In addition to being a ratings juggernaut, Fox News wields power. When Fox attacks, folks listen and take action such as when Elisabeth Hasselbeck expressed her displeasure towards a college professor who teaches about white privilege. After he was chastised, defenders of American whiteness responded - with harassment and death threats. 

In January, Fox & Friends picked up on the latest liberal education outrage from Fox's favorite right wing group Campus Reform. Hasselbeck had herself a nice, little hissy fit about an Arizona State University professor who has the audacity to teach a course on "race theory and the problem of whiteness," a course which, for Fox News, is obviously an affront to God's chosen white people. Hasselbeck was mighty pissed about this course which uses commie words like feminist and post-colonialism. Her guest, a Campus Reform writer and student at the college (who hasn't taken the course) added to the ain't-it-awful rhetoric.

As reported on Raw Story, not long after this example of "the trouble with schools" went national, the brown shirts from the National Youth Front started handing out flyers, on campus and in the professor's neighborhood, which predicted that there would be "resistance" to what they believe is reverse racism. Posters accusing him of being anti-white appeared on campus. Homicidal comments, such as the one from somebody who wants to stab him "with a pen “sharpened like a shiv,” stabbing him in the neck, carving a swastika in his chest, and possibly curb-stomping him," are appearing on right wing websites. The campus newspaper reports that he is receiving e-mail and phone death threats.  (But only Muslims are terrorists, right?)

Interestingly, students who support the professor and his views, staged a campus teach-in recently. I don't know if Hasselbeck covered that but let's say that odds are that she didn't.

And for those of you wondering what the National Youth Front is all about, the SPLC describes them as the junior brigade of the white nationalist American Freedom Party, a "political party initially established by racist Southern California skinheads that aims to deport immigrants and return the United States to white rule." The Youth Front neo-Nazis are modeled on far right, anti-Muslim European youth groups. According to their mission statement, they're all about putting "an end to the invasion of our nations." After the Charlie Hebdo attack, they hung banners and passed out flyers at ASU which boldly stated, "America is ours and we are tomorrow." (Uh, America is losing its whiteness, so no...)

Obviously, correlation does not imply correlation, but, as with Bill O'Reilly's ongoing attack on Dr. Tiller, Elisabeth Hasselbeck contributed to a climate of hate in which a professor, who was attacked on Fox, is being attacked by those who have the same bigoted zeitgeist as those on Fox.

But nice to see Fox & Friends doing some community organizing. Team America, f--k yeah!