After last week’s newsletter about conservative media’s problems, watching Sunday’s episode of HBO’s “Succession” was interesting. The episode focuses on the show’s interpretation of Fox News, run by a fictionalized version of the Murdoch family, on an imagined election night. The contrast between reality and the fictional world of “Succession” reveals how art depicts politics, and how the nature of democratic politics resists successful dramatization.
On the last presidential election night in the real world, Fox News triggered fury from Donald Trump’s campaign and backlash from the Fox audience by calling Arizona early. This event showcased the problem described last week where conservative media has ended up captive to the particular expectations of a large television audience. Fox’s audience demands infotainment, reality-show drama, and nothing that doesn’t make sense in a nightly narrative.
In the world of “Succession,” the election-night dilemma is somewhat similar to the real world, but with different dynamics. The show’s presidential election is disrupted by a fire (arson?) at a Milwaukee precinct that destroys thousands of ballots. As a result, the right-wing candidate is ahead pending litigation and his campaign wants ATN (the show’s Fox News) to call Wisconsin for him immediately. The Roy siblings, the heirs to their recently deceased father’s corporate empire, end up making a bad, republic-undermining decision. Their brother and sister want to keep the company rather than go through with a planned sale to a Scandinavian tech billionaire, and the right-wing candidate has promised to block the deal for them if he’s elected.
Throughout the show’s seasons, it has been unclear if “Succession” is ultimately about succeeding the father’s empire in the style of “The Godfather” or if it’s headed towards a “Hamlet” ending where everybody stabs or poisons each other and an outsider comes to claim the throne. With two episodes left, it appears that the second outcome is more likely, where the failsons and faildaughter lose their company and bring down the American republic along the way.
