Fox & Friends got a propaganda threefer today by giving a friendly platform to Burgess Owens to both promote his Republican candidacy for Congress and to use the George Floyd protests and the shutdown orders to spout extremist rhetoric against Democrats.
Cohost Ainsley Earhardt opened the discussion by announcing, “More than 20 Salt Lake City police officers injured after a violent riot over the weekend.” She added, “Our next guest, who lives there, is calling out state leaders for their response.” She forgot to mention that Utah has a Republican governor.
Owens, who is running against Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams, quickly said, “What happened here is not typical. That’s not our culture.” Then he began blaming and demonizing Democrats.
OWENS: What we’re up against is Marxism. We have an enemy out there and what we’re seeing right now is the true evil of that. … We find this in most of these blue states where you have governors who have not only shut down businesses for the last three months, don’t want to open them up, and then you have these mayors who actually allow these people to come in and destroy businesses across the board. These small businesses will come back strong, and we have Marxists that are actually up against that.
So we have to realize who our enemy is. I’m looking forward to a president looking at these people as terrorists because that’s who they really are and they need to pay the price for being so.
Rather than challenge this extremism, Earhardt prompted for more. “It’s just outrageous to see this looting and to see these riots. … when you look at the video of all the rioting and looting, what are your thoughts?”
OWENS: It’s not about George any more, it’s about our country, it’s about those who hate our nation. And I’m going to be straight up front with you. For those in Democratic party, look at your leadership. You have evil being done by your leadership. People want to see hurt and harm to American people, our economy, pain, that’s what they do in every single state they live in and every single city [they] oversee. [T]his same party that once had a terrorist arm, the KKK, now has a terrorist arm, Antifa. … For my Democratic friends out there, realize what your party’s doing right now. They’re trying to divide us. We cannot stand for this.
What about the fact that law enforcement officials in Minnesota believe white supremacists are attending the demonstrations? “Tough journalist” Earhardt didn’t mention it.
Also there are plenty of Republican governors who are experiencing violence in their states: Texas, Georgia, Florida and Ohio, e.g.
Earhardt didn’t mention that.
You can watch Earhardt help promote and normalize Owens’ extremism below, from the June 1, 2020 Fox & Friends.
Meanwhile Burgess Owens, who apparently was hit too many times in the head in the NFL, singles out blue state governors, blue city mayors, bogeyman Antifa, bogeyman Marxists… I was waiting for space aliens but probably the little green men are MAGA Republicans.
But it’s better for Fox News than talking about Trump who, according to recent reports, is hiding behind the commode in his White House basement bunker. Dear Leader, stark naked emperor of courage, refused his staff’s pleas to make a nation consoling speech or declare any policy except send in his military now that he’s bought them the bullets Obama deprived them of. Though Rick Wilson claims Dear Leader is planning another golf outing.
In fairness to Fox News, I’m awfully tired of the progressive reaction to George Floyd’s death (and almost certain murder) as well. They’re so buried in their politics of pandering to PoC no amount of violence, destruction or looting is troubling to them as unjustified – oh, the contrary. Like Fox News, they’re focused only on the sins of their bogeymen too with a huge interest in data-mined men in blue behaving badly videos. It’s getting so crazy I was privy to a very active Twitter discussion (many hundreds of tweets) the brunt of which was we need to abolish all police forces – they’re unneeded any more (coincidentally I reported one poster for the popular suggestion rioters turn their focus to burning down white suburbs).
The only legacy of these protests or riots (take your pick depending on your sympathies) will be hollowed out downtowns, more divisive bitterness, and some empty political rhetoric for wallpaper. Countdown to the next racial incident sending angry people into the streets that grabs America’s attention.