While Fox News, as the mouthpiece for the radical misogynist right, claim that there is no war on women, the commentary on the network for real men would seem to indicate otherwise. For example, Fox's "libertarian" John Stossel seems to have some issue when it comes to women as shown by his rant about how, because women are hypochondriacs, there should be no gender equality in health care. In a segment on last week's Fox & Friends (1/9), he promoted the right wing meme that poor, single women are really, really stupid because they allow themselves to be lured by the siren song of government "handouts" which we all know are so lucrative! So rather than address the greed and criminal excesses of Wall Street and corporate America, Stossel chose to beat up on poor, single women on "welfare" - a word that acts as a loud and penetrating racist dog whistle to Fox's "real" American audience.
Last week was the 50th anniversary of the "War on Poverty" which served to reduce the poverty level of Americans, particularly senior citizens. But rather than focus on the real factors that are increasing the number of poor and driving the middle class into poverty, the right wing, instead, focuses on denigrating anti-poverty programs and those who utilize them - a constant theme on Fox News. So not surprisingly, John Stossel aided and abetted the narrative.
Brian Kilmeade started the piece with a reference to LBJ's "war on poverty" and how, after the government has spent millions of federal dollars, the President is focused on income inequality. After video of the president, addressing this problem was shown, Kilmeade must have gotten word from his producer to - wait for it - get his facts straight because he muttered "it actually cost trillions of dollars." Steve Doocy added that "now they want to spend more."
While claiming that "we want to reduce the difference," Stossel asserted that "this doesn't work." The Fox "Cavuto marked" question (actually Fox Fact) read: "Equality vs. Liberty, Is Income Disparity Really A Problem." (So die in the gutter because freedom?) To the question of "why," Stossel made the ludicrous, partisan, racist, and erroneous comment that "they taught people to be dependent." He continued: "They taught women, better not have a man in your house because you'll get more money if there's no guy there. And so people adjusted their behavior. And now they want more handouts, what didn't work, the handouts, they want to do more of. And my point is that you're going to get income inequality when people are free. Some people will do much better than others, and that's okay because under that system the poor do better too." (Under our present system, it's just not the poor who are doing badly, middle class income is stagnating while the top 1% are experiencing huge gains.)
Stossel said that income inequality is "just going to happen" and that it makes him uncomfortable that some people are "absurdly rich." The chyron articulated the old "class warfare" argument of the, dare I say, moneyed bourgeoisie: "The Income Gap, Is It Government's Responsibility to Spread the Wealth." Obviously not uncomfortable with the fact that without a safety net, families will end up, literally, on the street, Stossel claimed that "the remedies are worse." In playing a strange version of the class warfare card, he shared his observation that ordinary people "hate the CEO's" but love rich celebrities because "they don't understand what the business people do." (Uh, I think that understand just fine, no thanks to Fox News.)
As one of Fox's business contributor's perhaps Stossel should check out Forbes magazine which isn't exactly Rolling Stone. One of the articles is about how "income inequality is what's destroying America." (Memo to Fox - it is "really a problem") It's not just lefties who are concerned about it but scholars and business types who realize that as people fall further into poverty, they have less purchasing power and that affects business. Educators realize the horrific impact of poverty on kids - not that Stossel cares about that.
But what is really egregious is his characterization of single women as being so lazy that they eagerly sought and continue to seek "handouts" (code word for welfare). As usual Fox News is not providing accurate information. With welfare reform, there is no disincentive for two parent families as they, too, are eligible. There is also a five year limit on benefits and during that time the recipient must either work or be in a job training program.
But Stossel's little homily fits well with Roger Ailes' mission to further divide America by scapegoating the poor who, in Foxworld, are lazy dark skinned moochers. Nothing riles up the Fox base more than talk of "handouts." Roger Ailes knows his demographics very well!