Murdochs call out ‘Trumpty Dumpty’ — but who is going to fall?

The New York Post “Trumpty Dumpty” post-election front page was the shot heard around the world. Then came the follow-up salvo — the jaunty “It’s DeSantis’ time now”.

Just what are the Murdochs up to? Seems like they want the party back — or at least their Fox audience. Post-election, it looks like Trump is at his weakest; time to kick him while he’s down. And right now, they’re in a hurry.

It looks like Trump is planning to announce he’s running for the 2024 presidency this week. In the former president’s classic style, it risks putting him back in the middle of the story. Meanwhile, at the Murdochs’ media outlets, it’s all hands on deck to stop him.

The New York Post front pages are providing the meme-able tabloid colour. (The paper itself has a circulation of about 146,000 in a city of 8.5 million people.) But the front pages are never for their readership. They’re a memo to the Republican elite.

It’s a red alert signalling it’s time to jump the Trump ship. It came in tandem with the talking points provided through hostile reporting and commentary in The Wall Street Journal, with not one but six “time to go” op-eds on the morning after the election alone, long before the election outcome was clear.

Fox News wound it into the anger phase of grief, with a gentler handling of its pro-Trump audience. On Wednesday night, the network’s prime-time face, Tucker Carlson, reckoned there was plenty of blame to go around: “The people whose job it was to win but did not win should go do something else now. We’re speaking specifically of the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate and of the RNC.”

Vanity Fair had the catchiest translation: “The message from the Murdoch-owned New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News is clear: pack your bags, bitch. You’re done.”

Job done? Not so fast. This isn’t the first time the Murdoch media machine has tried to hustle Trump on from his political ambitions. It’s not even the second or third. There was the opening clash in the 2016 primaries, the attempt to get out from under during the US summer of 2020, and again when it, all too briefly, encouraged Trump to accept the loss in the 2020 elections. It tried again in the northern summer just past.

Each time, Trump’s hold on the base he shares with Fox News forced the media companies to back down. 

Once again, Trump isn’t having it. On Thursday he went on his Truth Social with a threaded scream mostly directed at “Ron DeSanctimonious”, and including a jibe at the Murdochs: “For me, Fox News was always gone, even in 2015-16 when I began my ‘journey’, but now they’re really gone.”

The media drive by Murdoch outlets is partly based on what they see as the demands of the drama they present day by day: Trump, in the eyes of Fox programmers, has just become boring. As New York Magazine’s Shawn McCreesh wrote last month: “There is a feeling [in Fox] right now that he offers nothing much but the same old story line … Time is a flat circle when you’re no longer president, everything is corrupt all the time, and everyone is always out to get you.”

What to do when the story gets stale? Bring in a new, fresh protagonist. DeSantis may be dull on screen, but he has his catchy lines that appeal to the Fox base. And Florida, both by age and demographic, is a big part of the Fox audience. He fits neatly into the seven-year Fox quest to wrap itself in Trumpism without Trump himself.

DeSantis’ dullness may also be a feature, not a bug. Traditionally, the family (back to Sir Keith in 1930s Australia) have preferred their politicians to understand their political dependency on the media companies they own. Trump’s (apparent) wealth and celebrity status (and his narcissism) make that a bridge too far.

The Trumps and the Murdochs go back to the 1980s when both Rupert and Donald were using their wealth and media presence as a battering ram to break into New York — and it worked.

By 2015, Rupert was a bit higher in the oligarch pecking order. As president, Trump leap-frogged him, by trading on the audience Fox News had carefully curated. As long as Trump is a player, that audience is at risk. Much safer to back the more dependent Florida governor.