Republicans flailing and lashing out at Fox News as Biden fails to rile up the GOP base: report

Republicans have been hard-pressed to rile up anger toward President Joe Biden, and they're casting some of the blame on Fox News.

Conservatives have focused relentlessly on culture war issues -- Dr. Seuss, Mr. Potato Head, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry -- as the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers ushered a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill through Congress, reported the Associated Press.

"There's just not the antipathy to Biden like there was Obama, he just doesn't drive conservative outrage," said longtime GOP operative Alex Conant.

Conant is a veteran of the Republican National Committee's efforts to undermine former president Barack Obama during his first year in office, and he lays some of the blame on Fox News and other conservative media outlets for Biden's smooth cruise through his opening months.

"They never talk about Biden, it's amazing," Conant said. "I think Fox covered Dr. Seuss more than Biden's stimulus bill in the week leading up to the vote."

Biden, of course, is a white man with a lengthy record as a mainstream Democrat, so GOP scare tactics don't pack the same punch as they might for racist or sexist voters who mistrust a Black president like Obama or a woman candidate like Hillary Clinton.

"He does not engage, he does not personalize his disputes, and while he is pursuing a progressive platform, he does not use the conventional ideological language about it," said former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod. "He's not a provocative personality."

So far, the Republican narrative seems disconnected from the reality many voters face after a year of pandemic woes that finally seem to be on the wane, thanks in part to efforts by the new president to clean up the damage left by Donald Trump.

"The cancel culture is a huge meme on the right and it may work with the base, but the base is not the country at large," Axlerod said. "That is a sideshow right now, the main event is the virus and how quickly are we going to be able to get back to normal."