Conservative Media Lies to its Audience, Again
It should make everyone angry.
Hey everyone. Merry Christmas. I have a very fast Jackal for you. It will be quick (a Quackal) and short (a Shackal). Lots of stuff is going on, but we obviously had a big arrest this week and I wanted to chat with you about it.
They got the pipe bomber!
This week, the F.B.I. named itself a big fish: The infamous pipe bomber from January 6th. The alleged bomber - Brian Cole - had evaded the F.B.I. for years, fueling conspiracy theories about what his motives were.
I previously wrote about the Blaze’s story from a few weeks ago where they named a different person as the pipe bomber. They have now officially retracted it. But that’s not the “conservative media lie” I’m alluding to with the headline. Instead, it came from current deputy director of the F.B.I., Dan Bongino.
Last night, Bongino appeared on Sean Hannity’s show and was asked about his previous statements regarding the pipe bomber. You see, before Bongino was working for the government, he said that the reason the pipe bomber hadn’t been found was because it was an inside job: The F.B.I. knew who the pipe bomber was and was covering it up.
When Hannity put his own words in front of him, this is what Bongino said:
Did you catch that? When Bongino was confronted with the previous conspiracy theories he spread about the pipe bomber, he says, “In the past, I was paid for my opinions.” In other words, he didn’t feel like he had a responsibility to tell his audience the truth, because it was more profitable for him to feed them lies.
To the surprise of no one engaged with reality, Brian Cole is not a government agent or ANTIFA, or an F.B.I. employee. He is a supporter of Donald Trump who thought the 2020 Election was “stolen.”
I really can’t overstate this: There is really no such thing as “conservative media.” There is a conservative entertainment complex that feeds its audience lies and ignores the truth when it is inconvenient. If you have loved ones who regularly watch Fox News, you have a responsibility to tell them to turn it off. Why? Because studies show that people who watch Fox News know less about current events than people who do not watch the news at all.
Right now, the Capitol Police officer named by the Blaze has had to hire private security. The same goes for a number of Capital Police officers who came out publicly and rebutted Trump’s narrative about January 6th. A number of police officers - after fighting with a mob of Trump supporters for hours on that day - took their own lives.
And the consciences of the Dan Bonginos of the world have been unaffected by this, as they spread lies about the pipe bomber (and January 6th in general) for years. Bongino’s admission is damning, but it is unsurprising to anyone who isn’t brainwashed.
When a Democratic President takes office, they should take a lesson from Trump’s FCC and have a serious look at the broadcast licenses of outlets like Fox News, and the servers that host websites like The Blaze (if it survives the coming defamation lawsuit). The lies - that do real material harm to peoples’ lives - have gone on for long enough.
Nothing on the bomb strikes?
Arguably the biggest story this week was Pete Hegseth’s authorization of naval strikes on several boats in the Caribbean. I think this story is still unfolding, and we are learning lots of new details every day. In the meantime, I think this is an excellent read from Andrew Sullivan (and worth a free trial, at least).
This is also a great read from Paul Krugman (not related to the boat strikes), and puts a bow on the whole Jackal. The summary of Krugman’s piece is that Trump’s support amongst the swing voters who put him in office is falling off a cliff. This is confirmed by other sources too:
Trump’s 2024 coalition is breaking apart, which is mostly a policy issue. But the reason the GOP has been losing white, educated voters (and not really wining them back) is because of things like pipe bomb conspiracies, anti-vaccine sentiments, and general insanity.
Once you lose the lower propensity voters that put Trump in office, what are you left with? Only Trump’s most hardcore supporters, which cannot win you elections.
One more Jackal before the end-of-the-year piece. I’ll see you all soon.