Megyn Kelly may dislike Donald Trump but she’s still totally OK with his nativist, bigoted messaging, which just happens to mesh very nicely with the Brexit “Leavers” in the U.K.
Long ago, I gave Megyn Kelly the motto, “I love to hate people of color.” Judging from her gratuitous rant against British immigrants last night, she still does.
Multimillionaire Kelly joined the Fox News Brexit cheering squad (and why should she worry that the rest of us are watching our 402(k)s vanish as a result?). First, she hosted conservative Nile Gardiner who called the Brexit vote, “wonderful news” for Great Britain and the U.S.
Kelly “balanced” that interview with a follow up with Republican Frank Luntz, wearing a bright red “Vote Leave” shirt.
First, Kelly made a blatant attempt to suggest that the Brexit vote is good news for Trump when she announced that “Parallels are being drawn” between Britain’s victorious "leaver," Nigel Farage, and Trump. She played some clips of the two. Of course, none of her clips included the racist comments of either.
But, as if to validate the nativism, Kelly suddenly went on a rant about the “socialized medicine over there.”
KELLY: They’d go into the hospitals and one guy’s wife had to wait 10 weeks to get a pain shot! She had to wait 10 weeks before she can get a shot to relieve the pain in her back. These people are not – understandably – they’re not welcoming an influx of 650,000 immigrants! That’s just more people on the roster, more people they have to fight for housing with. Forget jobs, ‘cause they’re doing OK on employment but it’s much more than jobs over there.
Like a true bigoted demagogue, Kelly made no attempt to prove that the hospital waits were caused by immigration or investigate whether there might be other, less nativist solutions for the problems.
Let me also add that while Kelly almost certainly has top-of-the-line health insurance for herself and her family – and can undoubtedly pay out of her own pocket whatever her insurance company denies - she might want to step out of her Fox-ivory tower and get a glimpse at how many Americans have problems getting health care that have nothing to do with immigration. I doubt we'll see a discussion about that on The Kelly File, unless there's a Fox meme blaming ObamaCare or Hillary Clinton or somehow exploit this tragedy for its own political gain.
Kelly has gotten well-deserved props for her handling of Trump’s attacks on her in the past year. But what has gotten far less attention is how Kelly has repeatedly validated Trump’s bigotry: She thought he had “a point” when he labeled Mexican immigrants and dangerous criminals; she echoed his “secret Muslim” dog whistle against President Obama in the aftermath of the Orlando shootings, and now this. That’s not counting her famous "Santa is white" comments and all the other people of color Kelly has used as theatrical piñatas.
It’s long past time that the mainstream media took notice.
UK has a net migration positive of about 310,000. The net positive for non British citizens is about 370,000, and that includes about 175,000 from the EU. Among non-EU citizens, the most important immigration comes from China, India, USA and Australia. All this has no relation with the EU, UK not being part of Schengen, having opted out to keep control of their immigation. The great majority of non-EU and non-British immigrants do not transit by any eurpean country. When they try, they are, most of them, blocked in France and Belgium. Why do you think France has that problem with the jungle of Calais nd other refugees camps full of people wanting to go to UK?
Immigrants: always a good argument for politicians, mostly liars, wanting to fearmonger and scapegoat.
http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc123/index.html
I guess they don’t know that most of the Commonwealth countries with large populations interested in migrating to the UK (perhaps without Scotland) are inhabited by people of quite a different hue (India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangla Desh, Kenya, Tanzania, etc. etc).
France 24 had a very interesting interview with an English sociologist/philosopher who declared outright that the vote was guided by ignorance. Populism has always fed on ignorance and emotion, whereas strong democracies are based on information and reason. It’s so much easier to shout slogans than to delve into their meaning.
PS: Wasn’t the Trump against BREXIT before he was for it? How anybody with a functioning brain can support that man is quite beyond me.