#BloodOnHisHandsHannity
Media Matters reported recently:
Fox News host Sean Hannity has stood out among the network’s many misinformers about the coronavirus pandemic. From encouraging viewers to try unproven treatments to downplaying the lethality of coronavirus compared to other diseases to defending President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic, Hannity has downplayed coronavirus dozens of times on his Fox and radio programs over the past month.
Why? The virus doesn’t distinguish between left and right, so what’s the motivation for a Fox News hack to tell lies about it? I suppose it must be the fact that Trump has made such a dog’s breakfast of dealing with it. Great: so to defend a lying murderous hack, another hack with a huge audience puts people’s lives at risk on his tv show. Is this a sick country or what.
Fox’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has been abysmal — and dangerous. Fox Business fired prime-time host Trish Regan less than a month after she ranted that Trump’s opponents were using the disease as “yet another attempt to impeach the president.” Tucker Carlson has become the face of the network’s racist attempt to rebrand coronavirus as the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus in some twisted effort to deflect attention from Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic. Fox’s news anchors and medical commentators have also contributed to the network’s spread of misinformation. And Hannity, who has at least twice interviewed the president about the coronavirus and even appeared in a Fox News public service announcement on the issue, has downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic in numerous ways.
And all for what? To flatter an ignorant rich wannabe-dictator. That’s some life goal right there.
On March 9, Hannity suggested that young, healthy Americans have no reason to fear coronavirus and claimed people were faking concern about it to “bludgeon Trump with this new hoax,” echoing a comment Trump had made at a rally in late February. Two days later on his radio program, Hannity promoted a conspiracy theory about the “deep state” allegedly using coronavirus to manipulate the public. But these are just two of the most egregious things Hannity has said about coronavirus; taken as a whole, his commentary falls into six discernible themes: peddling unproven treatments, comparing COVID-19 to other illnesses or focusing on other ways people can die, defending Trump’s response to the pandemic, blaming the media and journalists, downplaying supply shortages, and attacking local and congressional responses.
All for Trump. The virus isn’t a Democrat, the virus doesn’t vote for universal health insurance or a higher minimum wage, the virus doesn’t pass gun control laws or try to do something about climate change – yet Hannity coddles it and defends it and gives it boxes of chocolate, all for Trump. There isn’t even a political reason any more, it’s just some giant Be More Shitty campaign.
Media Matters provides a long long list of examples.
Get sick and die for Trump, it’s the patriotic thing to do!
He’s back! :-o
https://photos.app.goo.gl/E4MvjwnGbACxJpQQA
The priority for the online Right everywhere is business as usual. Trumps everything else. Thousands dead is just one of the costs; regrettable, but necessary.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/04/medicines-mitigation-and-money/
Omar, it’s always been that way. Sweatshops. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Fire trap buildings. People evicted from homes. Medicine priced out of the reach of many. Food priced out of the reach of many.
Never mind that a lot of the people that are dying, or that are being forced into dire poverty are the very people that have done the actual work that made the rich rich. They just figure there are more where those came from, more to do the hard labor or the unsung services that keep the economy humming while the rich push around paper from one owner to another, piling up money in the process…more money than any individual (or enormously large family) could ever use.
iknklast:
I think I mentioned this once before. I believe the default condition of humanity to be feudalism of one kind or another. Work has to be done to maintain democracy, and to prevent a feudal revival.
Omar, my hypothesis is that democracy carries the seeds of its own demise, for that very reason. When a society begins to succeed, even with the pockets of failure we have in the US (and around the world), people become complacent. They fail to do the work to maintain the system, and in fact, begin to long for something simpler. I think a lot of people prefer their democracy to come easily…someone else does the work. Sooner or later, that looks a lot like feudalism.
I see the same pattern in feminism. As women gained the rights and benefits of feminism, younger women began to take those for granted, and didn’t work to maintain them. As a result, we are now in danger of losing them.
But for Hannity and other Trumplodytes the coronavirus is the ultimate enemy: It is impervious to propaganda and prayer, can’t be spun, can only be addressed with facts and through science, and individual survival requires critical thinking skills and a willingness to ignore business interests in the name of national survival. Of course the GOP is in a tailspin