Medical Expert Who Corrects Trump Targeted By the Far Right

The sickness of the far right in America is truly frightening.  In a time when the nation faces an extreme health threat and people are literally dying, many on the far right are attacking medical experts who, in their sick and warped view, criticize or challenge their "glorious leader," Donald Trump.  The embrace of ignorance and partisanship is stunning yet is in keeping with the Republican Party's descent into a body where ignorance is celebrated, unqualified individuals are appointed to positions because of their extreme ideology, and loyalty to a man who is loyal to no one. The latest preferred target is Dr. Anthony S. Fauci.  Speaking the truth and medically correct information is unacceptable to the Far right and Trump cult members. A piece in the New York Times looks at the right wing lie machine.  Here are excerpts:

At a White House briefing on the coronavirus on March 20, President Trump called the State Department the “Deep State Department.” Behind him, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, dropped his head and rubbed his forehead.

Some thought Dr. Fauci was slighting the president, leading to a vitriolic online reaction. On Twitter and Facebook, a post that falsely claimed he was part of a secret cabal who opposed Mr. Trump was soon shared thousands of times, reaching roughly 1.5 million people.

A week later, Dr. Fauci — the administration’s most outspoken advocate of emergency measures to fight the coronavirus outbreak — has become the target of an online conspiracy theory that he is mobilizing to undermine the president.

That fanciful claim has spread across social media, fanned by a right-wing chorus of Mr. Trump’s supporters, even as Dr. Fauci has won a public following for his willingness to contradict the president and correct falsehoods and overly rosy pronouncements about containing the virus.

The anti-Fauci sentiment is being reinforced by posts from Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, a conservative group; Bill Mitchell, host of the far-right online talk show “YourVoice America”; and other outspoken Trump supporters such as Shiva Ayyadurai, who has falsely claimed to be the inventor of email.

The torrent of falsehoods aimed at discrediting Dr. Fauci is another example of the hyperpartisan information flow that has driven a wedge into the way Americans think. For the past few years, far-right supporters of President Trump have regularly vilified those whom they see as opposing him. Even so, the campaign against Dr. Fauci stands out because he is one of the world’s leading infectious disease experts . . .

It is the latest twist in the ebb and flow of right-wing punditry that for weeks echoed Mr. Trump in minimizing the threat posed by the coronavirus and arguably undercut efforts to alert the public of its dangers. . . . [right wing “news” outlets] now accuse Democrats and journalists of trying to use the pandemic to damage Mr. Trump politically.

“There seems to be a concerted effort on the part of Trump supporters to spread misinformation about the virus aggressively,” said Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington who has studied misinformation.

The Trump administration has previously shown a distaste for relying on scientific expertise, such as when dealing with climate change. But misinformation campaigns during a pandemic carry a unique danger because they may sow distrust in public health officials when accurate information and advice are crucial, said Whitney Phillips, an assistant professor at Syracuse University who teaches digital ethics.

“What this case will show is that conspiracy theories can kill,” she said.

Ms. Phillips, the Syracuse assistant professor, said the campaign was part of a long-term conspiracy theory propagated by Mr. Trump’s followers.

“Fauci has just been particularly prominent,” she said. “But any public health official who gets cast in a conspiratorial narrative is going to be subject to those same kinds of suspicions, the same kinds of doubt.”

On Thursday, he joined a 30-minute Instagram Live discussion about the coronavirus hosted by the National Basketball Association star Stephen Curry.

In the session, Dr. Fauci, with a miniature basketball hoop behind him, conveyed the same message that he had said for weeks about the outbreak. “This is serious business,” he said. “We are not overreacting.”

Fox News and Trump: No Empathy, Only Lies and Anger

It is hard to calculate how much damage Fox News and its lies, pro-Trump propaganda have done to America. Hopefully, future historians will quantify the damage and some of the "stars" of Fox News will be reviled by future generations.   None of this absolves Trump for his sins, but Fox News and spineless Republicans fearful of a primary challenge from the bizarre and insane far right of the GOP  have enabled him and allowed the poison he spreads to flourish.  The irony now is that their lies and misinformation campaign has left Fox News devotees perhaps the most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic since they least believe that the danger is real and are least likely to modify their behavior - perhaps Darwin's theory will play out with the GOP base.  A column in The Atlantic by David Frum, a former Republican, looks at Fox News' role in Trump's bungling of America's response to the virus threat and how it is now engaged in Trump's effort to shift blame for the Trump/Pence regimes incompetence and malfeasance.  Here are column highlights: 

On the evening of June 21, 1941, American Communists went to bed subject to one party line. At the sun set, Britain was fighting an imperialist war against Germany, about which the United States must remain neutral.

American Communists awoke on June 22, 1941, to discover the party line abruptly changed. Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union. Now the war was a struggle between democracy and fascism, one the United States must immediately join.

The personalities on Fox News executed a similarly abrupt and total pivot on March 13, 2020. The Washington Post produced a stark before/after anthology of the same hosts saying precisely opposite things a few days apart.

Yet the many weeks of denial have had their effect. An Economist poll released March 18 found that only 38 percent of Fox News viewers took the virus seriously, half as many as among MSNBC and CNN viewers. For Trump’s sake, Fox risked the lives of its own audience.

Like the old Moscow-line Communists, the upholders of the Trump party line now need an excuse for their long history of denial and deception. They insisted it was not Trump’s fault that he, and they, squandered precious weeks and that his administration is suddenly dithering and failing. . . . They accused anyone who recalled the truth of repeating Chinese propaganda.

The Trump party line swaps new lies for old. Whereas once the ideological enforcers called concern over the virus a hoax, now they say that it’s a hoax to remember they said it was a hoax.

The Atlantic has been pulled into the crosshairs of the new lies that replaced the old lies in a retweet by the president himself. In response to an article that documented how China’s official lying had aggravated the crisis in that country, and lamented that Trump’s official lying had done the same here, the president’s Twitter feed repeated a slur that The Atlantic “spews communist China’s propaganda.”

Trump wants Americans to call the novel coronavirus “the Chinese virus.” Trump’s new slogan aims at two goals. The first goal is to shift blame away from Trump’s failures and onto China’s. This goal is very unlikely to succeed. We all saw Trump’s catastrophic misjudgments inflict their toll in real time. . . . No, Trump won’t succeed in shifting blame.

It’s the second goal that could succeed. By revving up hate among their supporters against China, Trump and Fox can redirect those supporters’ rage from the dangerous target it might otherwise find: the trusted political and media figures who lied and lied and lied to them, exposing those supporters to disease and death for their own crass ends. Hate China, not me!

A president who sincerely mistrusted China would not have to resort to name-calling after the fact. He would have acted decisively, in good time. Instead, Trump relied on China to do his job for him.

It was Trump and Fox, not the independent media, who repeated Chinese propaganda and put Americans at risk.

A personal note: I was a target of one of Trump’s key media allies on Fox on Tuesday night, Tucker Carlson. Carlson has played an interestingly complex role on the Fox network. On the one hand, he was the first Fox host to speak some measure of truth about the virus. . . . On the other hand, Carlson is the most explicit of Fox’s race-baiters, the Fox personality furthest from traditional conservatism and nearest to the new alt-right. Carlson is the main voice on Fox for Russian state propaganda, . . .

While Trump, Fox, and Carlson try to redirect the anger of the people they betrayed, it’s worth noticing something strikingly absent from the speeches and writings of this administration and its Trump-line network: a word of sympathy or compassion for the thousands of Americans getting sick and dying on this president’s watch, as a result of this president’s neglect of his duties. They’re not capable of such language. They gain power by targeting outsiders. After the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush made an early visit to a Washington mosque. He spoke feelingly against bigotry, and helped curb the rash of hate crimes that erupted in the fall of 2001.

Trump and his party-line media do not do that. They cannot do that. That would take empathy—and empathy might dangerously remind Americans of the tragic cost of Trump’s mismanagement and absent leadership. . . . . The government and the government-line television network are, for the time being, in the charge of broken souls. Those broken souls are breaking a nation.

Quote of the Day - Michael Steele, Former RNC Chair

Former RNC chair, Michael Steele

With Republicans and the usual voices of right wing media - who would tell you it was raining on a bright sunny day if it fit their purposes - trying the blame the federal government shutdown on Democrats, a few responsible voices from the right are not buying it.  One is former RNC chairman, Michael Steele who I listen to often on satellite radio on my evening commute.  I sense Steele's frustration with what the Republican Party has become and his disgust with the current occupant of the White House.  Here's a quote from Sterele via Politico:

Despite the rhetorical effort to paste Democrats with “Schumer’s Shutdown” and to redefine what constitutes majority control of the senate (“60”? Really?), the fact remains that this shutdown rests at the feet of the GOP and it appears a majority of Americans agree. I don’t like it. It certainly could have been avoided, but the President wound up negotiating against himself by taking a potential agreement off the table, leaving Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to lament, “As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels.” That put Republicans in the position to spin their wheels right into another government shutdown. Pitiful.

Yes, 60 votes were needed in the Senate, so that means Republicans need to compromise.  Yet, that is something they are unwilling to do as is the lunatic in the White House who increasingly acts as if he is bi-polar and definitely not staying on his meds. One moment his conciliatory and then the next he swings back into obstruction.   believe that intelligent voters - sorry, but that excludes Fox News viewers - will understand that the blame falls on the GOP and Trump. 

The Alternate Universe of Fox News; Buckley on Trump

My firm's office that I principally work out of is located in a business suites complex with numerous other tenants, including close to a half dozen other law firms.  Over all, it is a mixed group of tenants, all of whom share a kitchen/lounge area with a TV in it, as well as the large central printer/copier. During the 2016 election, there was an unspoken battle as to what channel would be on: Fox News, a/k/a Faux News, CNN or MSNBC, with people regularly changing the channel to their preferred channel.  Interestingly, now the TV remains almost always set to CNN or MSNBC.  Fox News, much more rarely.  On the increasingly rare occasions when the TV is tuned to Fox News, the best way to describe the coverage is as an alternate universe where major stories and facts are simply not reported.  Indeed, Fox News might as well be Russian state controlled television insofar as only right wing affirming coverage is aired.  A case in point was yesterday when news was breaking about Robert Mueller's empaneling of a DC based grand jury.  A New York Magazine headline says it all: " CNN: Grand Jury. MSNBC: Grand Jury. Fox News: Literally Anything Else."  The Founding Fathers believed that it was critical that the country have an informed electorate and that citizens had a duty to be well informed on the issues and events of the day.  One does NOT fulfill that duty watching Fox News.  Here are excerpts from the New York Magazine piece:

Earlier on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury as part of his ongoing investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. (The White House, for its part, just keeps reiterating that Donald Trump is not under investigation and plans to fully cooperate with Mueller.) The WSJ called it “a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase.” This is, clearly, big news. The kind of news that major networks should be talking about. . . . Frankly, once you’ve read The Wall Street Journal report about the grand jury, you might want to tune into Fox News. Seems like they’re running some very fun segments this evening.

If - or more likely when - indictments come, Fox News viewers will no doubt be in shock and ask "how did this happen."  For racists, religious extremists, and xenophobes, Fox News has become a way to stick one's head in the sand and ignore reality.

Meanwhile, some conservative outlets are reporting on the real Donald Trump.  A case in point is Red State which has a timely piece that reveals what William F. Buckley - an icon to thinking conservatives (admittedly a vanishing species) - thought of Der Trumpenführer, none of it good. Here are highlights:

There has been a lot of discussion in the last several months over whether not several conservative icons would be supporting Donald Trump for President. William F.  Buckley, the founder of National Review and host of Firing Line said during the 1964 GOP primary that his rule was to support the “most rightward viable candidate.” That has often been turned into “the most conservative, electable candidate.” 

Willam F. Buckley wrote something about Donald Trump when he was talking about running for President — in 2000. Buckley, in an essay he wrote for  Cigar Aficionado and said the following about Trump:

Look for the narcissist. The most obvious target in today’s lineup is, of course, Donald Trump. When he looks at a glass, he is mesmerized by its reflection. If Donald Trump were shaped a little differently, he would compete for Miss America. But whatever the depths of self-enchantment, the demagogue has to say something. So what does Trump say? That he is a successful businessman and that that is what America needs in the Oval Office. There is some plausibility in this, though not much. The greatest deeds of American Presidents — midwifing the new republic; freeing the slaves; harnessing the energies and vision needed to win the Cold War — had little to do with a bottom line.

Wow. He wrote this sixteen years ago. And think about it. Some of our most pressing concerns right now have to do with foreign policy and and national security. Trump’s business acumen, however questionable, is worthless in such cases.

And he wasn’t finished:

In the final analysis, just as the king might look down with terminal disdain upon a courtier whose hypocrisy repelled him, so we have no substitute for relying on the voter to exercise a quiet veto when it becomes more necessary to discourage cynical demagogy, than to advance free health for the kids. That can come later, in another venue; the resistance to a corrupting demagogy should take first priority.

Finally, he illuminated Trump’s narcissism by comparing him with Steve Forbes:

So what else can Trump offer us? Well to begin with, a self-financed campaign. Does it follow that all who finance their own campaigns are narcissists? At this writing Steve Forbes has spent $63 million in pursuit of the Republican nomination. Forbes is an evangelist, not an exhibitionist. In his long and sober private career, Steve Forbes never bought a casino, and if he had done so, he would not have called it Forbes’s Funhouse. His motivations are discernibly selfless. . .

Buckley, a New Yorker, had more of an insight into Trump than others. At the time Trump wasn’t known to the rest of the country beyond people knew he was some rich businessman. Buckley however, was privy to the nonsense Trump engaged within NYC and Buckley was just well aware of it. Whatever it was, he had Trump pegged.

Will “Trump Derangement Syndrome” Be Used to Silence Critics?

Personally, I believe that one needed to be deranged to vote for Donald Trump - or motivated by hate, racism, bigotry and/or right wing Christian extremism.   If you voted for Trump, facts simply did not matter nor did the endless stream of lies issuing from Trump's mouth and those of his sycophants.   Yet now that Der Fuhrer is just days from assuming the presidency, some Trump apologists - and perhaps modern day JosephGoebbels equivalents - may be poised to launch a campaign claiming that it is Trump's opponents who suffer from derangement.  The premise? First, lie often enough and eventually many will believe the lie. Second, when you cannot counter the factual argument of opponents, simply malign them and attack them and try to "change the subject."  The Bolsheviks and Nazis used this type of approach and we know - or at those of us who know accurate history - where that led Russia and German, respectively.  A piece in Salon looks at the likely coming campaign against Trump/Pence opponents and the reality that it is the Trump supporters and apologist who are deranged.  Here are excerpts:

Do you believe that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy? Have you shared these concerns and anxieties with other people? Do you see disturbing connections between how fascism and authoritarianism took hold in other countries and what is occurring in the United States at present?

If so, you may be suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome” — at least according to Los Angeles Times guest columnist Justin Raimondo.  Raimondo explains:

The country is in the throes of a major epidemic, with no known cure and some pretty scary symptoms. It’s called Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, and it’s rapidly spreading from the point of origin – the political class – to the population at large. In the first stage of the disease, victims lose all sense of proportion. The president-elect’s every tweet provokes a firestorm, as if 140 characters were all it took to change the world…

In the advanced stages of the disease, the afflicted lose touch with reality. Opinion is unmoored from fact. . . . . Opinion is unmoored from fact. Life resembles a dark fairy tale in which the villain – Trump – is an amalgam of all the worst tyrants in history, past and present, while the heroes – Trump’s critics – are akin to the resistance fighters of World War II. TDS victims routinely compare Trump to Hitler …

Which raises the question: If he’s another Hitler, if he’s in league with Putin, then why is assassination out of the question? Poke a TDS victim and you’ll find they don’t think that “solution” is out of the question at all.

This is the final stage of the TDS epidemic: violence against a democratically elected leader. Unless a cure for TDS is found, this is where we are headed.

Raimondo’s theory and claims are absurd.  They are an exercise in projection. It is not Trump who has been greeted with almost deranged, crazed, unhinged, unfounded, unreasonable and maddened opposition, but rather Barack Obama.

Republicans and the broader right-wing news disinformation-entertainment complex created racist conspiracy theories such as “Birtherism” (whose lead advocates included Donald Trump) in an effort to delegitimize the country’s first black president. Republicans also used the language of the American Civil War in their threats of “nullification,” “secession” and invocations of “states’ rights” against Barack Obama. This was part of a broader pattern of reckless, extreme and irresponsible behavior by Republicans with the goal of undermining Obama’s presidency. Republican leaders went so far as to develop a strategy of opposing every one of Obama’s potential initiatives, regardless of what he proposed.

Basic facts should encourage people of conscience to resist Donald Trump. This is not derangement but rational and reasonable behavior. As I have explained numerous times, Donald Trump is a fascist authoritarian. He has promised to undermine basic tenets of American democracy, such as freedom of the press. Trump has also encouraged violence against his political foes. He has surrounded himself with political advisors who are affiliated with the most extreme and dangerous right-wing elements in American politics (and, increasingly, global politics), such as white supremacists and white nationalists. The American intelligence community has concluded that Russian spies and other agents, acting in support of Donald Trump’s candidacy, actively interfered with the 2016 presidential election.

Ironically, efforts to pathologize or psychologize those who oppose Donald Trump actually reflect deeper problems with both him as a candidate and now president-elect, as well as his supporters. Psychologists and other observers have concluded that Donald Trump may suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. He is an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Trump is also profoundly ignorant, and as the Atlantic pointed out in a blistering condemnation during the 2016 campaign, “he appears not to read.” His movement possesses the attributes of a political cult. Trump is now also the leader of a Republican Party (and broader conservative movement) that acts more like a religion than a functional political organization interested in responsible governance.

While Raimondo’s claims are absurd and irresponsible, we ignore them at our peril. “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is a preview of the narrative framework that will likely be used by conservatives and their allies in a compliant corporate news media to silence Trump’s critics. To that end, those who oppose Trump and his administration will be described as “crazy” or “unhinged.” The mainstream news media — because of its slavish adherence to false equivalency and a “both sides do it” narrative — will insist that Trump’s critics should “give him a chance” and are somehow “hypocrites” if they complained about Republican obstructionism against Obama.

The right-wing propagandists who will deploy “Trump Derangement Syndrome” against their enemies have one ultimate goal: to normalize the danger to American democracy represented by Trump and his supporters.

It is not those who oppose Trump who are deranged, but rather those voters who convinced themselves that a plutocrat authoritarian reality TV star con man and professional wrestler wannabe with no experience in government at any level was qualified to be president of the United States.

This is America’s great national derangement. Those who stand against and oppose Donald Trump are patriots who are trying to return the country to sanity.

Be very afraid, but never stop the opposition.