For sheer brashness and audacity in misinformation, there are few who parallel Sean Hannity. Every day he spews incredibly misleading op-ed to an audience whom he knows mistakes his "product" for news, and if all democracy burns down, but his ratings go up, he counts that a win.
Case in point is his podcast from April 29th, Hour 1. Watch how deftly Hannity weaves misinformation and lies into his monologue:
"I mean, just look at this new axis of evil: While he [Biden] simultaneously is shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline in America, he's giving a waiver to Vladimir Putin to continue and finish the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to make him rich, which enables him to continue to invade a country like Ukraine, and kill innocent men, women, and children. Gee, that's brilliant! And then drag America into a proxy war costing us billions and billions and billions of dollars. And what does Biden do with China? Well, China, he's been great to China. They could ply their spy balloons, have no consequences for that, no consequences for Covid, no consequences when their fighter jets are making hostile maneuvers against American jets in International airspace, or when they're making aggressive maneuvers in international waterways, against our navy, nothing happens; forget about intellectual property theft, forget about unfair trade practices, that's small-ball; the guy that made the mullahs in Iran rich, the #1 state sponsor of terror rich, is Joe Biden because he wouldn't enforce the sanctions forbidding them to sell oil on the world market. He even took it a step further in March of '21 by starting to import Iranian oil into the United States, and he's continued ever since. He wants the price of oil to go down, but he doesn't want to drill for it, here. Well, what's the difference if you rape and pillage Mother Earth, as they say on the left, and drill for oil, uh - it doesn't matter where you do it? I guess to Joe Biden it does. He just doesn't want to get his base angry. His base is now the lunatics that are on these college campuses, here. And Biden, of course, this weekend, again, pressuring Prime Minister Netenyahu to do anything but win his war against radical terrorists. What would America do, what would you want your country to do, if 8000 Americans were taken hostage out of our country? What would you want this country to do? What would you expect your leaders to do if 40,000 Americans were slaughtered in a single day?"
He goes on, of course. But this is a splendid example of the sort of "Gish gallop" Hannity has perfected over the years.
Start with his "new Axis of evil." Without speaking it, he implicates Joe Biden as being part of this Axis. He knows it's misleading, he knows its incendiary, and he doesn't care.
What about shutting down the Keystone XL Pipeline while simultaneously allowing Putin to complete the Nord Stream 2 project? (Referring to a gas pipeline connecting Russia with Germany, bypassing Ukraine completely.) Well, it's not proven, but Biden was probably the one who gave the order to blow up the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the first place. Also, the pipeline wasn't being used at the time, because, due to Russia's war on Ukraine, Germany isn't buying any natural gas from Russia. So if Russia is allowed to complete its pipeline, yet continues its war with Ukraine, Germany won't buy the damned gas anyway! Russia will have diverted millions of dollars in funds and man hours to a project that won't pay off for him! I'd say this is nothing short of brilliant foreign policy strategy! Unfortunately, it's just one small segment in Hannity's disinformation clusterfuck.
He wrongly complains the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will make Putin money, "which enables him to continue to invade a country like Ukraine, and kill innocent men, women, and children. Gee, that's brilliant!" And yet, in the very next breath, he complains about America being dragged into a proxy war costing us "billions and billions and billions of dollars," as though he were an anti-Carl-Sagan. Is Hannity against Russia slaughtering innocent men, women, and children, or is he in favor of abandoning Ukraine to its fate?! Come on, dude, pick a lane!
He claims Biden has been great to China. Hardly. True he ended Trump's insane trade war with China, but he also made moves to ensure Taiwan would not be the sole manufacturer of microchips for the U.S., thus guaranteeing that a Chinese takeover of Taiwan wouldn't deprive Americans of a vital resource. China knows Biden did this, and isn't happy. And Hannity claims there are no consequences for the Chinese spy balloons, except there were. It was a huge PR disaster for China, and we recovered the wreckage after the balloon was shot down. The incident also poisoned relations between China and all allied nations, from Japan to India to Canada.
"No consequences for Covid," he claims. Except the millions of Chinese lives lost to that disease.
"No consequences for threatening maneuvers," he adds. Yet our forces have not been chased off in the Pacific. They're standing firm.
"forget about intellectual property theft, forget about unfair trade practices, that's small-ball." Yeah, just like Trump ignored those? Remember that it was Obama that pushed through a Pacific Rim trade agreement to counterbalance China's influence. Trump did nothing regarding copyright.
He complains Biden "made the mullahs in Iran rich" by not enforcing "the sanctions forbidding them to sell oil on the world market." This is ignorant beyond belief. There is a strong secular contingent to Iran's population, and they're on OUR side! We are, in a brilliant show of responsibility, trying to walk the tightrope between supporting those citizens in overthrowing Iran's government in favor of democracy, while simultaneously punishing Iran's current government. This isn't easy! And Hannity's demagoguery does us no favors.
This is part of why Trump's undoing of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran was so disastrous. Iran's moderate middle began seeing the U.S. as a bigger enemy than its own government, and no revolution will ever take place while that's the case! Biden wisely tried to bring Iran back to the table to get its nuclear agreement through again, and as a concession, permitted some Iranian oil to flow. Maybe a little of it wound up in the U.S., but it mostly went to China. And the diplomacy worked. Again, this is what happens when a government knows what it's doing when it comes to foreign policy. But in Hannity's world, that's just letting oppressive regimes off the hook. Never mind the damage it does to the prospects of freedom and democracy in the region.
He claims Biden wants oil prices to come down but doesn't want to drill for it here. Except a strong commitment to electric cars will bring oil prices down as demand decreases - something Trump was both unable and unwilling to do.
Hannity rails on against student protests, and naturally conflates them with all liberals. Of course, Biden's base is not the "lunatics on our college campuses." Yes, they're demonstrating against genocide on Israel's part, and yes that's noble, but Biden knows we're walking a tightrope between supporting the only democracy in the Middle East and preventing ethnic cleansing being done in the name of self-defense. I've written extensively about the Israel-Hamas war in other blog posts. But suffice it to say that Biden is at least trying for balance. Hannity and his beloved Trump don't give a rip about balance at all.
And all that is in just a small 2.5 minute segment of a show that lasts 3 whole hours every day! Imagine! Three whole hours of this kind of Gish-gallop, misinformation-dense, hyper-radicalized crap!
It is a masterclass in disinformation.
And this is just ONE talking head in an overall Right Wing Media Cult which is comprised of hundreds of Hannity-wannabes, and which has taken over much of our nation's airwaves.
What are we doing to counter this? Exactly nothing. That's the most frustrating thing. We need to curtail the for-profit news industry with some basic standards of truth-telling, and downgrade op-ed from a feature to an afterthought. Or even bar op-ed outright. If such "news" outlets do not comply, the title of "news" gets taken away from them! This is not a violation of freedom of speech, as the outlet can go on saying whatever it wants. It just can't mislabel itself "news" anymore.
We have laws preventing any food manufacturer from putting any ingredients into their products which are not listed on the label. We must do the same thing with our news media, and for the same reason. If a food company mislabels its product, any number of food-related illnesses could result. Likewise, a mislabeled "news" source will poison the minds of its viewers.
At long last, can we at least TRY to prevent this from happening?
Eric
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