Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher told Fox News's Laura Ingraham that using Tik Tok is just like them overdosing on Oxycontin.
"It's digital fentanyl in the sense it's highly addictive, and therefore deadly, for all the reasons you laid out in your monologue," Gallagher said. "Our youth are at risk of increased isolation, suicide, depression, anxiety - those numbers are through the roof."
Gallagher and Fox News must believe that equating 'fentanyl' with TikTok will spur their viewers' outrage.
The big bad in all of this is China. Gallagher claimed the Chinese government can even censor the news received on the platform.
"And increasingly people use TikTok as a news source."
Unlike the right-wing propaganda they receive watching Fox News.
Then the Wisconsin lawmaker went QAnon and claimed "the swamp" is at play in all of this.
"The final thing that is really disgusting, Laura, is they're weaponizing the swamp against us," he said. "TikTok is hiring an army of former members of Congress, Senators, Democrats, Republicans, staffers, spending $7 million last year in order to lobby on their behalf."
Who is the swamp? Former elected representatives of this country. Which makes Rep. Gallagher a primary target too.
"This is a danger to our kids, a national security threat, and ultimately, we don't want to Chinese communist party to control the most popular media company in America."
Young people voted for the Democratic party overwhelmingly against Republicans in the midterms, so Republicans are taking aim at anything they indulge in online.
Fox News and Republican lawmakers are targeting the social media platforms like TikTok as the culprits that are destroying the country.
What's next? Are they going to propose raising the voting age up to 28?
The overturning of Roe v Wade was a big motivating factor for young voters, as you might expect.
Here's some good data to show why Fox News is upset with GenZ.
According to CIRCLE’s analysis, 63% of young Americans voted for a Democratic candidate for the US House, while 35% of young Americans backed Republican candidates. Their data shows that the 18–29 cohort was the only age bracket to back Democrats by this margin.
“For the better part of the previous 20 years that I’ve been doing this, the youth vote, with the exception of Obama, was reliably plus 10 for Democrats: 55-45. Look at Hillary’s race, look at John Kerry’s race, look at the midterm races,” he said. “What we saw in 2018 is the 18–29 vote voted somewhere in the mid-60s for Democrats. So, instead of doing a plus 10, you’re [now] able to get a plus 20, plus 30, and that’s been consistent.
