Fox News' alternate reality DNC

If the first night of this year's virtual Democratic National Convention reminded us of anything, it is that America has two major center-right political parties. In any European country, Democrats would be the ruling neoliberals in a longstanding governing coalition with Christian Democrats or the least radical of the former communist parties.

This is why the evening's proceedings began with American flags, religion, and the Founding Fathers. There were prayers and a group reading of the Preamble to the Constitution. Children recited the Pledge of Allegiance, complete with "under God." Sen. Bernie Sanders stood in front of a folksy backdrop of split logs and shamefacedly explained that a vote for the party of which he is not technically a member would not mean a vote for single-payer health care or any of the other causes for which he has stood over the course of his long political career.

You would not get this impression watching the coverage on Fox News. On Laura Ingraham's program, which immediately followed the conclusion of the night's proceedings with appearances from Eric Trump and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, viewers were told about the "radical socalist agenda" that had apparently been announced, perhaps in a secret off-camera meeting with George Soros and Xi Jinping. At one point Cruz suggested that Sanders himself would be appointed secretary of state in a Joe Biden administration. (He has about as good a chance as he has of being named the next CEO of Goldman Sachs.) The host herself explained, if that is the right verb, that "we are going to lose the free market."

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Eventually Dinesh D'Souza, the right-wing author who was once caught traveling with a woman he introduced as his fiancee while his actual wife was at home with their daughter, appeared to decry the iniquity of Biden's interview with a rapper published earlier Monday: "It's amazing that a presidential candidate would elevate Cardi B like this."

There is certainly something amazing about all of this.