The Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier has deleted a tweet that proved the backlash against the disgraced cable news network has exploded.

On Saturday, yours truly wrote about how the backlash against Fox News hit Defcon 1. To backfill my case, I specifically focused on the withering responses to an innocuous tweet posted by Fox’s Special Report anchor Bret Baier…

“Join me + @marthamaccallum tonight 8pmET on @FoxNews”:

(Screenshot courtesy of @TLC00001)

That’s it. That was all Baier tweeted. Nothing controversial. Nothing about the election. He didn’t try to defend his disgraced network’s indefensible decision to call Arizona early, a state that a week later is still too close to call.

All Baier did, as I pointed out Saturday, was ask people to tune in–as anodyne a tweet that was ever tweeted, and yet, the replies, tens of thousands of them, were (according to my good faith look) withering, brutal, and by a margin of around 100-to-1, if not higher.

Here are a few examples of what was going on in Baier’s replies…

Uh…no way! @newsmax @SchmittNYC ALL THE WAY!

No thanks

Nope.

That’s a big negative

nope – done with Fox!

BOYCOTT FOX NEWS! WATCH OAN, NEWSMAX

You have lost this loyal viewer! Trying to influence an outcome that is clearly not legitimate!

How about no! Done with Fox!!

I’d rather get another vasectomy without anesthesia sir

Done with fox! You sold out on us! Good luck!

Sorry Bret. Fox has jumped the shark. We won’t forget.

Yikes the ratio on this. May want to pass that along to Murdoch’s.

And now Baier has scurried away and deleted the tweet…

The good folks at Rasmussen (the top pollster of the 2016 and 2020 elections) was one of the first to notice the deletion:

To me the deletion is just more proof that Fox News is in real trouble and feels besieged. The backlash is so fierce, so grassroots, so overwhelming, Baier is forced to wishcast it all away with the cowardly deletion of a tweet —  as though that somehow means it didn’t happen.

Fox’s ratings will likely remain high until the presidential election is resolved, but I am truly interested to see what happens after…

Fox News has lost its base of support, and when you lose your base of support, you are in very serious trouble. Ask the NFL, the NBA, ESPN, Megyn Kelly…

Worse still, Fox News has legitimate online competition from outlets like Breitbart News that do not lie or attempt to meddle in elections. (Fox News is guilty of both.)

Fox News also has legitimate broadcast competition from OAN and Newsmax. Yep, Fox is no longer the only place right-of-center cable news viewers can go.

And Fox blew it.

Fox News lied about Trump not repudiating racism.

Fox News released one rigged poll after another.

Fox News called Arizona early to help Biden win the post-election, public relations battle in a contested race.

Fox News rigged the first presidential debate.

Fox News deliberately interrupted Trump and allowed Biden to interrupt Trump during the first presidential debate and then lied about it.

Fox News is a pile of lying garbage, and its base of support has finally had enough.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.