Laura Ingraham gets paid millions for doing what any right-wing street corner blowhard off his or her medication does for nothing

I have no particular interest in the goings-on of the British royal family, although I understand that the desire of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle,  to step down from being “senior royals” and lead a more “normal” life for themselves and their son caused a great deal of handwringing in upper management and the British media. On the other hand, I don’t think that Americans ignorant of what is going on—apparently the Sussexes feel they have been deliberately sidelined anyway—should be expressing an opinion on it at all. 

Take for instance Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, who seems to believe that expressing herself in snide, condescending tones makes her snide, condescending opinions any more credible or intelligible. Ingraham accused the “kids” of “cashing in,” meaning that they wanted all the “perks” without doing the “work,” while employing a faux British accent. As when she condescends and demeans Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants and their “culture,” Ingraham played down to the lowest common denominator of her audience, down to near the Neanderthal branch of the evolutionary tree. For nonbelievers familiar with Fox News’ far-right propaganda, she is almost impossible to take seriously, yet she and her audience take themselves all-too-seriously. Facts do not matter to them; what matters is how she, and they, “feel” about something.

Ingraham never mentioned that Harry and Meghan stated their intention to forgo the so-called “Sovereign Grant,” and to seek financial independence. The grant, which only accounts for 5 percent of the income of royal family, is provided by the government to fund their official functions as heads of state, which includes goodwill tours, state funerals, visits to other heads of state, and such. The rest of their income comes from royal estates and holdings, which are apparently extensive. While the Sussexes still expect to receive for the time being support from this source, both have their own private resources and apparently want “regular jobs,” which as senior royals they are prohibited from having. 

OK, so now we have established that Ingraham didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, which isn’t surprising because she rarely even bothers to do the “work” of getting her facts straight. This explains why she was perfectly willing to swallow Trump’s little fib justifying the assassination of Gen. Soleimani, claiming that he “believed” that attacks on American embassies were in the works; by now we should know that for Trump, “belief” and “gut feelings” mean the same thing, and rarely have anything to do with facts. While Trump continuously derides the  “fake news media,” virtually everything that comes out of his mouth is “fake news,” and Ingraham is a perfectly willing accomplice in crime. 

After Ingraham’s interview with Trump, Fox News headlines trumpeted the “new facts” revealed by Trump, but soon afterward his own defense secretary, Mark Esper, denied that there was any evidence to support Trump’s "belief"—in fact there was no hard evidence at all concerning Soleimani’s immediate intentions—and even Fox News’ Chris Wallace felt compelled to call out new Trump “national security” advisor Robert O’Brien for his false claims in support of Trump’s statements to Ingraham. Wallace, interestingly, referred to Ingraham as an “esteemed” colleague, although one suspects that he used the term sarcastically, since few outside of the Fox News orbit uses a word like  “esteemed” in reference to Ingraham save in conjunction with other words, like “low”  and “little.”  

So, if Ingraham wants to criticize the Sussexes on financial matters she knows nothing about, fair is fair—we can talk about what Ingraham is paid for distributing hate-mongering propaganda and Trump’s lies. Ingraham was paid a salary of $15 million last year. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like an awful lot of money to make snide and snarky remarks for a total of  5 hours a week (minus commercial breaks). Her time slot is also occupied by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who is her complete opposite in every way. O’Donnell shows respect for the audience’s intelligence, respects the truth, and comes across as sincerely attempting to inform the public of the facts of the case. And yet Ingraham has a large and loyal following, which can only be explained but the fact that in this country there is a large number of people who simply want their own ignorant, bigoted views “confirmed” by someone else saying them.

Admittedly, there may be media types who even more insanely partisan, “loyal” and impervious to truth, like Trump’s current press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, who no doubt refuses to hold press conferences because she knows she is going to be roasted for every Trump lie she repeats and is expected to defend. But she is only paid a token government salary that is non-negotiable. Ingraham is making $15 million and for doing what? Frankly, if Ingraham is only repeating what her audience already believes, then why pay her at all? She is on-air one hour a day during the weekday, and her bubble-brained commentary clearly shows that she doesn’t need to do any more “research” for it than your typical far-right radio host; hell, you can get any ignorant white nationalist blowhard off his or her medication to fill her place for peanuts, and get the same result.