I don’t know how much longer our country can endure the right-wing MAGA media’s alternative reality, their total disregard for facts and truth, their complete lack of integrity in pursuit of the almighty buck. (Fox News owner Rupert Murdock made over $30 million this past year!) These people have no claim on being journalists and couldn’t care less. Like their hero, Donald Trump, they’re essentially grifters who found a profitable gig and decided to hang out for a while.
First they questioned the reality of the COVID pandemic (“it’s a Democratic hoax”) and now they oppose mask and vaccine mandates despite overwhelming evidence they save lives. They falsely claim Critical Race Theory is being taught in k-12 schools (it’s not!) and that it teaches that all white people are evil racists (it doesn’t!). Most of them accepted the “big lie” without any supporting evidence and continue to claim Trump won the election. Now they’re using that lie to push for election laws that will suppress their opponents’ voters. Some have denied the reality of the January 6 Capitol insurrection in preposterous ways (“any other tourist day,” “they were invited in,” etc.) and now they contend those who were arrested are “political prisoners.” They even tried to martyr Ashley Babbit was an innocent victim. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of the MAGA media’s lies and already I’m breathless. Suffice to say, there is no ridiculous falsehood these people won’t promote as long as it suits their MAGA mythology—that white America was a perfect place that is being destroyed by liberal “elitists” using black and brown people to win elections.
I find it incredibly unfair that Fox News and its lawyers successfully defunded Tucker Carlson against liable by claiming he shouldn’t be taken seriously, that the audience shouldn’t believe everything he says. Most sane, intelligent Americans don’t, of course, but that hasn’t stopped him from being a tremendously destructive force, including raging against COVID vaccine and mask mandates. Tucker makes millions touting his right-wing trash, but a humble spirit like myself has to worry about everything he says, lest he be subject to legal action. Go figure!
MAGA’s Have an Insatiable Need for Lies.
I’m a strong believer in freedom of expression and the First Amendment, but the right-wing MAGA media is really pushing the envelope when it comes to promoting an alternative reality. The sad fact is, their audience doesn’t want to hear the truth or understand their world; for MAGAs, the truth is unbearable and the world increasingly frightening. Hideous people like Tucker Carlson and Shawn Hannity may get their audience fired up (a good choice of words for an old cannoneer like myself!), but I would contend they also soothe them by allowing them to hang onto all the old myths they grew up with—everything from the supremacy of the white race to believing a “Little House on the Prairie” really existed.
These MAGA folks are hell-bent on preserving their fantasies and all too happy to destroy our country in the process. As such, I fear they are all too similar to my fellow Confederates at the outbreak of the Civil War.