Greg Gutfeld, Bill O'Reilly acolyte and host of Fox News' The Five, took the opportunity to reach out and put humanity above politics tonight to blame "left-wing media" (whatever that is) for "radicalizing" the man who shot Steve Scalise and others earlier today.
According to Gutfeld, this is the product of socialism.
"Right now, the country is going through a period of anxiety because we have a large faction that refuses to accept the reality of the presidency. I'm not saying that induces people to violence, but under this weird cloud, people are acting strangely, and I know that capitalism and free markets, they don't advocate revolution," Gutfeld informed his audience loudly.
Economic systems don't advocate anything. They're economic systems. Democratic socialism, by definition, is not violent. It's Democratic. But let's not confuse Greg with facts.
"But socialism does. Socialism has always advocated revolution," he insisted. "Radical leftism has always advocated violent revolution, so, this guy was essentially radicalized by the left-wing media. He was radicalized," he concluded.
This is all a part of the required messaging, as set forth by Rush Limbaugh earlier today. Here's his transcript.
And I think these people on the left have been driven to this extreme for quite a while. I have been worried about it for I don’t know how long. And I’ve been telling you so. And we could, if we wanted to, we could scour — well, we have. I could go back and show you tweets, I could read you tweets. I could read you statements made by elected Democrats and others promoting just this kind of behavior, just this kind of behavior. You can find it. If you look at the TV programs and the media personalities that this guy, Hodgkinson, was devoted to, you’ll find out how radicalized he was by left-wing TV and comedy.
Limbaugh went on to name the offending "left wing shows:"
>Last week Tonight With John Oliver, the Nightly Show on the Comedy Central, Democracy Now, The Ed Show, the Rachel Maddow Show. He apparently loved Rachel Maddow, wanted her to run for president. The Daily Show on Comedy Central, Real Time with Bill Maher. Those are the TV shows that he recommended everybody watch. Clearly he was radicalized.
So Limbaugh sent out the talking points; Gutfeld picked them up like every other good Republican might.
Maybe it's because Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and Lawrence O'Donnell are pounding Fox News in the ratings? Or it's just convenient to be hateful toward those who have different opinions. Either way, it's laughable.