Republican insurrectionists invaded the Capitol building with the intent on capturing and murdering politicians who refused to hand the presidency to Donald Trump for another four years.
They did after being incited by Trump himself, and after months of being lied to by right-wing media, led by Fox News itself.
This attack was years in the making. Platforms enabled far-right extremists to mobilize, and let QAnon grow even though it was clear years ago that the conspiracy theories were enabling violence.
Mainstream media too often treated Trump and Trumpism with kid gloves, giving him and his supporters a pass for violent threats. But no one has done more to lead to this moment than Fox News. The network validated the conspiracy theories and aimed its content to right-wing extremists. It didn’t just relentlessly push deranged conspiracy theories about the election, it also defended QAnon conspiracy theorists and right-wing vigilantism.
This attack was the culmination of Fox News’ Trumpism. And lest you think even for a minute that anyone has learned anything, Fox has spent the days since the attack finding ways to play the victim.
Here is what has been happening on Fox News this week since Wednesday:
- Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham on Wednesday night all blamed left-wing anti-fascists for the violence. This was a total lie, but Fox hosts kept repeating it.
- While also blaming anti-fascists, Fox personalities also tried to justify the violence, arguing that Republicans “feel” the vote was unfair — totally and completely overlooking the months that Fox News spent pushing that lie.
- As the attack was happening, Fox so-called “straight news” repeatedly downplayed it. Fox’s chief political anchor Bret Baier likened Trump’s incitement to Democrats bringing up Russia.
- Lou Dobbs accused members of Congress of being “melodramatic” in their response to the attack. He also said the attack wasn’t that bad because people were “walking between the rope lines.” The next day, Dobbs complained that Republicans were not militaristic enough, calling them “milquetoast pacifists.”
- One Fox host explicitly defended the putsch, saying they “love freedom” and were there to “support the President of the United States and defend our Republic.”
- Fox host Mark Levin denied that Trump had anything to do with it.
- A Fox VP questioned why there was a need to remove Trump from office, telling a Republican who was calling for Trump’s removal, “Why not wait it out?”
- Carlson declared that this was not domestic terrorism but just “a political protest that got out of hand.” Because Carlson is a liar, he didn’t explain why people would call for executions or bring zip ties or construct a gallows at a political protest.
- Fox News somehow found a way to say that Black Lives Matter protesters who stormed the Capitol building would have been treated better by the police. There is evidence that one of the terrorists took a selfie with the police at the event some of the people who participated flashed police badges.
- Fox hosts accused Democrats of being “out for blood.”
- Hannity compared Trump inciting an insurrection that sacked the Capitol building to Kathy Griffin’s comments about Trump.
- Fox contributor Dan Bongino told viewers that “This fight’s coming to your door folks. Get ready. You can’t avoid it.”
- Ingraham reserved her harshest comments for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
- Fox News personalities used the putsch as a reason to make voting harder — that is, to implement the preferred policies of the mob.
After Trump was permanently banned from Twitter on Friday evening, Fox personalities complained, and Carlson himself said that it would cause more extremism . Fox has spend the weekend focused not on the putsch or why it happened, but rather complaining about Trump’s removal from various platforms. The network is also complaining about actions taken against far-right social media platform Parler after Apple, Google, and Amazon all found that it was encouraging violence and crime.
One reason why this will happen again is because of how Fox News validated it all.