As the country, and the rest of the world, watched in horror as violent insurrectionists attacked the United States Capitol yesterday, conservative media was reacting quite differently. Unsurprisingly, far right extremist websites like InfoWars and The Gateway Pundit openly praised the mob, even attempting to cast the woman who was killed by police as a political martyr.
But even more mainstream right-wing outlets pushed conspiracy theories, alleging that the mob was actually full of left-wing anti-fascist activists carrying out a false flag operation. Needless to say, there’s absolutely no evidence that left-wing activists were a part of yesterday’s violence, and multiple well-known far-right agitators have been identified already. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, while offering a milquetoast condemnation of the violence more broadly, sympathized with the fascists that their election-related conspiracy theories weren’t given the time of day — without acknowledging that he and his colleagues have been chief promoters of those conspiracy theories.
Conservative media, and the proliferation of its messages on social media, pose a grave threat to the continuation of our democracy. Fox News, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter helped fuel Trump’s rise, and created a vicious feedback loop throughout his presidency that brought rhetoric from the darkest corners of the Internet straight to the White House. Now, millions of people believe this election was stolen and that Joe Biden’s presidency is illegitimate. I don’t have all the answers for how we address this, but I do know one thing: Our democracy remains on shaky ground as long as conservative media’s lies and hate continue to spread.
[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/07/rightwing-media-reaction-trump-mob-capitol?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1610042959](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/07/rightwing-media-reaction-trump-mob-capitol?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1610042959)