Trump's most die-hard media supporters are proving that owning the libs is more important to them than the lives of their fellow Americans during the coronavirus pandemic
- To all of Donald Trump's most hardcore media supporters, the novel coronavirus pandemic is not the final step in a grand conspiracy against you or your dear leader.
- You are spreading misinformation to an enormous audience, misinformation that could put lives in danger.
- Feel free to "own the libs" all you want over the Democrats' failure to remove Trump from office, or "no collusion," or "SJW campus snowflakes."
- But please, if you call yourself a patriot, do the decent thing and stop being so selfish that you put your fellow Americans' lives at risk. Some things are more important than your hustle.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
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To all of Donald Trump's most hardcore media supporters,
The novel coronavirus pandemic is not the final step in a grand conspiracy against you or your dear leader, as several conservative commentators have asserted.
You do not possess hidden, secret truths buried by the "deep state," as a popular internet talk show host has claimed.
And by digging in on your fantastical conspiracy theories despite all available evidence, you are proving definitively that you are not patriots.
You are willfully spreading misinformation to an enormous audience, misinformation that could put their health in danger or put the health of those around them in danger.
Some of you, like the disgraced InfoWars' disgraced impresario Alex Jones, are attempting to directly profit off of such misinformation about COVID-19.
Specifically, Mr. Jones, you have been selling products to your fanbase with the false promise that they make one "immune" to coronavirus. Thankfully, New York Attorney General Letitia James has ordered you to stop this disgraceful grift, but she can't stop you from filling your fans' heads with poisonous ideas. That's your responsibility.
What makes your act so disgraceful is that you've already admitted, under oath during divorce proceedings, that your bluster and deception is indeed an act.
The decent thing to do would be to admit that what you do is designed to be entertainment, and that no one should take a word Alex Jones says seriously.
You've had your fun, Always Trumpers, but the joke's just not funny anymore
Ever since he became president, Trump has made you - his biggest and loudest fans - feel both empowered and completely convinced that you're besieged by a "mainstream" that hates America and "real Americans," a title to which you imagine yourself to own the exclusive rights.
You rage on cable TV, YouTube, and Twitter, and your public profiles have been enhanced. Trump's "victim/bully" dichotomy has been your model.
But at what point does your sense of human decency outweigh your incentive to rile up your paying customers by "triggering the libs"?
Here's a question for you, Jerry Falwell, Jr.
Including online students, there are approximately 110,000 people enrolled at Liberty University - the evangelical college founded by your father, of which you are president.
Being a man of faith, how do you justify going on the president's favorite cable TV morning show and propagating baseless speculation that the coronavirus is both an over-hyped non-event fabricated by "the media" - but also potentially a bioterror weapon manufactured by North Korea?
Sure, the president sees you're his loyal servant, but is Trump the being to whom you're most responsible?
And as for you, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, you're right-wing media weathervanes. You'll adopt the values of whichever conservative is in the White House and memory-hole your vociferous support of past "failed" Republican presidents, their military quagmires, and their economic policies.
But unlike the online huckster trying to scrape by on bogus health supplements,, you are both extraordinarily rich men and in no danger of losing your bully pulpits.
For you, Mr. Limbaugh, to tell your audience of more than 15 million that the coronavirus is merely "the common cold" and say it's been "weaponized" to take down Trump is beyond mere partisan hackery. It's simply despicable.
And you, Mr. Hannity, with your Fox News nightly show and your daily syndicated radio show, have an even bigger audience than Limbaugh. That's why it's the height of cynicism for you to say "it may be true" that the coronavirus is a "fraud" being used by the "deep state" to "manipulate economies, suppress dissent, and push mandated medicines."
It's one thing to act like a cultist for Trump. But what you're doing now is literally dangerous.
Spike the ball over the Democrats' failure to remove Trump from office.
Luxuriate in the fact that Robert Mueller's report did not find evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Mock the "SJW campus snowflakes" that you fear will end Western civilization.
But please, if you call yourself a patriot, do the decent thing and stop being so selfish that you put your fellow Americans' lives at risk.
Some things are more important than your hustle.
- Read more:
- Trump's inability to clearly communicate is making the government's coronavirus pandemic response seem like chaos
- Photos at the White House show Trump meeting with actors in a play about the 'deep state' amid the coronavirus outbreak
- Current and former Trump officials say CPAC failed to offer useful coronavirus updates, leaving them confused and angry about their level of exposure
- CPAC 2020 was all about worshiping Trump, hating socialism, and feeling victimized by media and the left