At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas this weekend, the United States falling short of its vaccination goals was something to celebrate. The conference featured COVID vaccine disinformer Alex Berenson as part of a panel discussion, who was applauded for saying "Clearly, they were hoping — the government was hoping — that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated."
Readers may remember Berenson who was labeled “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man” by the Atlantic, and who has made numerous appearances on Fox, as NewsHoundEllen discussed here back in April:
Atlantic writer Derek Thompson shreds so much of Berenson's fear mongering about the COVID vaccines, Fox would never book him again if it had any principles. But the fact that Tucker Carlson passionately defended him and gave him a friendly platform to whine about the article last night, tells you everything you need to know about Carlson and the network. Well, that and the fact that Fox head honcho Rupert Murdoch got his vaccine on December 18 and hasn't been seen on Fox complaining about it.
Thompson writes that Berenson has downplayed the seriousness of the pandemic and wrongly claimed that face masks can’t protect against COVID to a large audience of Fox viewers and more than 200,000 Twitter followers. But he seems to have outdone himself with vaccine disinformation.
He’s not an outright liar, like Donald Trump, say. Thompson describes Berenson’s TV appearances as “more misdirection than outright fiction,” but that doesn’t make his vaccine claims any less dangerous.
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Berenson’s case against the vaccines “wobbles because it is built upon a steaming pile of bullshit,” Thompson concludes.
But a steaming pile of bullshit is what Fox keeps selling. Just three weeks ago, Berenson told a supportive Laura Ingraham that the vaccine “changes nothing.” She built upon that as a foundation to smear all of the public health establishment. “Well, when they lose the crisis they lose their power,” she said. “They need the crisis to continue. Never let a crisis end, OK? That's the new mantra.”
Actually, by fear mongering against vaccines and other COVID safety measures, Fox is the one trying to extend the crisis.
And Fox continues to do just that to this day. Now you can add the CPAC conference to the list of venues the right is using to kill off as many of their supporters as humanly possible, and to make sure we never see an end to this pandemic.