There are many reasons of course, but in part it’s because media platforms such as Fox News incite hatred against many Americans merely because they do not march to the Fox drumbeat. They deliberately include “guest speakers” to make outrageous and absurd claims to engender hatred and anger, such as Hannity’s recent guest, David Horowitz, who alleged Obama will trigger another Holocaust and is responsible for the white supremacist who killed innocent people in Kansas, because he loves Muslims and hates the Jews:
On his Tuesday radio show, Hannity pointed to the president’s “support” of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and asked if it meant that “anti-Semitism is on the rise with the potential of resulting in a modern-day Holocaust.”
“I think that’s exactly accurate,” Horowitz replied, asserting that the recent white supremacist shooter in Kansas had been “obviously encouraged by the American left.”
“The alliance between the American left and the Islamo – I don’t call them Islamo-Fascists anymore, they’re Nazis,” Horowitz continued. “They preach the same doctrine that the Nazis did, they were allied with the Nazis during the second World War. The destruction of Israel, which is welcomed by you know, like I say normal anti-Semites.”
He later added: “Obama could care less if the Jews are killed in the Middle-East. Obama – to answer your question, Sean – Obama is an anti-American president.”
This is typical, unfortunately, of how the President has been portrayed by right wing conservative “news” outlets and talk radio since before he won the nomination. That it is irresponsible, divisive and encourages the worst beliefs and emotions among those Americans who listen to these “provocateurs” (for that is what they do – provoke animosity, hatred and fear) does not bother the right wing media in the least. They encourage rage among their listeners, and invariably they implicitly endorse violence as a response to the government, all because a black man sits in the White House.
You have to posit that secretly Fox could not have been happier that Obama won re-election. Outrage and bombast and false accusations and stirring the pot are what they do best. And that is bad for our families, many of whom are torn apart over the divisive nature of our politics, and even worse for our country. As Billionaires finance these ever more costly and nasty political campaigns, as more and more people self-segregate and do not talk politics outside their own inner circle, the lies that are told become real to many people, become their reality.
And so, we fight over issues that distract us, we fight over issues such as climate change and the value of science that should not be political issues at all, and by doing so we give the billionaires and the mega-corporations their victories, as state after state falls into the hands, not of reactionaries, but political radicals of the worst kind. In debt to their wealthy benefactors, they push an agenda that has crippled our economy, particularly the economic prospects of hundreds of millions of people. They write laws to make it harder to stave off the disaster that climate change is already wreaking on our planet and the human race.
Sean Hannity is a symbol of the longest running campaign to divide Americans, one against the other for the benefit of our corporate masters. Fox News, on which Hannity appears, is the largest, most sophisticated disinformation campaign ever constructed and operated in the world. One that bears great responsibility for the downfall of our democracy, and for the violence and abuse, both rhetorical and real, that too many experience in our lives.
Fox’s policy is to turn brother against brother, parents against their children, the young against the old, and every race, religion or ethnicity against the others, all in the service of remaking our country into a modern day version of Corporate Feudalism. They cloak their misinformation in the flag, in the most extreme form of Christianity and in a perverse version of patriotism, where domestic terrorists parade as heroes, where teachers are seen as villains, and where scientists are liars. We are told that only the rich work hard, only the rich are intelligent enough to have the answers (i.e., what’s good for the Koch Brothers is good for America), where up is down and where a moderate to conservative President is viewed as the greatest danger to our Republic.
We have seen where this path leads before. Small well organized extremists can take over a country, despite the demographic tide. The Nazis captured power after their electoral peak had already passed. The Bolsheviks hijacked the Russian Revolution away from far more sane, more compassionate, more numerous political factions because they were better propagandists and they were more ruthless than their opponents.
This pattern has been seen in our own hemisphere, in Latin America where dictators and military juntas took control on behalf of the wealthy. The results have never ended well. We sometimes like to believe that the arc of history bends toward justice, but that is true only if enough of us are vigilant, if enough people see the lies and expose the liars and stand against the “money power” as FDR so adroitly called it.
Today, thousands if not millions of our fellow citizens are emailing Horowitz’s lies, and the lies of so many others who appear on Fox. Do not assume that because they are fewer in number every year that they are weak, that their day has passed, that it can’t happen here. Bill Moyers sounded the alarm – indeed for the past decade he’s been running around with his hair on fire, and what has been the response of the Democratic Party? Too often indifference, or deliberate ignorance, because far too many of them are also caught up in this bizarre system that prevents them from speaking out against what we all know and what they themselves see.
Yes, we have a few brave people, such as Bernie Sanders and Elisabeth Warren, but not enough. Not nearly enough. We watched as Occupy was beaten down and gassed in the streets. We recently watched as our government gave in to right wing terrorists with guns. Our leaders are afraid, and it isn’t their supporters who they fear.
And that is our ongoing American tragedy. That a kook like Horowitz can get on national television and claim the President wants another Holocaust is absurd on its face. In a sane world, a better world this would not happen and Horowitz would be a poor idiot on a street corner claiming the end is nigh. Instead, however, he is heard and his message is believed, by millions. If you fail to see the danger in that, or the danger in a nut case lying Nevada Rancher becoming a folk hero to millions, I pity you. The longer we continue down this path, the more likely things will not end well. The next downturn in the economy, the next crisis overseas, the next plague, the next time a state becomes burned Kansas red because of Koch money, the next climate disaster – all these add up over time. Count on it.
And count on Fox to lay the blame and incite violence against you and me because we are not white enough, not straight enough, not conservative enough, not like the fictional America they present to their audience. And those Americans who follow their lead, who believe the lies and bullshit will end up supporting the demolition of what’s left of our democracy. they will support extreme measures against those who do not think or believe what they do. Unless we do something now to change that tide. For election victories are not enough. We saw that in 2008 and 2012. Our Adversaries are more extreme, they are more committed and they are brainwashed to believe we are the enemy.
And we all know what happens when the leaders of mobs like those gain power. The internal enemies are dealt with – harshly.
You want a solution: I don’t have one, but I do have an idea. Get Elisabeth Warren to run for President. Force your Democratic candidates to run to the left, even if that means you have to primary them. Otherwise the drift toward the right, toward a Corporatocracy, will continue. Just ask the Social Democrats of the Weimar Republic how trying to hold the mythical center worked out for them.
