Trump is past it or dies: J D Vance. The importance of this election is not just to stop Trump, but to stop the autocratic bloodline before it crushes democracy in the homeland of democracy.

Coincidentally, in the same month that America votes, the shareholders of News Ltd will vote on a motion (alas not binding) to end the Murdoch family’s control of the company which it does through a rigged two-class voting system and a family trust that makes the Electoral College system look positively benign.

At the same time Rupert Murdoch and his eldest son Lachlan have applied to a Nevada court to change that family trust. At present the trust is controlled by the 93-year-old Rupert. As it stands, when he dies, control will pass to his four eldest children equally.

Rupert and his eldest son Lachlan want control to pass to Lachlan alone and have asked the Nevada court to do just that.

Lachlan has had a falling out with his siblings, James, Elisabeth and Prudence. Lachlan wants to continue Rupert’s management style of supporting right-wing causes at Fox and other news outlets, including the Australian mastheads which dominate print and online subscription in Australia.

For decades the Murdoch media has had a huge influence for the worse in the US, Britain and Australia – opposing climate action and supporting small-government, right-wings policies, and policies which favour corporate profits.

The other siblings, particularly James, are uncomfortable with Fox News’s prosecution of right-wing causes, especially the promotion of the lie that the 2020 election was illegitimately stolen from Trump.

This is where profits-before-truth comes in. When Fox News was the first to call Arizona, and therefore the whole 2020 election, for Joe Biden, Fox’s pro-Trump audience was outraged. Many turned to other even further right-wing channels. Fox’s profits were threatened. Lauchlan was then CEO of Fox.

In order to retain its MAGA (Make America Great Again) audience, Fox had to give them what they wanted to see and hear – that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

In the Nevada court case Rupert and Lachlan are essentially arguing that Fox would be more profitable propagating lies that would shore up Fox’s audience and only Lachlan could do that.

If control of the trust, they argue, is split among the siblings, the siblings could vote with their conscience and order that Fox behave properly with consequent loss of profits – so the other siblings should be denied control for their own good. “Good” being defined as maximising profit, not defined as being able to live with yourself in good conscience.

Let’s hope the Nevada court leaves the trust as it is, so control of it passes to the siblings who do not buy into the MAGA-Trump lies and have the morality to say they will not profit from them.

Let’s turn now to the behaviour of the rest of corporate America. After the 6 January 2021 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol and the poor showing of the Republicans in the 2022 mid-term elections, many corporations (including Murdoch) disavowed Trump, but as Trump increasingly looked like getting the Republican nomination for 2024, they all came back on board, putting profits before truth and decency.

The billionaires have chipped in to Trump’s campaign because he has promised tax cuts for high-wealth and high-income individuals and to strip away environmental safeguards so they can drill for fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow – a few huge donations to match the millions of small donations going to Kamala Harris.

This election is more important than any other. When Richard Nixon misbehaved as President, institutional and constitutional America behaved properly. And Nixon – the liar – was gone.

Now Trump lies with impunity. The institutions – the Supreme Court and the Congress – are powerless in the face of Trump’s shamelessness. Trump threatens and bullies so that no Republican candidate for Congress dares to cross him. And no corporate billionaire dares to offend him.

Twitter-X owner Elon Musk is so scared of Trump’s retribution that he has handed millions to Trump’s campaign. We thought he was an environmentalist saving the world with electric cars. Now we know he just wanted to flog off batteries for profit.

We thought Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post to save it. Now, he has stopped the Post endorsing Harris. Similarly with the billionaire owner of The Los Angeles Times. When billionaires are scared of Trump and his threat to abuse power, you know the country is in trouble. And so are its pro-democracy allies around the world.

Remember, shameless huge presidential lies, for which – unlike Nixon – there has been no account, began with George W Bush invading Iraq to neutralise weapons of mass destruction which were never there. The big corporations like Halliburton loved the profits that flowed.

A quarter century later, Americans face a crucial choice that affects the whole world. Do they vote for a lying, narcissistic, unstable autocrat who has told us – promised us – that he would end the rule of law and persecute his political enemies?

Imagine the US, Australia and Britain free of the poisonous Murdoch media. Imagine the US and the world free of the toxic menace of Trump and his successor J D Vance.

But then imagine the gulag of rounded up immigrants, unfettered fossil drilling, and a Department of “Justice” hounding Trump’s political foes and threatening them with violence.