The Latest 'Fox and Friends' Outrage Is Rather Pathetic
"Media bias on full display," Fox and Friends host Heather Childers gravely announced in a short segment this morning. "Newspapers now cashing in on T-shirts splashed with anti-President Trump rhetoric." Lack of complete sentences aside, this was a stunning revelation: Are major publications selling T-shirts bashing the president for $20-a-pop? Is The Failing New York Times selling "Drumpf" tees in partnership with John Oliver?
Wait, "democracy dies in darkness" is a criticism of Trump? "Journalism matters" is a potshot at the president? "Speaking truth to power since 1847" is a snipe at our current leader only?
Fox and Friends is the president's favorite TV program, primarily because the show's insightful personalities-like Steve Doocy-always say nice things about him. But Childers' comments are something altogether different. If you think the very concept of a free and independent press is an attack on the president, what does that say about the president? And if you support him enough to think this way, what does it say about you?
Fox News in general and its morning show in particular have long since staked out the territory where Trump TV might've been had Trump lost the November election. But this is an explicit embrace of authoritarian attitudes in service of a leader who has championed them, and who has awakened them as a very real force in our politics.
If a pro-democracy T-shirt makes your guy look bad, why is he your guy?
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