First, I’m sure you recall that dipshit who declared the other day that January 6th was just a bunch of tourists ambling through the capitol:
“There was an undisciplined mob. And there were some who committed acts of vandalism. But let me be clear: There was no insurrection. And to call it an insurrection, in my opinion, is a bold-faced lie. You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from January 6, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”
Here’s that same guy helping to barricade the door to the House chamber on January 6th.
I don’t think they routinely do that during Capitol tours, do you?
Then there’s this atrocity:
Media Matters reviewed our internal archive of cable news segments airing weekdays from 6 a.m. through midnight for any statements that undermined coronavirus science on Fox News. We broadly categorized the network’s coronavirus science misinformation into six different angles of attack: politicizing health measures, dismissing health measures, unfairly criticizing health officials, undermining COVID-19 vaccines, misrepresenting basic coronavirus facts, and dismissing or politicizing coronavirus data. We counted each angle once per segment. Segments could — and often did — include more than one angle.
From January 25 through April 23, 2021, Fox News personalities and guests misinformed viewers about the science of the coronavirus in at least 325 segments.
Misinformation was spread across the network on both its so-called “news” and “opinion” shows. The shows that aired the most segments against coronavirus science were The Ingraham Angle (59), Fox & Friends (57), Fox News Primetime (44), Tucker Carlson Tonight (34), The Story with Martha MacCallum (19), and America’s Newsroom with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino (18).
Of the 325 segments that attacked coronavirus science:
47% politicized health measures designed to slow the spread of the virus.
39% dismissed the efficacy of health measures.
37% implicitly or explicitly alleged that health experts or government officials could not be trusted on guidelines designed to protect the public from the spread of coronavirus.
27% undermined vaccine efficacy, encouraged vaccine hesitancy, or politicized vaccines.
13% misrepresented basic facts about transmission and infection risks or misrepresented health studies on the coronavirus.
5% dismissed, misrepresented, or politicized coronavirus data.
Fox’s assault on coronavirus science
During the 13 weeks following January 25, Media Matters identified at least 325 segments that featured Fox News personalities or guests undermining coronavirus science by politicizing the implementation or dismissing the efficacy of health measures designed to slow the spread of the virus; undermining confidence in guidelines by attacking prominent health experts and government officials; downplaying the efficacy of vaccines or encouraging vaccine hesitancy; or misinforming viewers about basic facts on transmission, infection risk, or other data.
These attacks on science are having real-world consequences. At the beginning of our study period, little more than 1% of the U.S. population was fully vaccinated. By April 23, approximately 29% of the U.S. population had seen two weeks pass since receiving their final shot.But vaccination rates in the U.S. have slowed recently. Polling from CBS News/YouGov suggests that vaccine hesitancy is stubbornly sitting at roughly 22% of those polled, and another 18% aren’t yet sure whether they will get any coronavirus vaccine. Republicans — who favor Fox as their regular news source over other conservative cable outlets — are more likely than other groups to reject the vaccines: 30% told pollsters that they would not get any vaccine while another 19% were unsure. (The poll doesn’t take into account children, who are not being vaccinated yet and who make up 22% of the population.)
Such reluctance from adults threatens to prevent the U.S. from reaching herd immunity through immunization. This observation is bolstered by a recent study from The Journal of Medical Internet Research, which found that exposure to conservative media increased COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and led to mask and vaccine reluctance.Media Matters reviewed Fox segments that included misinformation or attacks undermining coronavirus science and found a persistent theme of Fox personalities and guests sowing doubt. Week after week, Fox viewers were inundated with statements undermining health measures and vaccines, attacking health officials, and misrepresenting basic coronavirus facts and data.
This level of gaslighting, propaganda, projection and Newspeak is unprecedented as far as I can tell. It’s enabled by the internet and social media, of course. But we are in an era in which flagrant, obvious lying and choosing to believe lies you know are lies has become a cultural norm. When Donald Trump responded to Hillary Clinton accusing him of not paying his taxes by saying “that makes me smart” and was revealed to have bragged that women “let him” grab them by the pussy because he’s a star and the Republican party cheered him on we should have known that something very important in our society is broken. I don’t know what it will take to fix this.