Kevin Drum noted something very interesting in a recent Economist article about Americans’ lack of trust in institutions. As he says, we are all aware of this but draws our attention to this: Kevin draws the correct inference in my opinion: Collapse of trust in government is a purely American phenomenon. Why? Because we have Fox News and the others don’t. Oh, they have tabloids and conservative newspapers and so forth, but nothing like Fox News, which makes its living by spreading outrage over the way the country is run. The power of Fox News is truly spectacular. Outrage sells, and the fact that one of the two major parties amplifies Fox uncritically means it has a surprisingly large influence in setting the agenda for the mainstream media too. The truth is that US institutions mostly operate about as well as they ever have. But Fox pushes outrage over Dr. Fauci and trust in the CDC plummets. They push outrage over Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 and trust in elections plummets. They go all in on CRT and DEI and trust in schools plummets. They push climate denialism and trust in science plummets. They insist that the rest of the news media are liberal pawns and trust in the very institution that explains reality plummets. Has there ever been an institution like Fox News that works so relentlessly from within to destroy faith in a country by its citizens? It’s a real-life version of what conservatives thought the Communist Party was…