Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt tore into Fox News on Monday night for encouraging right-wing extremists to carry out violent attacks based on the propaganda spewed on the network.
Schmidt blamed Donald Trump and the right-wing propaganda network for planting the seeds that led to the attempted bombings and mass shooting attack this past weekend.
In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, the ex-GOP strategist said Fox News is “a right-wing propaganda machine that is as sophisticated as it has turned deadly.”
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Steve Schmidt trashes Trump and right-wing media for contributing to the violent political climate. #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/hcKZ22dLaO
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) October 30, 2018
Schmidt said:
[Bowers] went in to kill Jews, the Jews he believed that were financing the caravan, the invading army like a panzer division that is threatening the southern border. An army that is racked and riddled with disease. The same type of rhetoric, the same type of propaganda that you would have seen in Germany in 1938, the Dee humanization, turning people into infested vermin. What Trump is doing is stoking and inciting, for the purposes of political power, the worst amongst us to take action in his name. We have a situation where, but by the grace of God, the largest assassination attempt against them, two former presidents of the United States. Every one of those people was a target of Donald Trump’s, and this man, a fanatic, was radicalized by Fox News, by talk radio, by a right-wing propaganda machine that is as sophisticated as it has turned deadly.
Trump and Fox News have created a violent monster
Fox News has spent years spewing bigotry and fear in order to appeal to its right-wing audience. In the Donald Trump era, they have turned it up to 11.
The last week is a real-world example of what happens when a deranged individual consumes right-wing propaganda – and then decides to act on it.
It’s no accident that the dozen-plus individuals that received bombs last week were also top targets of Trump and right-wing media. It’s also no surprise that the shooter in this weekend’s attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue was afraid of the migrant caravan being hyped by the president and Fox News.
We are learning very quickly that the type of propaganda spewed by Trump and his favorite propaganda network on a daily basis does more than just rile up the GOP base. It also emboldens the most violent and deranged right-wing extremists.
As Steve Schmidt pointed out on Monday, it’s having deadly consequences.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
