Fox News’ silence equals complicity when its host, Greg Gutfeld, urges civil war on the air.
I wrote yesterday about what should have gotten host Greg Gutfeld fired already. Speaking about crime (and he was not-so-obliquely referring to crime by people of color, aligned with Democrats), he said this, on The Five:
GUTFELD: This defiant refusal to reverse the decline argues against the survival of a country. What does that leave you with? It leaves you with you need to make war to bring peace because you have a side that cannot change. Because then that means the admission that their beliefs have been corrupt all the time. So, in a way, you have to force them to surrender.
[…]
Look what we have! We had a moderate president and we have crime exploding everywhere. We had a Democrat president promise that he was going to be moderate, promise that he was gonna unite the country and now we have a terrible education system. We have no border. We have crime everywhere. Every facet of society is in peril and in chaos because our elections don’t matter.
It was bad enough that not one of Gutfeld’s cohosts expressed alarm or deep disapproval. It was much worse that he was not fired, not even suspended. He was back in his co-host chair today.
Fox News doesn’t want to talk about it, probably in the hope that it will all blow over, which it should not. Aidan McLaughlin, editor in chief of Mediaite, wrote today that he had “reached out to Fox News for an explanation [but] the network refused to comment.”
Refused to comment? That means that Fox tacitly acknowledges Gutfeld’s comments were heinous but doesn't want to interfere with him earning big bucks and big ratings.
I have been worried about how poisonous Fox News is since before this blog started, in 2004, when I volunteered as a researcher for the documentary, Outfoxed.
The film is still relevant today. The difference is that Fox has gotten worse and more dangerous. Fox forked over $787.5 million to settle Dominion Voting System’s defamation case and it will probably have to fork over another hefty sum to settle Smartmatic’s similar suit. Both suits came about because Fox promoted what it knew were lies that the 2020 presidential had been stolen.
Yet Fox continued to allow lies that endangered a man named Ray Epps, who is also suing Fox for defamation.
In other words, Fox does not care whom or what it endangers so long as its propaganda pays off in both profit and political power.
You can watch Gutfeld call for civil war below, from the October 5, 2023 The Five, via Media Matters.
