November 5, 2018

Hate Unbound

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/10/30/hate-unbound?fbclid=IwAR3UV6PsHUcTOGM3mh446d_46lFZke8QyCKMMO6YVAiapGW4TKAA1AiGK5w
"Fox News has magnified the fear and hate exactly as its founder would have wanted. A guest on Lou Dobbs’ show claimed the caravan was being funded by the “Soros-occupied State Department.” That same week, Soros was among the targets of pipe bombs sent to prominent Democrats and members of the media. A Florida man who identifies himself as a Trump supporter was arrested in connection with the attempted bombings. Hours before a gunman entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed eleven worshipers, he reportedly wrote that a Jewish organization for refugees “likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.” Bombs mailed to political leaders. Threats against the media. A shooting in a place of worship. None were directly ordered by Trump or his propaganda affiliate. They didn’t have to be. Trump’s demagoguery inspired it. Fox News magnified it. The hatefulness is unconstrained. Having fired the few “adults” in his Cabinet, Trump is now loose in the White House, except for a few advisors who reportedly are trying to protect the nation from him. House and Senate Republicans are not holding him back. To the contrary, they have morphed into his sycophants. An increasing number are sounding just like him. Atwater and Ailes are gone from this world, but their descendants – Fox News’s Sean Hannity and Bill Shine, formerly Roger Ailes’s deputy – have direct pipelines to Trump (Shine is now formally installed in the West Wing). The upcoming election is not really a choice between Republicans and Democrats. Those traditional labels have lost most of their meaning, if not much of their value.  It is really a choice about the moral compass of America."