Eric Alterman | Think Again: The Mainstream Media Opens the Door to Hate [View All]

Networks such as CNN are allowing commentators like Lou Dobbs to voice opinions on the air that are racist, sexist, and xenophobic.

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Obviously, I could spend almost every week demonstrating that the right-wing in the United States is peopled by some very nutty individuals—and believe me, I plan to do plenty of that in the future. History demonstrates what a mistake it can be to treat a crazy fringe as merely that—particularly one with unfettered access to its audience and little sense of responsibility to distinguish between truth and fiction.

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What is perhaps equally troubling, however, is not merely that such things are repeated over and over by what are obviously fringe figures—individuals desperate for attention who would have remained anonymous were it not for their ability to get publicity for their outrageous accusations—but the willingness of the mainstream media to traffic in these same untruths and distortions.

Exhibit A in this regard is clearly CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who, more than any mainstream media figure and even most fringe figures, has done his utmost to stoke this phony controversy.

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You will have noticed by now, I hope, that none of the quotes above can be attributed to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, or anyone on Fox News. I’ve not even needed to go to the well for those old reliables, or Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, or any of the other geniuses that populate our radio dial. Rather these are supposed to be the responsible gatekeepers of our system. And they are selling naked racism, sexism, and xenophobia. What’s more, they are doing so at a time when much of the Republican Party is basing its appeal on exactly this kind of exclusionary message, designed to imply that only white men can legitimately hold powerful office in the United States.

Whatever the policy outcome of our current debates about health care, economic policy, and Afpak, etc., this is truly a dangerous turn of events for the future of democracy, and one that will only grow more serious the longer we willingly ignore it.

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