The sagging fortunes of America’s Biggest Loser, and former reality TV game show host, Donald Trump, continue to swirl down the drain. Not only did voters decisively reject him last November, but his approval ratings have fallen precipitously ever since. He never hit 50% in four years. While President Joe Biden in his first month has been enjoying a post-election honeymoon with a soaring 62% approval.
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All of this puts Fox News in an awkward position. They are desperately struggling to frame current events in a manner that is a sharp diversion from reality. The result is a flurry of bizarre stories about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi being responsible for the Capitol Hill riots instigated by Trump; or Lindsey Graham threatening to impeach Vice-President Kamala Harris; or Republicans trying to disassociate themselves from QAnon. Needless to say, none of that is working.
For his Part, Sean Hannity is taking up the call to float some more preposterous notions of how the nation still madly adores their deposed Dear Leader Trump. Hannity led off a segment on his Monday night program by attacking Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his lambasting of Trump as “disgraceful” and “responsible” for inciting the January 6th assault on Congress (video below). He put McConnell on notice, slamming him as “sanctimonious” and “way out of touch” with the GOP base. Elaborating, Hannity said…
“Let’s make one thing clear. The seven Republican senators that voted to convict Donald Trump, and other Republicans who have turned their backs on the former president are way out of touch with the base of their own party. A record 75 million Americans turned out for Donald Trump in November and they support him to this very day. […] A few hours ago, spontaneously, thousands of people in Palm Beach lined up in support of the former president as his motorcade traveled through Florida.
Let’s break down this heap of nonsense. First of all, While the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump might have been out of touch with the radical GOP base, they were steadily aligned with the majority of the American people. What’s more, if the other Republican senators weren’t such cowardly hypocrites, they would have voted to convict Trump as well.
Secondly, Hannity is parroting Trump’s brag about having gotten 75 million votes (it was 74 million). But they are both conveniently forgetting that Biden got 81 million votes. So whatever point he is trying to make about Trump’s alleged popularity, it is still significantly below that of Biden.
However, lying to his viewers is standard operating procedure for Sean Hannity. So it will come as no surprise that he highlighted a video that was posted on Twitter by a former Trump staffer. It showed crowds of Trump cultists lining the streets of Palm Beach as Trump drove by on his way home after golfing. Hannity described this show of support as “spontaneous.”
Later in the same program Hannity interviewed Don Trump Jr. and made the same claim. “Did you see?” Hannity asked. “Thousands of people out of nowhere. Nobody organized it that I could see. Certainly nobody associated with your father that I know of. Do you?” To which Donnie replied “No. This is totally organic. This shows that the American people are with Donald Trump.”
However, it was not the least bit organic. In fact, it had been planned for over a week. The evidence of that was deliciously revealed by CNN’s Brianna Keilar:
Fox News called a planned and promoted Trump rally “spontaneous.”
@brikeilarCNN: “These lies are not harmless. They're part of the bigger lie about what is true and what isn’t.” #RollTheTape pic.twitter.com/3ErLZER0Ge— CNN News Central (@NewsCentralCNN) February 16, 2021
This is just another example of how disreputable Hannity and all of his Fox News confederates are. They can’t be relied upon to tell the truth, even on the small things. So naturally the big things are just going to be smothered in even bigger lies. Such as the the one about the election being stolen, which led to five people being killed, and many more injured, by Trump’s Seditionist Brigades.
Hannity polished off his segment with some equally absurd outrages concerning Mitch McConnell, demanding that he “give a speech on the Senate floor and hold [Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, and Maxine Waters] accountable for their incitement of insurrection.” Huh?
Hannity also claimed that he has “a long and growing list of Democrats who should now qualify for impeachment and impeachment trial. You can start with Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, and work your way through the list.” Really?
He closed with an unusually honest commentary, so long as he was directing it at himself and Fox News: “Journalism in this country is dead and buried. We are in the middle of an information crisis in this country. And media is not coming back to life anytime soon.” Actually, with Fox News now floundering in third place behind CNN and MSNBC, I may be a little more optimistic than Hannity.
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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.