The announce­ment that Geor­gia’s U.S. Sen­a­tor Raphael Warnock had won reelec­tion came just as FNC host Lau­ra Ingra­ham was rais­ing the specter of trans­gen­der teenagers assault­ing young girls in high school bathrooms.

Any­thing to take view­ers’ atten­tion away from the Repub­li­can dis­as­ter unfold­ing in Georgia.

When the Asso­ci­at­ed Press called the race, Ingra­ham did not receive the news well, hav­ing spent more than a whole sea­son pre­dict­ing a “red tsuna­mi” would sweep the Sen­ate. “I’m pissed tonight, frankly,” said the host who spent autumn pre­dict­ing the elec­tion would yield a red tsunami.

A moment lat­er, Ingra­ham asked: “Why is it that Demo­c­rat [sic] dis­tricts always come in last?” It’s where the votes are. Atlanta-area coun­ties had flipped vote totals and put Warnock ahead by a fig­ure that ulti­mate­ly sur­passed 50,000 votes.

Ingra­ham imme­di­ate­ly tried to foist blame on Sen­ate Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen­ate Repub­li­cans for non-sup­port of Her­schel Walker.

“To me, it nev­er felt like the Sen­ate Repub­li­cans want­ed this guy (Her­schel Walk­er) in office,” said she. “He was a Trump pick and they didn’t like that. There wasn’t the inten­si­ty on the part of the Repub­li­cans as there was on the part of the Democ­rats. I felt it, you felt it.”

“Where was ‘All hands on deck’?” Ingra­ham added.

“Why weren’t they down there?”

For­mer Trump com­mu­ni­ca­tions aide Kellyanne Con­way com­plained about Repub­li­can Par­ty con­sul­tants enrich­ing them­selves – her occu­pa­tion in recent years – while Fed­er­al­ist edi­tor Mol­lie Hem­ing­way dissed McConnell.

McConnell was depict­ed as a col­lab­o­ra­tor who’d rather work with Sen­ate Democ­rats than the new Repub­li­can major­i­ty in the House.

What a cyn­i­cal game this trio were playing.

The Repub­li­cans’ loss in Geor­gia was twist­ed to fit the Fox par­ty line. Cast doubt on hon­esty of the elec­tion. Blame oth­ers, includ­ing con­ve­nient demons. Fan the sus­pi­cions and resent­ment of an audi­ence that doesn’t know any better.

It was, in a sense, a planned, chore­o­graphed pander.

So con­di­tioned are Fox view­ers that any hint of truth caus­es rat­ings to fall. Fox infu­ri­at­ed its audi­ence, and sent then-Pres­i­dent Trump into a rage, with its accu­rate 2020 dec­la­ra­tion that Joe Biden would car­ry Ari­zona. The elec­tion expert respon­si­ble was soon sent pack­ing, and semi-hon­est jour­nal­ists (e.g. Chris Wal­lace) have since bailed out. The truth sets you free – from employ­ment at FNC.

Her­schel Walk­er was a fix­ture on Fox dur­ing the runoff cam­paign. The mala­prop prone, scan­dal-plagued can­di­date was shield­ed from press ques­tions on the cam­paign trail. Instead, he would appear with on “Han­ni­ty” with Lind­sey Gra­ham or Ted Cruz, mouth a few plat­i­tudes and let han­dlers argue his case.

The cold, cru­el, sar­cas­tic Lau­ra Ingra­ham focused on Sen­ate races dur­ing the fall cam­paign. She gave ample air­time to such Repub­li­can can­di­dates as Tiffany Smi­ley in this state, ban­nered polls show­ing right wing can­di­dates catch­ing and pass­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic incum­bents. She pil­lo­ried Sen­ate Repub­li­can lead­ers for giv­ing insuf­fi­cient sup­port to such unpop­u­lar chal­lengers as Blake Mas­ters in Arizona.

Remem­ber, in advance of the 2021 Geor­gia runoff, Ingra­ham took out after Warnock and his fel­low Sen­ate nom­i­nee Jon Ossoff, say­ing “Warnock and Ossoff will be the Sen­ate ver­sion, when you think about it, of The Squad,” using a pop­u­lar nick­name for young, female, left-lean­ing mem­bers of the House of Representatives.

The real­i­ty is, Her­schel Walk­er lost because he didn’t get enough votes.

He trailed Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp by more than 200,000 votes in the Novem­ber elec­tion, and last night ran 5–7 points behind Kemp’s reelec­tion per­cent­ages in suburban/exurban coun­ties around Atlanta.

When not talk­ing about vam­pires or were­wolves, Walk­er on the stump par­rot­ed Fox themes. Denun­ci­a­tions of “woke” edu­ca­tors were accom­pa­nied by warn­ings about trans­gen­der ath­letes dom­i­nat­ing women’s ath­let­ic competition.

CNN man­aged a few words with the can­di­date, who seemed under the impres­sion he was run­ning for the House. Nonethe­less, Kellyanne Con­way last night described Her­schel Walk­er as “one of the most improved can­di­dates” in this cycle.

Walk­er had been liv­ing – and breed­ing – in Texas. He once played for a pro foot­ball team owned by Trump, who foist­ed the 1980 Heis­man Tro­phy win­ner on Geor­gia Repub­li­cans. The ploy to win African Amer­i­can votes fell flat, and the loan of Gov­er­nor Kemp’s vote tar­get­ing appa­ra­tus failed to res­cue him in the runoff. Walk­er was par­o­died on Sat­ur­day Night Live.

In its unend­ing game of blame, Fox is very sub­tly lift­ing the halo off Trump’s head. The job must be done dis­creet­ly giv­en his following.

Con­way pro­vid­ed an open­ing last night by men­tion­ing Georgia’s enor­mous (1.8 mil­lion) advance vote, which heav­i­ly favored Warnock. Trump has stren­u­ous­ly opposed mail-in vot­ing and wants us all to line up on Elec­tion Day.

“If we don’t ban votes ear­ly, we’re going to keep los­ing,” said Conway.

“Why didn’t we?” asked Ingraham.

“We didn’t,” said Conway.

“We didn’t do it in 2020, because every­one said don’t vote ear­ly because that’s cor­rupt,” Ingra­ham retorted.

By “every­one” and a sub­se­quent ref­er­ence to “peo­ple at the very top of the Repub­li­can Par­ty,” she was clear­ly refer­ring to Trump.

The ques­tion on this viewer’s mind: Do dull, drilled, con­di­tioned view­ers of Fox  have any under­stand­ing of how they are being manip­u­lat­ed? The air­brush­ing of Repub­li­cans’ dis­as­ter in Geor­gia car­ries cyn­i­cism to a new depth.