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Last week, the killer behind the wheel during the April 2018 vehicular attack in Toronto was convicted. He claimed he was on a mission for the incel movement, an online subculture of so-called involuntarily celibate men who direct misogynistic rage at women.

This week, for International Womens Day, we take time to honour and recognize the progress that has been made to reduce gendered limitations. We can also use this day to acknowledge where dangers still exist and how societal structures continue to perpetuate and encourage harmful narratives about women.

Brad Congdon, an instructor with the Department of English whose research focuses on forms of masculinity, answers questions about misogynistic subcultures, the pervasiveness of violence against women and how we can continue to support positive gender identity. Have groups like incel always existed or are they a product of online culture?

Theres nothing new about misogyny, or men meeting for the purpose of resenting women. Its only because of online culture that we can speak of incels as a subculture, with their own terminology (e.g., Chads and Stacys; Supreme Gentlemen; gymceling; steroidmaxxing), routines, and spaces. Its only because men from different localities, regions, and countries can easily and anonymously meet, communicate, and socialize in these online spaces that incels can collaboratively articulate and disseminate an extremist ideology. There was certainly male resentment in a pre-internet eralots of itbut the fact that men can now go online and receive an informal education in, and ongoing encouragement for, a type of juvenile, insecure misogyny is relatively new.

Theres obviously a long history of men-only groups, but the latter part of the 20th century is when we started seeing mens rights and mens liberation groups. Most of these groups are post- or anti-feminist, arguing that womens social and economic advances have negatively impacted men. Rather than focusing on, say, economic changes that might have resulted in mens changing position, they accept the current political and economic system for what it is and turn their attention to either changing masculinity or blaming women generally, and feminists in particular.

The kind of stochastic terrorism that has been occurring against women is possible because the internet is such a powerful tool for communication and organization.

Women often seem to be the target of male violence. What does research tell you about why this happens?

Im reminded of this quotation from Nicole Brossard, writing about, and not long after, the 1989 Polytechnique Massacre in Montreal. Brossard wrote of the killer, All things considered, M.L. was no young man. He was as old as all the sexist, misogynist proverbs, as old as all the Church fathers who ever doubted women had a soul. He was as old as all the legislators who ever forbade women the university, the right to vote, access to the public sphere. M.L. was as old as Man and his contempt for women.

Which is to say that, historically, violence against women is everywhere. It often takes the form of systemic or symbolic violence. Historically, systemic violence has involved laws that disadvantage women, that stop them from voting or owning businesses, holding office or opening bank accounts. It involves men controlling their bodies. It involves the ways that laws are shaped to make it difficult to prosecute sexual crimes against women. And the list goes on. Symbolic violence includes, among other things, the abundance of images in our culture that indoctrinate girls to be submissive, sexy, and unequal partners in society.Research indicates that men target women for a variety of reasons, but Id suggest that these incidents of physical, illegal violence all happen in the context of a society that has long been structured by violence against women. Were pretty bad at preventing or punishing violence against women, at least comparably speaking, but were more likely to act out against acts of assault or murder than we are to punish those who, for example, work to limit womens access to healthcare. Prosecuting individuals, though necessary, is a way of implying the violence is the result of individual moral failings, rather than a societal problem.

Its been noted that theres a powerful gender dynamic to most terrorism and violent extremism. In your opinion, how do certain gender perspectives or expectations foster extremism?

I admit that Im not expert in extremism, but gender seems to play a substantial role. Cynthia Enloe wrote that nationalism comes from masculinized memory, masculinized humiliation and masculinized hope. Michael Kimmels recent book on extremism argues that, at the root of extremist, right-wing politics, is the idea that modern men have been emasculated and humiliated, and that part of what they seek is a restoration of the centrality of mens bodies and authority. Similarly, Annie Kelly, writing about the alt-right, sees at the heart of this extremism a discourse of anxiety about traditional masculinity.

There are different forms of extremism and nationalism, but theyre united by the idea that the world as it is, is flawed. Theyre typically conservative, in that they view a better version of the world in the past, whether its the past represented in history or religion or both. So, almost all extremism involves some idea of returning to previous social structures, and in particular what are considered traditional gender roles.

What are some of the steps we can take as a society to counteract the way we ascribe gender and support people of all genders in developing positive identities?

There are probably too many to list, but Ill start by saying that representation is important. The more we see people of all genders in roles that have traditionally been set aside for cisgender white men whether those are real roles, like parents, partners, friends, CEOs and presidents, or imaginary roles, like superhero or space captain the more children will grow up seeing a degree of gender equality and acceptance, and thinking of those things as normal. More importantly, we need to see women, whether cis-gender or trans, in those actual roles, since popular representation can only do so much. And we need to see anti-sexist policies put in place, because without institutional and systemic support, it might all be tokenism or window-dressing.

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Ask an expert: Brad Congdon on violence against women and the importance of representation - Dal News

Every month, we round up our most popular and shared articles from the past four weeks. (Go deeper: See our top highlights from December, November and beyond right here)

Vaccines, CDC guidance for safe classrooms and a growing consensus that districts will need additional federal funds to facilitate reopening the conversation surrounding the nations schools turned towards the future this month, and President Bidens commitment to get many reopened within his first 100 days. At The 74, our February coverage focused extensively on the learning losses associated with school closures and new strategies to accelerate learning, as well as new research on such issues as teacher quality, socioeconomic segregation and evolving attitudes on the value of virtual learning even after the pandemic is over. Below are our most popular articles of the month. (Reminder: You can also get alerts about our latest news coverage, essays and exclusives by signing up for The 74 Newsletter)

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Student Safety: Five days after extremists used the fringe video gaming platform Dlive to livestream a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6, a youthful white nationalist logged on to the site and offered his take about the future of a movement he helped create a radical agenda, experts warn, thats targeted at teens. As the Capitol riot reawakens many Americans to the persistent reality of white supremacists among us, experts on extremism are sounding the alarm about the ways alt-right groups weaponize video games and streaming platforms to recruit and radicalize impressionable young minds. For teenagers whose isolation has been heightened by the pandemic, the desire for connection makes them particularly vulnerable, particularly in the current political climate. But experts say parents and educators can intervene before its too late. Read more by The 74s Mark Keierleber.

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Accelerating Learning: The news about pandemic-related learning loss keeps getting worse. A recent McKinsey & Co. study predicted that cumulative loss due to COVID-19 could be substantial, especially in mathematics, with students likely to lose five to nine months of learning by the end of this school year. Key educators are advocating an unusual remedy: a national, online volunteer tutoring force. 74 contributor Greg Toppo describes it as a sort of digital Peace Corps meets Homework Helpers. The idea has been endorsed by three former U.S. education secretaries. But as Congress and the Biden administration work out their early priorities, the nonprofit sector has begun to step in. Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, has created what he and others think is a scalable blueprint for a national tutoring effort, one that could match knowledgeable adult volunteers as well as millions of young people who have mastered key concepts with students in need. Already, two states Rhode Island and New Hampshire have signed on to Schoolhouse.World, with more expected soon. This is like a lifeline, said Rhode Island Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green.

Catherine Lhamon, Miguel Cardona and Carmel Martin (Getty Images)

Education Department: President Joe Biden has assembled a domestic policy team that includes officials who held high-level positions at the Department of Education during the Obama years. Education secretary nominee Miguel Cardona would bring the voice of classroom experience to the department. With so many urgent demands on the administration related to reopening schools, some wonder whether the White House and department officials will send a unified message to schools and families about getting students back in classrooms, or whether tensions will arise. Theres a precedent for the White House taking the lead on ed policy, and former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings suggests that for now, the power center will be the White House. Speaking on the radio last week, Cardona said it will be important to make sure there is consistency in messaging, to make sure there is one message, one plan. At least one expert is calling for a blue-ribbon commission on the federal governments role in reopening a monumental task even if everyone is on the same page. Linda Jacobson reports.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine announces changes to Ohios school quarantine rules for students having close contact with infected students. (The Ohio Channel)

Reopening: Calling plans by the Cleveland school district to ignore its commitment to reopen schools by March 1 simply unacceptable, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine threatened to pull early vaccines from school staff. District CEO Eric Gordon, who had moved back the reopening target to April 6, changed course in a phone call with DeWine, the governor said at a Feb. 12 press conference. Your commitment is not just to me, DeWine said. Your commitment is to the children in your district and your commitment is to your parents, your parents who said, Yes, I want my child back. A press release from the district did not commit to reopening by March 1 but said Gordon will announce plans Feb. 19, as scheduled. Reopening delays by the Akron school district and one high school in Cincinnati also drew DeWines attention. Patrick ODonnell reports.

Luis Martinez, 11 and a fifth grader in Los Angeles, next to his mother, Tania Rivera, upon receiving an award two years ago. Luis, who has autism and is non-verbal, rarely missed a day of instruction prior to the pandemic. (Tania Rivera)

Special Education: In the waning days of the Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Educations civil rights office launched four investigations into whether schools failed to serve students with disabilities during the pandemic. As 74 contributor Jo Napolitano reports, the inquiries came as no surprise to many parents who have watched their children lose skills it took them years to build. The probes covering the state school system in Indiana, as well as districts in Los Angeles, Seattle and Fairfax, Virginia reflect similar complaints from all across the country, said Denise Stile Marshall, head of The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a group that works on behalf of children with disabilities. Many parents are desperate and at their wits end.

Summer School: Americas rapid transition to virtual learning left huge numbers of teachers discouraged and parents worried about disastrous academic setbacks for their children. Some policymakers have wondered whether schools should stay open this summer to make up for lost time, including President Joe Biden, who suggested as much earlier this week. Now, a study finds that a summer program providing remote instruction in the midst of the pandemic has earned high marks from participants. The National Summer School Initiative, established last spring by a coalition of education reformers, offered five weeks of virtual math, literacy and enrichment classes to nearly 12,000 students. Some 500 educators were paired with 15 mentors who sent videos of their own teaching, advised on methods and debriefed after classes. And according to surveys and interviews, most participants were satisfied with the results: By the final week of the program, 65 percent of students said they were happy to be participating in summer school, and 86 percent of teachers said it improved their perception of online instruction. What were finding here is that the folks who participated felt like this was a really engaging and positive kind of virtual experience, study co-author Beth Schueler told Kevin Mahnken.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia (Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Civics Education: As newly elected GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greenes embrace of conspiracy theories about the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, generated national headlines and calls for her expulsion from Congress, a teacher who lived through the violence did what he does best: turn the moment into a learning opportunity. Jeff Foster, who teaches Advanced Placement Government at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people died in the 2018 shooting, frequently uses current events as lessons about the importance of civic participation. Even the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol sparked lively debate among his politically engaged students. But this conversation was different: Everybody in the class agreed that the comments from Greene, a freshman congresswoman from Georgia, were reprehensible. But even more shocking, Foster and other Parkland survivors said, was the failure of Republican leadership to respond with swift action. Read more by The 74s Mark Keierleber.

(Michael Hobbiss, Sam Sims, and Rebecca Allen/British Educational Research Association)

Teacher Quality: For teachers, the development of habits is a necessary concession to the unpredictable nature of their job. Morning assignments, class transitions, even behavior management need to be governed by routines that are as predictable for kids as they are effective for adults. But according to new research, these habits may be responsible for the slowing rate of improvement after teachers first few years on the job. As classroom practices become more automatic, they are also harder to change when they stop achieving their desired results. The profession is consistently subject to so many ambitious reforms from the Common Core to the science of reading to implicit bias training that practitioners need to be open to new methods, the authors argue. Kevin Mahnken explains.

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History: Contributor Chad Aldeman has some bad news: The effects of COVID-19 are likely to linger for decades. And if the Spanish Flu is any indication, babies born during the pandemic may suffer some devastating consequences. Compared with children born just before or after, babies born during the flu pandemic in 1919 were less likely to finish high school, earned less money and were more likely to depend on welfare assistance and serve time in jail. The harmful effects were twice as large for nonwhite children. It may take a few years to see whether similar educational and economic effects from COVID-19 start to materialize, but these are ominous findings suggesting that hidden economic factors may influence a childs life in ways that arent obvious in the moment. Hopefully, they will give policymakers more reasons to speed economic recovery efforts and make sure they deliver benefits to families and children who are going to need them the most.

Future of Education: Will the forced adoption of online learning accelerate innovation in K-12 education and its transformation toward more student-centered learning? Results from a nationally representative survey research project co-led by contributor Thomas Arnett offer some answers. The survey of 596 U.S. K-12 teachers and 694 school and district administrators found many teaching remotely or in a hybrid arrangement and issues with both synchronous (live class meetings over video calls) and asynchronous (via independent study materials and delayed communication such as email) approaches. One solution: A mix of asynchronous and synchronous online learning, when executed effectively, can have important benefits for students. Teachers adoption of online learning resources does not guarantee that online instruction becomes student-centered. Nonetheless, their growing familiarity with these resources makes the shift to student-centered practices much easier. When schools can go back to normal, many families and educators may be eager to say good riddance to online learning. But its encouraging to see educators discovering ways to use it to make their instruction more student-centered.

Income segregation levels within North Carolina schools increased from 2007 to 2014. (Dave Marcotte and Kari Dalane, via Annenberg Institute at Brown University)

Socioeconomic Segregation: Its a foundational premise of the American dream that through hard work and diligent study, young people can use education to access opportunities denied to their parents. However, mounting evidence suggests that segregation not just by race, but also by income within school systems may stymie those meritocratic aspirations. Previous research has documented the steady uptick in wealth gaps between schools, but a new working paper published by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University finds that income segregation within schools, from classroom to classroom, is also on the rise. However, its not all bad news. The researchers also show that in North Carolina, districts with more economically integrated schools also tended to have schools with more economically integrated classrooms. Its not inevitable that when we take affirmative measures to integrate by income, that schools will invariably resegregate at the classroom level, said Richard Kahlenberg of The Century Foundation. Asher Lehrer-Small has the story.

(RAND Corporation)

Remote Learning: A new, nationally representative survey of district leaders shows that remote coursework is here to stay and school systems will have to apply the lessons from their forced experiments with virtual learning during the pandemic to better adapt. The first survey conducted through the new American School District Panel shows 1 in 5 districts are considering, planning to adopt or have already adopted a fully online school in future years, and 1 in 10 has adopted blended or hybrid instruction, or plans to. Of all the pandemic-driven changes in public education, the creation of virtual schools was the one that the greatest number of district leaders anticipated would continue into the future. Remote instruction is a fundamentally different task than what school districts are designed for, as school systems nationwide learned when they were forced to suddenly close last spring. But, write contributors Heather Schwartz and Paul Hill, lessons from six case studies demonstrate how districts can use their pandemic-related momentum to make online learning a common staple of public schooling.

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The 12 Best Education Articles from February: How Extremists Are Teaching Kids to Hate, the White House Staffs Up With Education Experts, Recruiting...

Allison Siegelman| Erie Times-News

U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has been responsible for circulating wacky QAnon conspiracy theories that have dark, satanic themes that are reminiscent of those believed in ancient times. She and those associated with alt-right and QAnon groups target the Jewish people in the same way the Nazi Party did: They spread stump rhetoric, written propaganda and images all weaving the fiction with horrifying false characterizations and conspiracies about how the country is being destroyed by people amongst us.

What is most concerning is that Holocaust revisionism and denial has been embraced by some in academics with an agenda. It is so extreme that the genocide of 6 million Jews (along with many other minorities) throughout Europe is being questioned, especially by the younger generations who did not live through World War II.

We are in times that leaveus with few of those who lived through the WWII period. The elders today are mostly those who were babies to toddlers at the time of the war. Soon, they, too, will be gone. History has recorded in video and text the wars atrocities as they occurred and retrospectives. These archives have been maintained in Holocaust museums in Israeland the U.S., along with the U.N., and many other government archives, museums and archival organizations.

Todays conspiracists who wish to diminish or discredit the history preserved through videos, publications and testimonials of the millions who lived through that time are attempting to erase the Holocaust, and for what purpose? It appears to be a radical political agendaor delusions from mental illness that are responsible.

The hatemongers are attracted to provincialism. They are willing to use any tactic to keep America from being a diverse democratized nation that today offers humans of all races, religions, ethnicities, genders and sexual persuasions freedom from persecution and oppression.

However, the U.S. has a jaded past that is filled with slavery, racism and segregation. It is no surprise that our nation birthed a movement in the late 1800s, known as eugenics, that led to the sterilization of over 64,000 disabled or impoverished (mostly of dark-skinned) Americans. Hitler and the Nazi Party subscribed to this ideology disguised at the time as science. The desire to propagate a superior race lead to the insanity of the 20th century Holocaust which is still recorded as the worst genocide in history it eliminated two-thirds (67%) of the worlds Jewish population, or 6 million Jews.

Genocide is the deliberate killing of a people with the intent of eliminating them from existence.

The Jewish people had endured many battles and oppression since their tribal identity was created by the father of monotheism (the belief in one God), Abraham. It was Hitlers Nazi fascism that targeted death to all Jews throughout the world not just to drive them out of a land. The Nazi Party was able to formulate conspiracy theories that relied on demonizing Jews bycirculating tales of Jews plotting to deceive and destroy the non-Jewish population. They played on arousing fear in a demographic group who were provincial, gullibleand eager to find a scapegoat for the ills of their nation.

Today, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and those like her are doing exactly the same thing. These extremists are looking to instill fear and anger in Americans who see anyone other than white and Christian as a threat to the U.S. They wrap their falsehoods with patriotism and glorify the quest to attack the Jews as if Jews are not trustworthy and upstanding citizens.

Ironically, those who participate in such defamation can be seen as the real enemy of a democratized nation. Those who remain indifferent or dismissive of the trend in radicalized American patriotism and the militia cells that we today call domestic terrorism are as much to blame for the threat to our nation.

If we are to survive as a democracy, we must put party politics aside and look to history for an understanding of what gave rise to democracy. George Santayanas iconic words spoken in 1905 could not be more relevant, Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. It was in 1948 before the British House of Commons upon the end of WWII that Winston Churchill revised the quote as, Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. I ask that we, as Americans, embrace the most basic tenet of democracy to avoid a horrific slide into fascism and worse: immorality.

Allison Siegelman of York Township is a member of Central PA American Israel Public Affairs.

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QAnon and the alt-right draw from the Nazi playbook - GoErie.com

On Feb. 10, Fox News was in lockstep with other cable news channels and major broadcast networks in presenting more than four hours of the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

But at 5 p.m. Eastern, Fox News pulled away from the most graphic video evidence of violence during the insurrection by pro-Trump rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and switched to its popular daily roundtable show The Five.

Most of the panelists dismissed the Democratic impeachment managers presentation, defended the former president and moved on to other topics including the viral Zoom cat lawyer video despite the historic nature of the events in Washington. Viewers who wanted Fox News journalists take on the proceedings had to wait until anchor Bret Baier showed up at the top of the 6 p.m. hour.

The editorial judgment to cut away was met with derision on social media, where the conservative-leaning news network is often hammered by critics. On screen, Juan Williams, the lone liberal on The Five, angrily chastised his co-hosts for ignoring the evidence presented.

What played out that day demonstrates the pressure Fox News is under, as the network faces growing scrutiny over its role in supporting Trump and his disinformation claims that many believe helped to fuel the deadly insurrection attempt in the Capitol.

The profit engine of Rupert Murdochs Fox Corp. presents itself as a news network, but its often defined by its opinion hosts, such as Sean Hannity, who pay fealty to Trump and the former presidents devoted followers.

Those followers now have multiple options to feed their fix for right-wing opinions some of them far more extreme than what is delivered on Fox News. Satisfying those viewers while also reporting information that does not fit their worldview has become a challenge for an organization that faces vocal detractors on the political center and left, a potentially expensive lawsuit from one of Trumps baseless voter fraud targets and an increasingly outsize role in the parent companys financial performance.

I have friends who dont watch Fox anymore because they see it as untethered from reality, said Richard Goodstein, a Washington attorney who has appeared on the channel as a liberal guest. The question for Fox is balancing losing viewers like that to losing viewers who switch channels rather than watching someone like me who forcefully brings facts and opinions that they cannot tolerate.

Chris Stirewalt, the former political editor for Fox News, said in an op-ed column for The Times that he faced anger from the Trump multitudes after defending the networks election night call of the once reliably red Arizona for Joe Biden.

When I defended the call for Biden in the Arizona election, I became a target of murderous rage from consumers who were furious at not having their views confirmed, he wrote.

Giving the benefit of the doubt and often full-throated support to a president whose lies led to an attempt to overturn an election in turn led to voting software maker Smartmatics $2.7-billion defamation lawsuit against the network and three of its hosts.

The suit filed Feb. 4 alleges that Fox News and its hosts Maria Bartiromo, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro damaged Smartmatics reputation and business by spreading Trumps conspiracy theories about the election being rigged to elect President Biden. (Fox News and the hosts have filed motions to dismiss the suit, saying the Trumps claims were newsworthy, even if they were false.)

A more immediate question hanging over Fox News is the same one the Republican party is grappling with: What is the next move for Trump? Just as Republican legislators fear Trump will support primary challengers back home if they take him to task, Fox News has to determine how to navigate his expected re-emergence following his acquittal in the second impeachment trial.

Joe Walsh, a former tea party movement congressman from Illinois and conservative radio host, said the right-wing audience remains enthralled with Trump.

Thats the only thing thats going to satiate the folks who turn on Fox, Walsh said. Right now they are going on about big tech censorship and immigration. Thats not going to be enough.

The challenges come as Fox News has emerged as the most significant piece of Fox Corp., which slimmed down after selling most of its entertainment assets to the Walt Disney Co. for $71 billion. During the current fiscal year, Fox News is expected to contribute 80% or more than $2 billion to Fox Corp.'s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, an industry-wide measurement of profitability.

Fox News has been the most-watched cable news channel for 19 consecutive years, thanks to its effective positioning as a right-leaning alternative to other TV news outlets. As the rest of the traditional TV business declined in 2020, the channels audience grew. Fox News became the most-watched network in all of cable TV, according to Nielsen.

The network expected an audience falloff once Trump lost the White House, as it had seen viewers tune out after Barack Obama, a Democrat, defeated his Republican opponents in 2008 and 2012.

But Trump remained the main story in the weeks after the 2020 election with his unfounded charges of voter fraud, leading to the insurrection at the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters that killed five people, followed by the second impeachment trial. Depressed Trump supporters tuned out of Fox News during coverage of those events, while the ratings for MSNBC and CNN surged as viewers who dont habitually watch cable news were tuning in.

Fox News has managed to ride out ratings fluctuations in the past, but it took longer this time. The network has ranked first in viewers since Bidens inauguration, although it still trails CNN in the 25 to 54 age group important to advertisers.

The dip was significant enough for Fox Corp. Chief Executive Lachlan Murdoch to calm the waters. On Feb. 9, Murdoch told financial analysts that the company extended the employment contract of Fox News Media Chief Executive Suzanne Scott and praised her performance.

Arnon Mishkin, director of the Fox News decision desk, explains his call of Arizona for former vice president Joe Biden.

Scott took over the operation in 2018 after it had been rocked by sexual harassment scandals and racial discrimination lawsuits related to the reign of the networks founding chief executive, Roger Ailes. After maintaining the networks ratings leadership for two years, she is now jiggering the networks lineup and will add at least two more hours of right-leaning opinion programs, which have always been the most reliable ratings performers.

Murdoch also tried to counter the notion that Fox News has veered too far to one end of the political spectrum.

We dont need to go further right, Murdoch said. Well stick where we are, and we think thats exactly right and thats the best thing for the business and for our viewers.

Despite the younger Murdochs assurances, there is a sense among some politicos and people inside Fox News that the network has already moved further right to stave off the insurgence of new outlets that are courting their audience. Even veterans of past Republican administrations, such as Matthew Dowd, who worked for George W. Bush, believe there has been a shift.

We saw them as conservative and more likely to be more friendly than others, but we never saw them as like, Oh, lets do Fox because theyre basically a propaganda arm, Dowd said. You always thought of it as a conservative outlet, but it was rational conservative.

A Fox News insider not authorized to speak publicly on the matter said the conservative bent of the network is reflective of where the Republican Party has gone under Trump.

This past year, Fox News saw the rise of a pesky new rival in Newsmax, which kept up a steadfast defense of Trumps voter fraud claims through President Bidens inauguration. Last fall, the Boca Raton, Fla.-based channel averaged as many as 1 million viewers at 7 p.m. Eastern on some days with host Greg Kelly, who on Trumps last day in office said, I miss him already.

Newsmaxs ratings have faded in recent weeks. Since the inauguration it has averaged 226,000 viewers compared with 2.5 million for Fox News.

The other right-wing Fox wannabe is the more strident San Diego-based One America News Network, which does not have enough distribution in cable and satellite homes to be measured by Nielsen.

But the new breed of conservative outlets know how to attract attention. After Fox News Media canceled Dobbs Fox Business Network program where many of Trumps election fraud falsehoods were promoted OAN founder Robert Herring asked in a tweet for the host to give him a call. We may have a position available for you in which you wouldnt be censored for speaking the truth! Herring wrote.

Dobbs remains under contract to Fox News and still gets an annual salary in the seven figures.

Neither of the upstart channels has the financial resources or infrastructure to knock Fox News off its perch. Nevertheless, Fox News is entering an era where a multitude of new contenders will try to nibble away at the conservative audience it once had to itself.

Theyve gone from having zero wing-nut competition to aggressive wing-nut competition, said Mike Murphy, a former Republican consultant and current political analyst for NBC News.

In addition to watching on cable, viewers can stream Newsmax and OAN without a pay TV subscription. There are also more digital conservative channels such as the First, which carries a nightly show from former Fox News host Bill OReilly, and Glenn Becks Blaze Live. Both are available on free ad-supported streaming services such as Pluto.

Social media has provided new outlets for right-leaning voices as well. The Facebook page of Fox News contributor Dan Bongino, a former cop and Secret Service agent turned pugnacious Trump-defending pundit, has more monthly engagements than any major mainstream news organization on the platform.

Jon Klein, a digital media entrepreneur and former CNN president, said audience fragmentation is inevitable now that streaming has reached critical mass.

Ten years ago conservative audiences were not that digitally savvy, Klein said. The early adopters of digital media were younger, more liberal, educated, et cetera. None of this digital technology is a mystery anymore to the older white males who watch Fox News and certainly not a mystery to the alt-right young men they want.

Fox News does have an internal image problem resulting from the Arizona election call, which it stood by, despite an angry response from the Trump campaign and his supporters.

Stirewalt was fired from Fox News in a company restructuring on Jan. 19. Bill Sammon, the longtime executive in charge of the Washington bureau, which has long fought to remain independent from the networks opinion side, announced his retirement a day earlier.

Both moves were seen as responses to their roles on election night, leaving some of the journalists at the company stunned and concerned that the network is lessening its commitment to straight news.

Rupert Murdoch recently told the Washington Post that Stirewalts exit was not related to the Arizona call. It was known among Fox News executives that Murdoch was not a fan of Stirewalt, who declined comment.

Even the perception that Fox News ousted journalists over reporting an election result that was ultimately accurate could damage one of the foundational constructs of the channel. The integrity of the Fox News polling unit and the precision accuracy of its election decision desk has helped define the divide between news and opinion.

But keeping the core conservative Fox News viewer happy is the companys primary goal. Rupert Murdochs U.S. newspapers the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have been highly critical of Trumps actions on their editorial pages since he lost the election. Any personal political convictions he has on the matter are not worth alienating fickle TV viewers who could ultimately have an impact on the companys balance sheet.

They are not sentimental about their programming decisions, Klein said of the Murdochs. They do what they need to do to get an audience.

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Fox News tries to satisfy Trump fans, but at what cost? - Los Angeles Times

Over the past month, the world has watched the United States in the throes of a struggle over a democratic system that they thought was invincible. Then more recently, in Myanmar we saw the borrowed false accusations of a corrupted election succeed in overthrowing a democracy, at least temporarily.

It's felt for many of us as if the foundations of democratic processes are on trial, and democracys source in the ancient world has been looked to for answers. But the widely accepted story that democracy was a brilliant, even miraculous, invention of 5th-century BCE Athens, and that the West is the heir to that moment in time, has obscured the universal hard work that's required to make democracy work well.

My research, among others', suggests that the struggle to create social and political systems that serve the wider populace existed long before, and in regions far distant, from classical Athens.

From armed mobs descending on the US Capitol, to the cleansing installation of a new American president, the world peered with a mixture of horror and bemusement as the self-professed greatest democracy in the world played out its internal battles. Democrats'Twitter was awash with teary American exceptionalism citing the victory and drawbacks of the worlds greatest deliberative body.

People around the world wanted to rejoice, but felt themselves balking at the only-in-America stance of the rhetoric.

At the same time, another more bizarre thread ran through all of this: The mobs descending on the Capitol wore the insignia of a variety of Greek and Roman fictionalised histories, and on the other side a Democratic senator condemned the chaos by citing Roman history, only minutes after regaining the Senate floor from the mob attack.

This equivalence between American democracy and the ancient world has a very long and problematic history the so-called founders evoked the Roman republic in defence of both their representative democracy and their adherence to slavery. By and large, the academic world has been willing to concede the parallels if Athens and Rome were the progenitors of democracy, the US was their most prominent heir.

The discipline of classics the study of ancient Greece and Rome has been undergoing some serious soul-searching in the past few years, just as classical history was increasingly picked up and distorted by the alt-right. The events of the past few months have brought this scholarly argument into the public forum, with the increasingly heated debate coming to a head in the past week.

Scholars have pointed out the huge fault lines in Athenian democracy (most of the population of Athens could not participate), and the largely manipulated history of the early Roman republic.

Many (but not all) classicists have balked at the myth of a legacy of an exclusive Western civilisation, but the origins of democracy have remained fairly stubbornly rooted in classical soil. That ultimate arbiter of history and culture, Wikipedia, tells us that the concepts of democracy originated in ancient Athens circa 508 BC. There's been surprisingly little push-back in classics to challenge that idea.

American exceptionalism has been uncannily mirrored by ancient Athenian exceptionalism.

A large part of this is definitional the Greek historian Herodotus first calls the political system of the 5th century BCE a democracy, and anything that doesnt fit that exact pattern is dismissed. (In fact, Herodotus puts the earliest use of the term democracy not in the mouths of Athenians, but in a speech debating the merits of different political systems by that notorious Persian, Darius I but thats another story).

Pedants will tell you that the US is a republic (after Rome) and not a democracy (following Athens), but that's a rhetorical ploy.When we say democracy, we mean a political system where decisions are made by the majority of its populace, or their elected representatives, in some kind of formalised way.

And that the practice of democracy plays out in a variety of ways across the world. Dont tell the protestors in the Republic of Myanmar that their stolen parliamentary system was not a democracy because it doesnt fit the Athenian model; they know better.

In large part, the legacy of Athens and Rome is the result of documentation. They're the models because they recorded what they did (or at least others wrote about them later). But if we look harder at the traces of world history, other examples emerge that indicate that the practice of democracy has wider roots and more diverse branches.

If the debate around the validity of the classical tradition goes anywhere, it will be to acknowledge that democracy wasnt the brilliant invention of an elite group of men in Iron-Age Greece.

My research on the Medes of the Zagros Mountains in Iran suggests that a few hundred years before Athens, Median communities responded to the encroaching Assyrian Empire by formalising their consensus decision-making; we dont have written confirmation for this transition, because the Medes probably purposefully avoided the record-keeping that would have made it easier for the Assyrians to extort taxes and tribute from them.

But archaeological excavations revealed a new Median form of columned meeting house that seems designed specifically for communal gatherings not unlike the famous Athenian hillslope meeting ground. My research team is now undertaking further analyses of the pottery and animal bones from these sites to find out just how far people were willing to travel to participate in these deliberations.

Early states in Africa also seem to have shared many components with the democratic tribal system of 5th-century BCE Athens, although, again, oral histories silenced by colonialism make it difficult to confirm details.

Larissa Behrendt has argued that Indigenous Australian communities used a variety of institutionalised democratic principles in their governance before colonialism imposed its own structure on them.

Jettisoning the exceptionalism of Athenian democracy isnt about rejecting that heritage. Athenian democracy, deeply flawed as it was, nonetheless provided a model for the benefits of a political system where decision-making was widely (but not widely enough) distributed. The fact that Athenians and later Romans wrote so convincingly of their reservations about this system may have been the best thing about it.

But if the debate regarding the validity of the classical tradition goes anywhere, it will be to acknowledge that democracy wasnt the brilliant invention of an elite group of men in Iron-Age Greece.

Democracy is an answer to an ancient question:How can communities serve all their members? Answering this question is an essential part of the functioning of human societies, and democracy is one solution that has both flourished and been quashed across history and around the world.

Greece and Rome are notable, but not exclusive, examples of the merits and failures of these systems. The false origin story of a democracy born in Athens with the West as its heir creates a barrier between democratic ideals and the establishment of enduring systems of governance around the world.

Its time to look more carefully for the democratic impulse in all our communities.

Read more from the original source:
The global roots of democracy matter if it is to flourish in the future Monash Lens - Monash Lens