How Donald Trump's Success Produced Bill O'Reilly's Downfall
On Wednesday afternoon, the king of cable was summarily—and in the eyes of many, finally—dethroned.
Bill O’Reilly’s stunning fall was both swift and extraordinarily prolonged: Swift for a public newly woken to his alleged transgressions, courtesy of a bombshell New York Times investigation earlier this month that revealed O’Reilly’s employers at Fox News had paid out some $13 million to women who claimed the bombastic TV host had sexually harassed them or otherwise exposed them to inappropriate behavior (just yesterday another woman came forward). Prolonged for those both inside and outside of Fox HQ who had witnessed the host flourish even after 13 years of reportedly questionable behavior (his contract was recently renewed for an estimated $18 million a year).
Whatever the timeline, O’Reilly’s dismissal from the top of the media power grid is still tuning to see him each night. In the age of Trump, it would have seemed that O’Reilly was in the catbird seat: giving voice to the same powerful strain of disaffected conservatism that put Donald Trump in the Oval Office, excitedly (and lucratively) excoriating America’s Losers each night without pause.
