Will the response of right-wing media lead to even more chaos?
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Early Saturday, I read about how Donald Trump’s supporters are already preparing to contest the outcome of the 2024 election if their candidate does not win.
A few hours later came the news bulletin of a shooting in which Trump was injured.
After watching CNN for a while, I flipped to Fox News. The difference in the coverage was striking. CNN was strictly factual — which of course meant repeating vague generalities while waiting for more facts to emerge.
Not Fox. Nor the majority of the media, now dominated by the right wing.
Quickly, Fox had a former police officer on, calling for “transparency” in any investigation, and warning Attorney General Merrick Garland, with no basis at all, not to pull any hanky-panky.
It was also full of various commentators stating, one after another, that people need to tone down the rhetoric, and that America has no place for political violence.
I was flabbergasted. The only mass political violence in America had been January 6, stoked by Trump, other Republicans, and Fox News. Most of the aggressive rhetoric in this country has come from the same crowd.
At a time when circumspection and restraint are needed the most, the choric chant that the problem rests with others — meaning the Democrats — was as galling as it was predictable.
Underlining this instant politicization were a man and a woman at the Trump rally in Butler, PA, flipping their middle fingers at CNN’s camera within seconds of the shooting.
The current frenzy is all based, it should be underlined, on the act of a single individual — a registered Republican. Somehow, this is now to be used to tar and intimidate all Americans who legitimately and thoughtfully question Trump and his motives.
And, just as predictably, one Fox talking head said that this is what happens in a country with “godlessness” — without anyone mentioning that this could not happen in a country with “gunlessness,” since Trump and his allies are thrilled that practically anyone can obtain a murder weapon and unlimited ammunition. (Some perspective on hate, violence, and guns: From 1990 to the present, according to official statistics, far-right extremists have killed more than 520 people — while far-left extremists have killed 78 people. For more data, go here, here, here.)
And, while decrying division in the country and calling for toning things down, the Fox folks continuously referred to Trump as “President Trump” or “the President,” as in “the President is fine,” yet I heard a “newsperson” referring to the actual president simply as “Biden.”
In other words, at Fox they are working to create more division and animosity, still stoking the stolen-election lie, and setting the stage for more discord and potential violence.
I doubt we will hear much candor on the irony of all this. We will see plenty of “The Photo”: the blood-streaked face of the brave, wounded, defiant victim-hero. Fox and its Republican allies will successfully milk this for all it is worth, their base will in their own minds decide that the Democrats are somehow to blame, and the major media and Democrats will have no idea how to combat this nonsense.
All this will almost certainly redound to Trump’s advantage at a time when everything is already cutting his way.
That’s where we are with less than four months until the presidential election. To tweak a Trumpian favorite: GOD HELP AMERICA.
