For all it's attention to detail, Succession has never really fleshed out it's own universe. It only ever offered a mirror of our own. A certain amount of distortion was always granted. The Roys are the Murdochs, but not quite. ATN is Fox News, but not quite. As such the show doesn't really show us reality as it is shows a version of it. Not quite the truth but the perception of the truth . It's not Fox News, but it is the image we have of Fox News. And that is where the show loses some of its potency. There is the text, context and there is the subtext and metatext. However, here I found the context lacking; you can only go so far purely with text. Until now, Succession would always push reality to the background, so it could focus drama on family. Yes, they were the Murdochs, a wealthy family controlling a right-wing media empire, but that was just window dressing for depicting Logan as a tyrant, Kendall as insecure and so on...
It's election night in the world of Succession, and the race is between a left-wing Latino democrat and a republican populist everybody says is a fascist. ATN, is using its might as the premier news channel to influence the perception of the US election to change its outcome. The motivations for it are very clear and straightforward, in short every character does so because they think it will strengthen their own personal private position in the family chess-game. That is all fine for a fictional drama. The problem is that it leans on what happened in reality. Yet it also mischaracterises it. Suddenly the family drama at the core does not feel pregnant. Reality was more absurd and chaotic and more consequential that what Succession offers. It felt more significant.
We are presented with a very clean, very elegant trade-off: the Roys end up supporting the in-universe alt-right candidate because it helps them renege on a business deal. But that feels off with respect to reality. The show presents it driven by opportunity, in reality it seems it might have been driven by fear. I doubt there was a debate of opposing views at Fox's HQ before deciding to support either candidate. I would say that's not how anything works or has worked. Succession presents it like a debate of ideas, or even as a clash of opposing interests. And there is something verisimilar in the billionaires giving in to fascism thinking they will be able to control it or be insulated from the consequences (and slowly discovering they won't). But again, that is not quite in line with what happened in 2020, where more than anything it was the tail wagging the dog.
The problem is that the in-universe has never been fleshed out, yet the show attempts to build on that to deliver some dramatic arc. When you realise the framing is fake, it makes the drama seem artificial too.