As part of Fox & Friends’ ongoing efforts to demonize any opposition to Dear Leader Donald Trump, cohost Abby Huntsman did her best to suggest that critics of Trumpcare are dangerous – while concern trolling about inflammatory rhetoric.
Huntsman kicked off the propaganda by saying, “Lawmakers promised to clean up the fiery rhetoric on Capitol Hill but it didn’t last very long.”
As the banner on the screen read, “DEMS RETURN TO INFLAMMATORY RHETORIC,” clips were played of various Democrats, plus independent Bernie Sanders, blasting the bill:
- Sen. Sanders: This is a barbaric and immoral piece of legislation.
- Rep. Steve Cohen: It’s kind of like a death part two.
- Schumer: The Senate Republican Healthcare bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
- Warren: These cuts are blood money. People will die.
Huntsman gave a melodramatic “whooooo” to suggest an answer to her “question”: “But do Democrats, with their latest attacks on health care risk inciting further violence?”
Instead of offering any actual facts or evidence one way or the other, Huntsman turned to conservative Morgan Ortagus, almost certainly knowing she’d go along with the messaging . “What do you make of the most recent rhetoric coming from the left?” Huntsman asked.
Ortagus began her over-the-top complaints: “It’s actually quite disturbing… If you’re a child in the 4th grade and you’re watching the nightly news, you’re seeing Kathy Griffin hold a picture of the president’s severed head. [It was actually a fake head.] You’re seeing crazed liberals literally shoot congressmen at a baseball practice and you’re hearing major leaders of the Democrat Party [It’s the Democratic party] tell young children and tell the whole United States that Republicans want people do die. This is irresponsible!
Huntsman tried to set up her other guest, professor Jeanne Zaino to attack liberals with a leading question: “Democratic leaders, many of them Tweeting out that Republicans hate the poor… and a lot of people believe that because they don’t actually read what is inside that [healthcare] bill.
Zaino did not take the bait: “I would say very few people have read the bill, including some of our senators as well,” she replied.
Zaino also said that Democrats are winning the rhetoric war just like Republicans did in the last seven years. She also noted that there are also Republicans who don’t like the bill.
So Huntsman went back to Ortagus, asking how Republicans can win “this rhetoric war on healthcare?”
Ortagus argued, “We need to stop referring to being at war with each other. We are all American citizens.”
Yet Ortagus soon went on to attack liberals. “The leaders of the Democrat Party need to stand up and criticize Hillary Clinton, criticize Johnny Depp and all these people that are calling for the death of our president and that are saying that a major political party… wants people to die. It’s gone way too far.”
Zaino noted some inflammatory Republican rhetoric such as Ben Carson calling Obamacare the worst thing since slavery. “Republicans started this war on rhetoric seven years ago and for them to now claim that we should all just be working together is the height of hypocrisy,” she said.
Ortagus interrupted, yelling: “Democrats are literally talking about killing the president right now!” She claimed that nobody talked about killing Obama.
That’s not true. In 2007 Ted Nugent called Obama a "piece of shit" who should "suck on my machine gun.” In 2012 Nugent said, “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” Yet Nugent has repeatedly received a warm welcome on Fox News since then.
Or did Fox & Friends discuss right-wing rhetoric after Obama was hung in effigy?
But the biggest memory lapse from Huntsman and Ortagus was Trump himself. He repeatedly promoted violence against people who protested him, as did Fox’s favorite Trumper sheriff, David Clarke.
Watch the phony concern about inflammatory rhetoric used as a cover to engage in just that above.
Originally published at Newshounds.us
