Fox News Doesn’t See Anti-Muslim Backlash – Just Like it Doesn’t See Racism

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:39 pm

Fox News really is incredible. You have to admit it. Their ability to wish away facts is at least as profound as their ability to invent facts, like their infamous Benghazi hoax, or their Planned Parenthood hoax, or their Clinton email hoax, or their Obama apology tour hoax. The list is virtually endless seven years after Dubya left office.

Donald Trump had no sooner called for banning Muslim immigrants when Fox News’ The Five co-hosts Jesse Watters and Kimberly Guilfoyle took to the air to – in virtually the same breath – criticize Obama for being tolerant of Muslims while Watters said, “Let me know if you see any Muslim backlash, I haven’t seen a lot of it,” and Guilfoyle added, “I mean, who’s vilifying any of the Muslims. Who’s doing that?”

Well, you just did, not to put too fine a point upon it. And there is plenty more, including reports from their own network, like this one from Fox 7 in Austin, Texas: U. of Texas student, friend leave popular Austin cafe amid anti-Muslim backlash from other customers

Huffington Post has cited numerous incidents, including, even before the San Bernadino shootings and in response to the Paris terrorist attack, a mosque vandalized in Pflugerville, Texas, and a Quran torn up and covered in feces.

If this happened to a Bible, you can be sure Fox News would be screaming about an anti-Christian backlash. They’d see that.

There is this, from USAToday:

We can’t leave out Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University, who told students at his school, “I’ve always thought if more good people had concealed carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in.”

These are all just “talking points” according to the Fox Five co-hosts.

Watch courtesy of Media Matters for America:

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): Let me know if you see any Muslim backlash, I haven’t seen a lot of it. The president wasn’t really worried about anti-police backlash or anti-Tea Party backlash or anti-Christian backlash when those institutions were being smeared and denigrated. In fact, there were actual backlash against those institutions. We had the Chick-Fil-A shooter going up, shooting up the place over gay marriage. You had the Tea Party being targeted by Obama’s own IRS. You had cops being executed in New York. I didn’t hear a lot about backlash then.

KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE (CO-HOST): Yeah, but they’re just assuming horrible facts, not in evidence in actions on behalf of the American people, saying, I mean, who’s vilifying any of the Muslims. Who’s doing that? They are really talking about this and putting it as the top of the framework, because these are talking points straight out of the White House from President Obama and Valerie Jarrett and that’s why they put Loretta Lynch there to like babysit [FBI Director James] Comey so he doesn’t like get out of line when he’s trying to answer questions to the press and god forbid admit it, say that this is terrorism. The president knew that it was terrorism and he didn’t want to say it. He was compelled and forced to tell the truth.

JUAN WILLIAMS (CO-HOST): So let me just respond to you. What about Donald Trump today saying we shouldn’t admit any of the Muslims?

ERIC BOLLING (HOST): We’re going to get to that in a minute.

WILLIAMS: So your point is, nobody is vilifying–

GUILFOYLE: But if you want to use the opportunity and try and vilify and go after Donald Trump who is not Commander-in-Chief, he’s not President of the United States…

WILLIAMS: No you said nobody is…

GUILFOYLE: Barack Obama is. That’s why, that’s who I am talking about.

To hear these people invoke “facts” and “evidence” is too rich. These are the people, who, after all, insist we live in a post-racial America, who claim there is no such thing as right-wing domestic terrorism, who claim the planet isn’t warming up and we’re not all going to die horrible deaths when climate catastrophe overtakes us.

Propaganda has become an art-form. Fox News found a niche, virtually created an audience for it, and now sells it for all its worth, all the while turning the persecutors into the hapless victims. The poor rich people, the poor corporations, the poor white males, the poor “white Republican Christians”!

Life is so hard for the truly entitled. African Americans are no more criminals than are Mexicans, no more than Muslims are terrorists. The Fox News reality bubble continues to find ways to distance itself from our shared reality. You’d think at some point something would have to give, but it doesn’t. The conservative capacity for self-deception seems to be endless.

And that is why you have to give it to Fox News: they’ve invented a drug called “Amurrca” and sold it to “real Amurrcans” who now cannot live without it. Perhaps we do need a war on drugs after all.

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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