Racism

Donald Trump’s Blatantly Racist Spin About a Poll of Veterans Cites Only the White Veterans

Posted by on December 30, 2018 at 11:23 am. 2 Comments :

At this point in the Era of Trump, it isn’t exactly breaking news when Donald Trump tells another lie. It’s really just the natural state of his psychosis to casually pervert the truth in all things great and small. He does it daily on his Twitter feed as well as his hostile encounters with the press. And in most cases the obvious falsehoods are easily spotted and debunked.

Donald Trump, Military Parade

However, every now and then Trump engages in a fit of dishonesty that is so outrageous it’s hard to fathom what’s going through his diseased mind – or if anything is going through it at all. And one of those fits occurred during his regularly scheduled Sunday morning tweetstorm. While languishing forlornly in the White House this holiday season, Trump found some rare solace in an Associated Press poll. So he blurted out on his Twitter machine that:

It’s generally understood that the military is more conservative than the population at large. Although some high profile leaders have been notably disgusted by Trump, including his ex-chief of staff Gen. John Kelly, who called Trump an idiot, and his ex-defense secretary Gen. James Mattis, whose letter of resignation made it clear that Trump is reckless and ignorant. Trump appointed both of these senior officers with glowing accolades, but eventually fired with them unseemly disrespect for their service.

But the problem with Trump’s citation of this poll is that he’s read it horribly wrong. The sixty-two percent figure that Trump cited is just related to border security, not his approval by veterans in this poll. That number is fifty-six percent. The number Trump quoted is, more interestingly, also his job approval by just white veterans. That’s a disturbing coincidence for someone who is so often associated with racists and racism. In all likelihood, this was deliberate on Trump’s part to imply that a larger level of support than he really has. After all, the opinions of his white followers are the only ones that mean anything to him. For the record, the poll shows that only twenty-two percent of African-Americans in the military approve of Trump. And of course, Trump got and twisted this info from his favorite Fox News program, Fox and Friends.

It’s also noteworthy that this poll questioned 115,000 people, of which only 4,000 were veterans. So the numbers reflecting that segment are tiny compared with the overall pool of respondents. And on that matter, Trump didn’t bother to mention the other results in this poll. For instance, overall, 56 percent of Americans disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president. And women, the fastest growing demographic group in the military, disapprove of Trump by fifty-eight percent. Only forty-eight percent of vets say that Trump “has the right temperament to serve as president.” Fifty-eight percent of all respondents say he has “tried to impede the Russia investigation.”

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

So as usual, Trump has flagrantly misrepresented reality in order to prop himself up. He has to distort the truth because otherwise there is little he can say that isn’t dreadfully negative about him. But this episode is worse than usual because Trump takes a number that is obviously a specific segment of the veterans community and he tries to pass it off as broader, across the board support. That’s the behavior of a sick and desperate loser who has nothing left but a fantasy world wherein he is universally adored.

HEY Trump Jr, Is Fox News Now Fake News Since They Nixed Daddy’s Racist Ad Too?

Posted by on November 5, 2018 at 1:35 pm. 2 Comments :

On last Saturday, Donald Trump, Jr posted a tweet that took CNN to task for declining to run a blatantly racist campaign ad for Daddy Trump. Lil’ Donnie wrote that “CNN refused to run this ad… I guess they only run fake news and won’t talk about real threats that don’t suit their agenda.”

Donald Trump Jr

Needless to say, the “real threats” to which he was referring were phony assertions that a “caravan” of poor and frightened Central American refugees were amassing to “invade” the United States to take your jobs and rape your daughters. But what Lil’ Trump was complaining about was the alleged media bias by CNN for refusing to accommodate the Racist-in-Chief by running the repulsive video. And his outrage was unambiguously expressed by condemning CNN as “fake” news with a presumably leftist agenda. But what will Trumpkin say now that Fox News has also banned the ad from both the Fox News and Fox Business networks? The announcement of this decision by Fox said that:

“Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network.”

This statement is something less than satisfying because it doesn’t bother to say what the “further review” uncovered that made the ad too objectionable to run. Also, Fox didn’t pull the ad until it had already aired fourteen times. But at least they eventually did the right thing and protected their audience from – well, from the rancid bigotry that their regular hosts disseminate every day anyway.

Trump was asked by reporters on Monday morning about the offensive ad and lied that he didn’t know anything about it. He literally tweeted it himself. Is he suffering from dementia? [Don’t bother answering that]. Elaborating, he said that:

“We have a lot of ads. They certainly are effective, based on the numbers that we’re seeing. … A lot of things are offensive. Your questions are offensive.”

So Trump is apparently conceding that he has a lot of offensive ads. But that’s alright as long as they are “effective” based on some uncorroborated (and probably fictitious) numbers. Then he goes on to play the child’s game of Rubber and Glue by calling the reporter’s questions offensive, without explaining why. Meanwhile, his child still hasn’t commented on the fact that their State TV affiliate (aka Fox News) banned the racist ad just like CNN did. I guess that news didn’t fit his wingnut, conspiracy theory agenda.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Crybaby Don Jr Whines That CNN Refused to Air a Flagrantly Racist Ad By Daddy Trump

Posted by on November 3, 2018 at 10:35 am. 3 Comments :

Apparently the crybaby gene is a dominant component of genetics. It was obviously passed on from Donald Trump to his pampered offspring who do nothing but complain about the awful fate they have suffered by being the spawn of a fake billionaire con man. The latest evidence of that genetic flaw trickling down in the Trump family is a sniveling tweet by Donnie Jr.

Donald Trump

Last Wednesday Trump posted a disgusting video on his Twitter account that accused Democrats of supporting the free access of a Mexican murderer, and others like him, to enter and reside in the U.S. It was the most brazen appeal to racism in a campaign ad since the infamous Willie Horton ad – a creation of the late Roger Ailes of Fox News. Trump received near universal condemnation for having posted the ad, even from many Republicans sickened by its barefaced bigotry.

Subsequently, a similarly repulsive ad was submitted by Trump’s campaign to CNN. The network properly declined to run it. And that act of integrity triggered Donnie Jr to run to his Twitter box and post this:

First of all, what mental sickness would cause someone to ask people to “enjoy” that clip of a nauseating killer? But more to the point, for the Trumpette to describe the contents of this ad as “real threats” demonstrates how far removed he is from reality. The main thrust of the ad is advance Trump’s fear mongering with regard to the refugees marching in Central America. It closes with a message to “Stop the Caravan” by voting Republican. But the “caravan” is at least a month away and is populated by frightened refugees – mostly women and children – fleeing violence and poverty. There is no proof that any villainous stereotypes like the one in Trump’s video are among the migrants.

What’s more, the murderer featured in the ad was actually released from custody by Trump’s pal, and pardoned felon, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. And he later re-entered the U.S. during the Bush administration. So if anything, this ad should be advocating voting for Democrats who had nothing to do with this sleazeball.

CNN appropriately declined to run the ad and said so in a direct response to Trump Jr. They called out the obvious and abhorrent racism in the ad and noted that they would not take dirty money to air it. Which raises the question as to whether Fox News was solicited to run this ad. If they were and refused, then why isn’t Donnie Jr whining about that? And if the ad wasn’t taken to Fox, then was this just a publicity stunt to malign CNN?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Of course there is still the possibility that Fox News took the ad and is planning to run it prior to election day. Which would be entirely consistent with their racist editorial policy. Their hosts spew bigotry like this all day long, and they do it for free. Why wouldn’t they pocket some of Trump’s cash and profit from spreading more hatred and division?

Trump, Once Again, Blames the Victims for Not Having More Guns in Synagogues and Churches

Posted by on October 27, 2018 at 11:21 am. 6 Comments :

The Era of Trump continues to unfold with repeated incidents of violence and tragedy. And through it all, the President regards himself blameless for the horrors that take place on his watch. But what’s worse is that he has no plans to do anything about it except offer “thoughts and prayers” while denying any responsibility for his own hate-speech and the easy accessibility to deadly weapons.

Trump Charlotsville

On Saturday morning there was another mass shooting, this time in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. Law enforcement officials are reporting multiple fatalities and wounded. The suspect is in custody and is reported to have yelled that “All Jews must die,” prior to murdering innocent worshipers in cold blood.

Donald Trump spoke to reporters briefly on the matter as he left the White House Saturday morning. He was expected to make remarks about the shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue. However, he opened with a promo for his speech later in the day at the Future Farmers of America conference. Naturally he had to put all of the attention on himself before addressing the tragic event.

When he got around to the shooting he said that “It’s a terrible, terrible thing that’s going on with hate in our country and all over the world.” It’s a surprisingly ironic comment coming from someone who is so personally responsible for that hate. But then he engaged in the following exchange with a reporter (video below):

Reporter: Mr. President, do you think you need to revisit gun laws?
Trump: Well, again, this has little to do with it. If you had protection inside, the results would have been far better. This is a dispute that will always exist, I suspect. But if they had some kind of protection inside the temple, maybe it could have been a very much different situation. They didn’t.

First of all, Trump is either lying or is woefully uninformed about the facts. There actually was an armed guard in the synagogue. And three trained security guards were wounded by the shooter. This has been the case in a many of the mass shootings that occur in the U.S., but they rarely prevent the sickening loss of life. Guards are to be commended for their courage and commitment, but a shooter who arrives a semiautomatic assault weapon, and without warning, can cause a lot of damage before a defender can even get to the scene. Stopping people from getting weapons like those used in most of these incidents is a far better solution that cuts the off the rampage at its source. But Trump, and his cohorts in the NRA-captive Republican Party, refuse to even consider that option, despite the endless bloodshed.

More troubling is Trump’s routine assertion that the victims are to blame for their own murders because they weren’t armed to the teeth in their temple. And by being peaceful worshipers, Trump believes that they, not the murderer, bear responsibility for their deaths. Trump and his ilk believe that America needs to become an armed fortress where everyone is packing heat in the event they encounter a wrongdoer. That’s a nauseating vision of a violent, dystopian society that would only pile up more innocent bodies in our streets.

This is just another tragic event wherein a shooter with obvious ties to right-wing doctrine and bigotry has brought sorrow to innocent families. And our nation is burdened with a heartless president, who previously found common ground with similarly bigoted crackpots who chanted “Jews will not replace us,” as they marched through the streets of Charlottesville, North Carolina. That ended in tragedy as well, and Trump’s response was that “there are very fine people on both sides.” And that sort of dismissal of overt prejudice is what emboldens more murderous cretins like the one that just shot up this synagogue.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Racist Fox News Hosts Smear Democrat Stacey Abrams as Promoting an ‘MS-13 Blue Wave’

Posted by on October 14, 2018 at 4:04 pm. 2 Comments :

It really doesn’t take much to set off the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends when a Republican candidate is trouble. That’s the current state of the gubernatorial election in Georgia where Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams is in a dead heat with her GOP opponent Brian Kemp. This is a deep red state where Democrats aren’t supposed to win, so Fox News has bolted onto the scene to muck it up.

Fox News, Stacey Abrams

On Sunday morning’s episode of Fox and Friends (video below), the three co-hosts set out to malign Abrams, who would be the first African-American women governor in the U.S. But they had to manufacture a controversy by taking her comments out of context so they could align her with criminal gangs. Co-host Ed Henry began by saying:

“As if on cue, Stacey Abrams, who is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Georgia […] sounds like, she thinks at least, that that the Blue Wave is gonna include illegal immigrants voting.”

Then they run a video clip of Abrams saying:

“The thing is that the Blue Wave is African-Americans. It’s white, it’s Latino, it’s Asian-Pacific Islanders. It is made up of those who were told that they are not worthy of being here. It is comprised of those who are documented and undocumented.”

Coming out of the video, Henry says that “If you’re undocumented you’re not supposed to be able to vote.” Whereupon his co-host Pete Hegseth asks:

“What should we label it? Is it an illegal Blue Wave? An alien Blue Wave? If you’ve got criminal gangs coming across, is it an MS-13 Blue Wave?”

Really? First of all, it needs to noted that Abrams was not talking about voters. And nowhere in the clip that Fox played did she say that. She was talking about all of the people who can contribute to an awakening of progressive change in the country. That includes many people who don’t vote but care about the direction this nation takes. It includes students who are not yet eighteen, like the survivors of the Parkland massacre. It includes Dreamers who fulfill every criteria of citizenship except for the technicality that they are undocumented. And it includes the tens of thousands of citizens in Georgia that are being unlawfully removed from the voter rolls by a corrupt Republican secretary of state who happens to be Brian Kemp, Abrams’ opponent.

However, for Fox News to go so low as to associate Abrams with the MS-13 gang is way beyond the pale. As an aside, the MS-13 gang did not come across the border. It’s a home grown gang from southern California. Nevertheless, this proves that Fox News has a complete lack of integrity, honesty, and ethics. And it proves their intention to advance a racist theme that African-American candidates must be connected to criminal elements simply because of the color of their skin. It’s a theme that Fox’s audience will readily accept due to the priming they’ve had from years of watching Fox.

There is going to be a Blue Wave in November, and Fox News is going to have to live with it. Of course, they will lie their butts off and spread bigoted propaganda like they did here, but they can’t prevent the coming progressive tsunami by exposing how hateful and prejudiced they are. They are just going to make matters worse for themselves and the Republican Party they are shilling for as America becomes more diverse. And maybe Democrats and progressives should welcome any actions they take to destroy their own Deplorable right-wing.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Guest Dinesh D’Souza Honors the Humanitarian Slave Owners of the Old South

Posted by on October 8, 2018 at 3:50 pm. 3 Comments :

Leave it to Fox News to find the bright side of slave owners. While the rest of the civilized world condemns human trafficking, the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends managed to produce a segment that highlighted the freedom loving Confederates on the old plantations of Dixie.

Fox News, Dinesh D'Souza

Co-host Steve Doocy interviewed one of Fox’s favorite shameless disseminators of flagrant lies, confessed felon Dinesh D’Souza. Earlier this year Donald Trump pardoned D’Souza for the federal crime that he had pleaded guilty to. The Fox segment began as an attempt to mock Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for what they asserted was a gaffe. It wasn’t. She tweeted that:

Ocasio-Cortez was replying to a tweet that noted that two recent presidents who lost the popular vote have put four justices on the Supreme Court. Doocy then asked D’Souza “Why does the Electoral College matter,” and “what do you think she was talking about?” D’Souza’s reply began by mansplaining what Ocasio-Cortez really meant (video below):

“Well, first of all, I think she’s confusing the Electoral College with the “three-fifths” laws. The three-fifths laws was about slavery, and it had to do with an argument between the North and the South over representation. Ironically, the North, which was the anti-slavery side, wanted blacks to count for zero because they wanted to reduce the representative power of the slave states. The South wanted blacks to count for a full person. So the three-fifths laws which was usually presented to show that the founders didn’t consider blacks to be fully human, doesn’t actually show that at all.”

D’Souza is almost right. The problem is that he leaves out the fact that the South only wanted to count slaves because it gave the region more clout in the federal government. Slaves would still be denied any rights and considered to be property. The South wanted it both ways: to own blacks like chattel, but count them to increase the political power of their white masters. Then D’Souza swung back around to the Electoral College:

“Now the Electoral College was a different matter. The Electoral College emerges out of this contest between the large states and the small states. Not an antiquated issue. We have that now. We have large states, we have small states. And if we had a system that gave power only to the large states, the small states would essentially be unrepresented. The whole point, remember, the core of our founding is the consent of the governed. So to create the union the founders needed the consent of the large states and the small states. The Electoral College is a part of that arithmetic.”

Once again, D’Souza os only partly correct. Much of the dispute between the large and small states was still a matter of north and south. The population of the North far exceeded that of the South. So Ocasio-Cortez was correct in associating the Electoral College with slavery. What’s more, D’Souza is wrong in stating that smaller states would be unrepresented without the Electoral College. Their representation in Congress would be identical. The only difference would be in presidential elections.

However, that difference has become a useless and undemocratic anachronism. Given the boundaryless mobility of the modern U.S., we should not still be electing the president by states, but rather by voters. There is no coherent reason why the tiny populations of Idaho or Wyoming should have a greater say in presidential elections than the vastly more numerous populations of California or Texas. And it’s fair to say that there are a lot of former residents of Idaho and Wyoming who now live in California and Texas. Should their votes be diluted simply because they moved?

Ocasio-Cortez is right to raise the issue of eliminating the outdated Electoral College. It should have been done long ago. Hopefully her colleagues in Congress join her in that initiative when she gets there in January. In the meantime, Fox News needs to stop hosting racists who talk down to women and demean them personally as incapable of grasping these issues. But then they would have hours and hours of dead air.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Bring Back Jim Crow? Tucker Carlson of Fox News Accidentally Admits He’s a Straight-Up Racist

Posted by on September 15, 2018 at 1:18 pm. 4 Comments :

The Senior Douchebag of Fox News, and host of Tucker Carlson Tonight, has been making news this week. In an “interview” with Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, Carlson was beaten to a pulp and exposed as an intellectual lightweight who has no grasp of facts or common sense. It was delicious to see him squirm and stutter.

Tucker Carlson Fox News

You would think that after such an embarrassing display, Carlson would try to rehabilitate his tattered reputation. You would be wrong. On Friday’s episode, Carlson hosted Univision anchor Enrique Acevedo for a discussion on immigration. Carlson began his inquisition by framing the entire debate as a measurement of the immigrant population of the country. His premise was that the more immigrants, the worse off the nation is. And he expressed a longing for the past, which he perceives as being more homogeneously white. It wasn’t. It’s just that the majority white population was more in control. But Carlson viewed that as better:

“When I was born in this country, the percentage of people who were living here, who were foreign-born, was under five percent. It’s now about fourteen percent. So that’s a three-fold increase. That’s a huge change – huge change – in less than fifty years. Is the country better or worse for that, would you say?”

Acevedo responded that the country is better off, as is the economy. Well, he tried to respond, but Carlson cut him off after about twelve seconds. Then, when Acevedo tried to inform Carlson that two-thirds of GDP growth since 2011 was due to immigration, he was interrupted again after twelve seconds. Does Carlson have an “interrupter clock”?.

The debate then shifted to the immigrants themselves, and whether they merited entry to America. Carlson argued that most immigrants were poor and undeserving of entry. You know, the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” He couldn’t comprehend the reality that even poor immigrants contribute to the country, either by filling jobs that Americans won’t do, or by rising up through hard work and innovation to found companies like Apple and Google.

Carlson then asserted that there is something undemocratic about current immigration policy because all the polls say that Americans want less of it. That, however, isn’t true. In fact, most polls show that broad majorities of Americans (75%) favor immigration in general, and are opposed to a border wall in particular.

But Carlson never lets facts get in the way of his rank bigotry. In the following exchange, Carlson let slip that he looks back longingly on a bygone era when white nationalists like himself reigned unencumbered by those pesky minorities demanding civil rights. Acevedo asked Carlson what period in the past he was advocating as superior to the present. Carlson replied:

Carlson: When I was born it was fine. It was a better country than it is now, in a lot of ways.
Acevedo: In what sense was it a better country? By what metric?
Carlson: It was a more cohesive country.
Acevedo: It was a less diverse country, maybe?
Carlson: No. It’s not about race. The middle-class was vibrant when I was born. It’s dying now. And [cutting him off] we’re out of time.

To the extent that the middle-class is less vibrant today, it’s due directly to the policies of Carlson’s Republican Party. Their agenda of tax cuts for the rich and regulation cuts for corporations is the single biggest factor in the shift of wealth from the middle-class to the top one percent. America’s economy is booming, but average Americans aren’t seeing any of the benefits. It’s a certainty that Carlson doesn’t want to roll that back.

As for his nostalgia, Carlson was born in 1969. That was just a few years after the Civil Rights Act was passed. The country was still unwinding the decades of Jim Crow laws that dominated most of the South. Martin Luther King was assassinated only one year prior and his work was far from over, as evidenced by his murder. There was one African-America senator, and only six members of the House. But that’s the wonderfully “cohesive” time that Carlson wishes America would return to. With this rhetoric it seems that he’s not even trying to disguise his racism anymore. And Fox News is apparently cool with that.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

White-Winger Tucker Carlson of Fox News Can’t Figure Out How Diversity Strengthens America

Posted by on September 8, 2018 at 1:29 pm. 6 Comments :

The enthusiasm with which Fox News has been embracing the racist themes of white nationalism has been observable for years. It was a constant feature on Bill O’Reilly’s program, as it is on Laura Ingraham’s. However, their adoption of this abhorrent political movement is accelerating on a daily basis throughout the Donald Trump presidency. And it’s unchallenged leader in this crusade is their primetime anchor, and man with “resting douchebag face,” Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson Fox News

Carlson is having trouble understanding why diversity strengthens America. In Friday’s episode of his White Nationalism Hour on Fox News, Carlson played a video montage of President Obama and others praising the benefits of a diverse nation. After which, Carlson complained that he doesn’t “know exactly what it means other than ‘stop talking or else.'” How he got that from people advocating for more voices joining the public discussion is a mystery only a Grand Wizard can solve. But his whole segment on diversity was a holy mess of bigotry and ignorance. For example (video below):

“How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Since you’ve made this our new national motto, please be specific as you explain it. Can you think, for example, of other institutions – I don’t know – marriage or military units, in which the less people have in common the more cohesive they are. Do you get along better with your neighbors or your co-workers if you can’t understand each other, or share no common values?”

This is way to easy. First of all, is Carlson really using the military as an example of an institution where these is no diversity? America’s armed forces were desegregated in 1948 by President Harry Truman. And ever since then they have been a model for desegregating other sectors of public and private society. Does Carlson think our troops would be better off going back to forced separation based on race? Of course he does. That’s actually his point.

What’s more, Carlson also seems to be criticising the acceptance of interracial marriages. That’s another barrier that was legally overcome by the Loving v. Virginia decision by the Supreme Court in 1967. And it’s another human rights advancement that Carlson apparently wants to rollback.

His language in the sophomoric question he asks is revealing in itself. He implies that the purpose of encouraging diversity is “cohesiveness.” No, that’s the purpose of segregation and whites-only lunch counters. The purpose of diversity is expanding everyone’s understanding of a broader perspective of the world. It’s to combat exactly what Carlson thinks are obstacles to understanding each other. But in Carlson’s view our differences in skin color represent insurmountable conflicts in values. What freaking hell hole of a planet does he live on?

The fact that Fox News allows these types of flagrant white supremacy diatribes to go out on their network is an indication of their support for such repulsive tributes to prejudice and hatred. Tucker Carlson is just a petulant little jerkwad who’s views are aligned with the Klan. But Fox News runs a major cable “news” network that influences a significant faction of America’s Deplorables. And such a network must not be permitted to advance these hateful, ignorant notions without consequence. Their advertisers need to be shamed and shunned. The cable operators who carry the network need to hear from their subscribers that this hate speech is unacceptable.

Most importantly, conscientious people in public life must not grant Fox credibility by appearing on their racist programs. The network needs to be frozen out of decent society. Let them wallow in the filth of their regular cast of bigots. They can host Ann Coulter and Sebastian Gorka and Donald Trump and other white supremacists exclusively. That way it will always be easier to recognize the sleazeballs by their presence on the avowedly racist cable network.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

The Fox News Audience is 1% African-American, So No Wonder It’s Openly Racist

Posted by on August 9, 2018 at 8:42 pm. 1 Comments :

This week the flagrant white nationalist sentiments of Fox News were on full display. “The America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore,” primetime host Laura Ingraham said Wednesday night. “Massive demographic changes have been foisted on the American people, and they are changes that none of us ever voted for, and most of us don’t like.” Who she means by “us” is the minority of rancid bigots who think they own the country and can demand that its residents all look like them.

Fox News Black Viewer

The America the rest of us (the majority) know and love is one that values diversity and welcomes people of all nations, ethnicities, faiths and race. Every poll shows that most people regard immigration as a positive contribution to a stronger and greater nation.

On Fox News, however, there is a decidedly different approach to the composition of the American populace. In addition to Ingraham, they have Tucker Carlson, with his own primetime slot, delivering a blatant message of white nationalism every night of the week. A large percentage of his program is consumed with stories about how white people are the real victims of prejudice. According to Carlson, white Americans suffer an unbearable burden due to the curse of their lightly pigmented skin. Poor babies. And it’s no coincidence that Donald Trump has adopted this same white nationalist theme as a primary component of his presidency.

Tom Kludt and Brian Stelter of CNN addressed the hateful programming of Fox News in an article that sought to explore the network’s record on race. Early on they hit on the explanation for how Fox can get away with producing and airing such programming:

“The Fox News audience is almost 100% white, according to Nielsen. And on the channel’s highest-rated shows, the politics of white anxiety play out practically every day, as hosts and guests warn about the impacts of immigration and minimize or mock the perspectives of people of color.”

That’s right. With an audience that is so blindingly white, Fox literally has no incentive to care about the welfare of people of color. They won’t suffer in the ratings for having offended anyone with their constant flow of bigotry. So why should they bother to temper their commentaries for an audience that is tuned in elsewhere (mostly MSNBC). Stelter elaborated on Fox’s audience composition in a tweet:

But it’s even worse than that. Fox doesn’t just have to appeal to overwhelmingly white viewers. They have to appeal to white viewers who aren’t offended by racism. Many Anglo-Americans are decent folks who embrace the whole of humanity. They wouldn’t stand for a network that insults and demeans anyone. So Fox’s viewers have to appreciate the naked prejudice that is so integral to Fox News. In other words, the Fox News audience is affirmatively pro-hate.

Appealing to that demographic is the only way the network can survive. And the absence of African-Americans, Latinos, and other people of color, as well as white folks who value tolerance and inclusion, explains how Fox gets away with it. That presents a problem for fighting back against this racist network. We can hardly pledge to boycott a channel that we already don’t watch. But we can refuse to patronize their advertisers and to let them know that. And we can make sure that the world knows that any business that advertises on Fox News is supporting hatred and intolerance.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

UPDATE: On Thursday night’s episode of The Ingraham Angle, Laura Ingraham gave a weak walkback of her open embrace of white nationalism on Wednesday. She even tried to brush off the praise she received from former KKK Grand Dragon, David Duke. However, when you draw praise from someone like that, you have to admit that you said something wrong. She wouldn’t admit it or apologize, and therein lies the disingenuousness of her response.

Fox News’ Senior Whipping Boy: Juan Williams Has Tolerated Political and Racial Bias for Two Decades

Posted by on July 28, 2018 at 11:04 am. 2 Comments :

The Huffington Post just published an article by Yashar Ali that explored the reasons behind Kimberly Guilfoyle’s surprise departure from Fox News. Donald Trump Jr’s lover was criticized for trying to hang on to her Fox gig while shacking up with the President’s recently divorced son. How could she, folks wondered, comment on Trump without bias under these circumstance?

Fox News, Juan Williams

However, according to Ali, that wasn’t the reason for Fox terminating her. Like many Fox personalities before her, Guilfoyle has been accused of sexual misconduct and abusive behavior. She denies the charges, but Ali’s reporting includes more than twenty witnesses. However, there was an interesting side note in the article that deserves more attention. To demonstrate the deteriorating environment surrounding Guilfoyle, Ali wrote that:

“Guilfoyle had become increasingly isolated in the past year, sources said. Three of her co-hosts on ‘The Five’ (Dana Perino, Jesse Watters and Greg Gutfeld) have second shows to host themselves. Guilfoyle was not given the opportunity to host her own program while she was a co-host of the panel show.”

So of the five co-hosts of the creatively-named The Five (which airs at 5:00pm ET), three had second shows and one (Guilfoyle) did not. The fifth is Juan Williams. Since 1997 Williams has been the beleagured African-American, Fox-style liberal at Fox News, walking the tight rope of sheepishly representing the Democratic ideology while staying in the good graces of Fox’s conservative hierarchy. For more than twenty years Williams has been a loyal employee who often defended Fox News when they were criticized for their obvious right-wing bias. He would make himself available for appearance on other Fox shows to take abuse from the conservatives who always outnumbered him.

During his time at the network, many commentators who joined after him were rewarded with their own shows. Everyone from Gretchen Carlson and Jesse Watters to Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson, and many more. They all have two things in common that Williams lacks: They are rabidly conservative and they are white. So despite having more seniority and more experience, Williams was passed over repeatedly by his right-wing, Caucasian peers.

It might be easy to explain Fox’s unwillingness to promote Williams as due to his politics. Fox has never had solo liberal host in it’s twenty-two year history. And as co-hosts and panelists liberals have always been outnumbered by conservatives. So his politics surely had something to do with his stagnant career. But for a network that is overwhelming dominated by white commentators and hosts it’s hard to dismiss the likelihood that race also played a profound role in the failure of Williams to land his own program.

The question is: Why does Williams stick around when it’s so obvious that Fox is discriminating against him both politically and racially? If he had any self-respect he would quit and issue a sharp rebuke of the network for it’s biases. But he is either addicted to the money, or he is so weak-livered that he can’t stand up for himself or the principles of equality. I think the former is part of the reason for his tolerance of this workplace abuse, but the latter is probably more responsible for it. That weakness is evident in his mushy advocacy of Democratic positions, which he will support only up until the point where he feels like he’s trampling on his wingnut colleagues. He almost always comes short of the sort of powerful argument that a real liberal would present.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

As a result, Williams will always come short as a commentator who will never advance to a host as he watches other lesser Foxies leap frog him to greater success. Fox News will keep around because he fulfills their need for an African-American leftie. But they are keeping him around only for show and to persist with the lie of fairness and balance. Williams will stay because he’s a wimpy slave to the Fox plantation that allows him to hang out in the big house with his masters.