I have college friends who whose analytical powers are impressive but... [gulp] they watch FOX because it fits into their perceived self-interest.
But the more interesting FOX News fan has always been the poor person, who gets terribly fucked by the Right. How did the right get the poor and/or uneducated on board? Long story.
In the 70 the Republican Party was desperate to break the New Deal coalition, which formed an ironclad consensus around the neck of Washington from 1945-1980. Even Republican presidents like Eisenhower and Nixon capitulated to the New Deal and Big Government (with its concern for full employment, anti-trust enforcement, strong labor and trade laws favoring high wages, etc). Business got sick of it. The wealthy wanted the narrow concentration of wealth seen in the 3rd world . . . and they wanted cheap labor, monopoly power and pollution-friendly regulations.
(If you are a business owner, would you rather have workers build your products for next to nothing, or do you want an over-priced & meddlesome middle class who demands benefits and workers' rights, and who competes for government resources?)
In order to create a world of cheap labor, monopolies and lower taxes, the Right bought a political party and invested heavily into think tanks, publishing groups, Political Action Committees, and every form of media (TV, Radio, newspapers, magazines and eventually the Web). They knew the upper class would join the movement out of self-interest, but they needed a powerful bullhorn for reaching the poor.
So the Republican Party, starting in the 70s, went into overdrive RE Rightwing populism, that is, they used their newly created bullhorn to pump out religion, patriotism and fear. This stuff worked best on people who had never taken a college course on Economics, Political Science, Psychology, History, the Middle East, etc
They used Bin Laden and gay marriage to scare these poor bastards into the voting booth where they would unwittingly pull the lever for policies that would send their job to China. They used "Boarders/Language/Culture and manufactured conspiracies to cultivate revanchist "homelanders" ("I want my country back!") who were conditioned to fear any information source originating from outside of the FOX/Rush, etc bubble.
(And yes, they used race to flip the South, which was easy after the Left pivoted from working class issues to race/gender/lifestyle)
I'm obviously over simplifying, but the Republican party had to attract these dangerously under-educated people because of math, that is, they needed the numbers to win elections.
And it worked. They gave stupidity a home . . . and the stupidity got comfortable.
....stupid
