I used to occasionally listen to Rush Limbaugh and then occasionally watch Glenn Beck when he was on. This has been going on for decades now. Predates Fox News.

Hell, you can argue that all this stuff started with Father Charles McCoughlin in the 1930s:

Father Coughlin … Dubbed “The Radio Priest” … was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience. During the 1930s, when the U.S. population was about 120 million, an estimated 30 million listeners tuned to his weekly broadcasts. … As his broadcasts became more political, he became increasingly popular. … After making attacks on Jewish bankers, Coughlin began to use his radio program to broadcast antisemitic commentary. In the late 1930s, he supported some of the policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. The broadcasts have been described as “a variation of the Fascist agenda applied to American culture”. His chief topics were political and economic rather than religious, using the slogan “Social Justice”. … , Coughlin denied on various occasions that he was antisemitic, yet he received indirect funding from Nazi Germany during this period. A New York Times report from Berlin identified Coughlin as “the German hero in America for the moment” with his sympathetic statements towards Nazism as “a defensive front against Bolshevism”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin

Thing is, it’s really entertaining, far more entertaining than nuanced news reporting.

“There are no easy solutions. The economy has grown by 0.4% and the president is taking fiscal measures to combat inflation, but some economists argue that blablablablabla…” Snore.

Switch to right wing media: “The deep state has a secret plan to turn little boys into women, this massacre was a fake and they’ve covering it up, they’re going to turn the frogs gay, they’re preparing death camps!”

Wow. That’ll wake you up. It’s like watching an exciting movie, but they say it’s really happening, so it’s even scarier. Maybe there’s a grain of truth to it. Best keep watching to find out! And before you know it, down the rabbithole you go.