PALM BEACH, FL. — As American pundits and politicians continue to process the sudden passing of Roger Ailes, a spokesman for the disgraced former Fox News chairman’s family issued a statement saying that Ailes “departed this world secure in the knowledge that he made it a much, much more terrible place.”
“From his tireless efforts to sell a wholly unjustified, morally reprehensible war that cost hundreds of thousands of innocent lives, to his instrumental role in facilitating not one, but two coups of American democracy,” began the spokesman, “There is no aspect of human existence that isn’t far worse off as a direct result of Roger Ailes’ existence.”
A true visionary, Ailes’ tenure saw Fox News grow from cable news afterthought to the United States’ first ever, 24-hour right wing propaganda machine. In doing so, Ailes provided angry white men with a much-needed platform to spread the kind of racist, sexist, homophobic invective behind the epidemic of American hate crimes he cherished so dearly.
“But more than anything,” the spokesman noted, “Roger was committed and passionate sexual predator who ruined the lives of an untold number of women by either forcing himself upon them, or fostering a culture that enabled other equally white, privileged men to do the same.”
Ailes’ widow Elizabeth issued a statement of her own, thanking the public for their support.
“While it pains me to think that my Roger will never again impede social progress with his trademark combination of misinformation and scapegoating,” she said, pointing to the ground, “I take great comfort in knowing that he’s down there right now, looking up on us.”
