Liz Warren Turns Down Fox News Town Hall
Presidential candidate, Liz Warren, turned down a fox news town hall in a series of tweets recently. She stated "Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists—it’s designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class.".
My response to that is this: go on there and tell them that!! This was a horrible decision that makes her look cowardly. Not that I don't agree with her reasons, but she shouldn't talk about Fox News "giving a megaphone to conspiracists", when CNN and MSNBC are guilty of the same thing. In the lead up to the Iraq War, EVERY media outlet pushed this conspiracy theory that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, and anyone who pushed back (Jesse Ventura, Phil Donahue, and Chris Hedges) all got fired from their positions. They all pushed this conspiracy theory that Assad gasses his own men, they all parrot this conspiracy theory that Maduro is a dictator who oppresses his own people, and for 2 years straight, CNN and MSNBC pushed this now debunked conspiracy theory that Trump is somehow a manchurian candidate on behalf of Russia. Let's not pretend that Fox is the only news outlet that pushes conspiracy theories. Let's also not pretend that Fox is the only network that's covering up corruption either. When was the last time MSNBC had someone making less than $30,000 a year on their panel to talk about the shrinking middle class? Do they even have those discussions or is that still drowned out by the RussiaVape nonsense? The difference between other media outlets and Fox is they're socially liberal. On economic and foreign policy, they mostly agree.
She also said "Fox News is struggling as more and more advertisers pull out of their hate-filled space. A Democratic town hall gives the Fox News sales team a way to tell potential sponsors it's safe to buy ads on Fox—no harm to their brand or reputation (spoiler: It’s not).". I hate this idea that if we just pull ads away from Fox News and by some miracle, they no longer exist, there will no longer be hatred and bigotry. First, it's a pipe dream to think you could ever shut down Fox News by shaming the advertisers, but even by some miracle Fox News does shut down, another pro-Trump, boot-licking, right-wing propaganda network will spawn in its place. Second, the right way to stamp out any hate speech is with more speech. In 2018, white nationalists held another Unite The Right rally and they were severely outnumbered by counter protesters.
Even Bill Maher gets this. Recently on his show he had a panel discussion on the subject and asked "Isn't it better to talk unfiltered to people like Bernie Sanders got to do than to have it filtered through Sean Hannity?". He also said that's where people who vote are, and said that 43% of Fox News viewers are conservative Republicans, and 10% are liberal democrats. That means 47% are Independent, all the more reason to go on their network.
I always think an away game is a good way to test the strength of any sports team. Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard have both proven that you can't gain any new supporters by staying in your safe space. You have to infiltrate their safe space, especially if your intent is to stomp out hate.
Follow me on Twitter @ Winfield_24