Courtesy of the Bastrop Advertiser
Dec. 26, 2019
By Joni Ashbrook
During the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Republicans gave no real defense for Trump pressuring Ukraine’s president to publicly announce investigations into Trump’s political rival and the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in our 2016 election.
Since Republicans couldn’t defend Trump, they made absurd arguments. Some said that Democrats hate Trump’s supporters. I found that so offensive. I have friends and family that support Trump and I love them dearly.
However, over the years our conversations became limited because we no longer share a common set of facts. They watch Fox News and it’s at the center of a media bubble that echoes their own set of “alternative facts.”
TV personality Geraldo Rivera once said he believed President Richard Nixon wouldn’t have resigned if Fox News host Sean Hannity was around during Watergate. I also believe Nixon could have escaped accountability if he had Fox’s well-oiled disinformation machinery on his side like Trump does now.
As the Watergate hearings proceeded, Nixon’s job approval dropped at the same rate among Democrats, Independents and Republicans because the public was hearing the same facts then. Unfortunately, that’s not possible today.
A study published by the research institute PRRI found that 55% of Republicans, for whom Fox News is their primary news source, say there’s nothing Trump could do to lose their approval. No wonder Trump boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters.
Attorney General William Barr and Fox News are masterful at misleading the public about reports that could harm Trump. Barr did this with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, giving Trump talking points of “no collusion, no obstruction,” even though that’s not true.
They recently misled the public about the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s report on the origin of Mueller’s investigation. The report clearly debunked Trump’s claims that the investigation was a “coup” and “treasonous.”
The IG found sufficient evidence for the FBI to open the investigation and said it wasn’t politically motivated. The report did find alarming problems with how the FBI obtained a warrant to surveil a Trump campaign adviser.
We’re lucky to live in a country with an independent check on our intelligence agencies, but that’s undermined when the findings are manipulated for political purposes.
Trump said the report showed an “attempted overthrow” of government. Hannity wailed it showed “massive political bias.” They lied.
Then Barr gave an interview that fed right into the “deep state” conspiracy theories that the report just debunked.
Even GOP lawmakers who were critical of Trump are now part of the misinformation cabal. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., once said Trump was a “kook,” “crazy,” and “unfit for office.” Graham said he’s now Trump’s pal because he wants to be “relevant.”
Graham sold his integrity, and now he’s selling out the Constitution by dismissing Trump’s blatant abuse of power.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz once called Trump a “pathological liar,” and said Trump “doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies.”
Trump threw out wild conspiracy theories about Cruz and his family, even claiming Cruz’s father was linked to the Kennedy assassination. But now Cruz is spouting debunked conspiracy theories for Trump.
Cruz recently said Ukraine meddled in our 2016 election despite the fact that intelligence officials recently briefed senators that it was a false Russian narrative.
Cruz also disregarded the testimony from Trump’s top expert on Russia. She said that Ukraine election meddling was “fictional” and “perpetrated and propagated by Russian security services,” and she warned that repeating it could damage our national security.
’Tis the giving season. Let’s give our children a country based in truth.
