Should we pity or just feel disdain for people who are
brainwashed by the likes of Fox News and other right-wing “news” outlets trucking
in dangerous propaganda? Sean Hannity is professing that he doesn’t know if it
is “safe” to be vaccinated against the Covid-19, although the way he said it
the other day sounded like playacting. What kind of message is that sending to
his viewers gullible enough to take him seriously? This is not being a
responsible purveyor of needed information for the public welfare—this is
irresponsible behavior that will kill people, and all because the likes of
Hannity think that being “contrary” is good for ratings. I mean, they can’t
actually believe half of what they say, can they? Even Art Bell was honest
enough to admit that half the stuff that was talked about on his “Coast to
Coast” radio show was “bullshit.”
I finally received that letter from the Fox News-addict family member since the events of January 6. I was curious to know about how he “explained” that event, but no such luck; not a single hint of his thoughts on the matter, just a few lines of paranoia about Joe Biden and the Democrats. Perhaps he knew deep down that this was wrong and just not “explainable.” I wrote back suggesting that he take time off from watching Fox News and watch some reality-based news for a change, and that life was short, and if he was honest, he’d probably hadn’t noticed any real change in his life, good or bad, that could explain his dislike for Barack Obama and fandom of Trump.
Of course there is an “explanation” for that, if you read between the lines. For example, he blamed Obama exclusively for Benghazi, while Hillary Clinton bore no responsibility whatever for what happened, despite the fact that Obama had given her free reign to do little but promote her egomaniacal self, and it was known that she did not get on well with Ambassador Christopher Stevens (because he was a man?), which may or may not explain the lack of security at the U.S. compound. Was this belief primarily based on the fact that one of these people was black, and other white? Probably, although he would try to rationalize it in “cultural” terms. Personally, I’m still waiting for that report explaining what Vince Foster knew that was so awful it compelled him to commit suicide (note that I did not say “allegedly”); it isn’t a “conspiracy theory” to want to know the truth about the Clintons’ involvement. I guess you can tell I am no fan of Hillary, who if she had been elected in 2016, would have only told about 20,000 lies.
But I don’t want to discuss that any further, because that is yesterday and we have to deal with today. One of the most absurd talking points going about Fox News these days is that while Donald Trump often talked and behaved irrationally, his policies were nevertheless “sound,” and while Joe Biden may appear “normal” and “boring,” his executive orders demonstrate that he is an “extremist.” Then there is Maria Bartiromo predictably spouting nonsense—“admitting” that far-right elements had been planning to disguise themselves as National Guardsmen on Inauguration Day, but only just as Antifa members dressed-up like Trump supporters during the January 6 riot to make those “peaceful” Trumpists look bad.
And then Tucker Carlson warned his wing-nut viewers that
efforts to take far-right domestic terrorists and QAnon fanaticism seriously by
law enforcement was in fact an effort to “silence” dissent and take away your
“freedom of speech” rights—and all this is called “dictatorship”; the truth of
the matter is that Fox News has been doing three things that are destructive to
the maintenance of a democracy: propping-up and enabling a corrupt “strongman”
(Trump), convincing its viewers that the election was “stolen” and thus
enabling the belief that the democratic process only “works” if their candidate wins, and to twist
people’s minds with alternate “facts” that are simply made because they are
contrary to accepted reality. Oh, and let’s throw in “justifying” Brown Shirt
violence as “patriotic,” too.
Meanwhile, the usual suspects on the far-right side of the U.S. Senate are still pushing election fraud conspiracies and insisting that Trump should not have to face the music at all for inciting the attempt to overthrow the government that he so richly deserves. I hope that the impeachment managers call some of those insurrectionists as witnesses, because you know that there are 150 guilty-as-hell Republicans who fear being “outed.”
One of those people is QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is even more “out there” than we thought. Let’s recall what QAnon is, according the BBC: “At its heart, QAnon is a wide-ranging, completely unfounded theory that says that President Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping paedophiles in government, business and the media. QAnon believers have speculated that this fight will lead to a day of reckoning where prominent people such as former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will be arrested and executed.” Greene herself doesn’t seem to have any particular problem with people being “executed,” mainly Democrats. CNN reported that on her Facebook page in 2018 and 2019
In one post, from January 2019, Greene liked a comment that said "a bullet to the head would be quicker" to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In other posts, Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who, in her eyes, were part of the "deep state" working against Trump. In one Facebook post from April 2018, Greene wrote conspiratorially about the Iran Deal, one of former President Barack Obama's signature foreign policy achievements. A commenter asked Greene, "Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H & O ???," referring to Obama and Hillary Clinton. Greene replied, "Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off."
Greene also composed commentary on Nancy Pelosi:
"She's a traitor to our country, she's guilty of treason. She took an oath to protect American citizens and uphold our laws. And she gives aid and comfort to our enemies who illegally invade our land. That's what treason is. And by our law representatives and senators can be kicked out and no longer serve in our government. And it's, uh, it's a crime punishable by death is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason."
Greene also wrote on her Facebook page that Pelosi “will suffer death or she'll be in prison for her treason." Greene was also caught on video harassing Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg, calling him a “coward” for supporting gun control legislation. Greene’s response to these demonstrable facts about her questionable sanity was typical of the worst kind of hypocrites: it was all “fake news” from “the enemy of the people.” She denied any responsibility for what appeared on her Facebook page, and even for her own violent comments. She hypocritically denounced “all violence,” but only critiqued that allegedly from Antifa and BLM—the groups which she blames for the violent attempt to overthrow the government of January 6. If anyone is guilty of “treason,” it is those people who incited that insurrection, and Greene is near the top of that list, just below Trump’s culpability.
Who could vote for such a person? The 14th District in Georgia is 85 percent white and largely Protestant “Christian”—and people don’t understand why more and more Americans do not take religion seriously? In The New Yorker, Charles Bethea wrote “On Facebook, she (Greene) posted a picture of herself holding a rifle next to images of Omar, Tlaib, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, below the words ‘We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart.’” One local Republican said that while he opposed her racist, violent rhetoric and would not vote for her, she would likely be elected because “Poor white people in the countryside, who’ve been ignored by both parties for years—they expect nothing from the federal government”—which is just an excuse, because these “poor white Southerners” have been voting Republican for at least half a century, so why would they expect anything from the government? Of course they will vote for the “white candidate” and the one who is most “bat-shit crazy” rather than just your run-of-the-mill Republican.
Bethea talked to one small group of women who attended a Greene campaign rally; besides showing an interest in “learning” more about this “Q” thing, they agreed that Democrats are so “hateful” because “they’re controlled by Satan” and then nonsensically “That’s right. They want to control everybody else. They want to control people with fear. O.K.? They’re wanting to control people by their pocketbook.” What exactly is meant by all of this is not clear, and if you ask them to “explain” what they mean, they would doubtless be at loss to do so; watch any of Jordan Klepper’s videos of his adventures in Trump World, and you will discover how shockingly ignorant many Trump supporters are, motivated solely by petty personal grievances that have nothing to do with reality. What does seem “clear,” however, is that they only care about their own sad little lives, they never look at the “big picture.” When they talk about “control,” what they really mean is their “unhappiness” that their racist and white nationalist beliefs are not more forcefully translated from words to action; it is they, in actuality, who seek “control” on white nationalist and racist terms.
Republicans just don’t “get it” the way Democrats do; Democrats know that progressives and “socialists” don’t have anywhere else to go if they want to have any say in policy, while Republicans at the moment are allowing themselves to be controlled by Trumpists and the far-right extremist, white supremacist fringe. Again, where else do these people have to go if the party just untethers this barge? So what if the extremist fringe elements decide to form their own political party? When people see what their “platform” is untethered from the phony platitudes of the Republican Party, people will likely think twice before voting for a “party” that they are not prepared to explain what their “plan” for the country is, which one suspects will be like one of those crazy neo-Nazi maps where different parts of the country are “set aside” for pure-white Arians.
And even if such a third-party arises, they should take heed of what happened when Republican Teddy Roosevelt founded the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party in 1912 "to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics.” He actually received more votes than Taft in the 1912 election, but end result was not only the loss to Woodrow Wilson, but many progressive former Republicans switched to the Democratic Party. Of course we are looking at a much different dynamic here, with “traditional” conservative Republicans having to make a choice between their “ideals” and fascism, and only weeks after the attempt to overthrow democracy in this country by Trumpist/fascist forces, they seem now more receptive to allowing Trumpism/fascism to control the destiny of the party because of the total absence of moral credibility.
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