"During the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 that left one woman dead, marchers shouted, “You will not replace us.”
Surely, the shout reported at the time was "Jews will not replace us."
1
Joseph Goebbels, the late Nazi propaganda minister, was the master of the "Big Lie." The idea was to repeat over and over again the same falsehood, the same distortion of fact, that the public would soon believed to be true. It worked in Germany in the 1930s and it is the mainstay of the Republican distortion machine today. The mass murderer in El Paso was not insane. He was rational, working off the lies and distortions coming out of Fox and the White House.The blood of the victims of El Paso is on hands of Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Donald J. Trump. Once we were the beacon to the world. We once believed in the text of Emma Lazarus's poem, when she wrote, "give us your tired and huddled masses, who yearn to breathe free." We are no longer that nation of immigrants. Instead, with Trump and his minions in the media, and the hand wringers among us here, we are a shadow of what we once were. I am just waiting for the Republicans to try to return us to eugenics, who thought that all we only need was the right "protoplasm," not the protoplasm from inferior peoples, but the worthy ones, like the "nordic" states. Personally, I am sickened by Americans who are willing to condone Trump's racism and excuse his failed immigration policies, without comprehending the variables driving these migratory patterns. If we are not careful, we will rue the day that we refused to stand up and declare this is not us.
2
“Shoot the invaders”.
Is that an advertising for the NRA?
3
It is clear that those who fuel fear know conservatives are fragile and insecure. They play on those deep set issues, while those feeling fear think walls will protect them. Walled compounds, private schools, stopping free speech may satisfy their 'control freak' personality flaws but will do nothing to protect their 'culture'. Ideas and language don't respect walls. American culture (whatever that is) will survive. If it is so ephemeral perhaps it should not last.
After all culture is not pie. If it is, it is an infinite pie and everyone can have a piece. Trying to deny someone their pie has never worked nor could it. The best thing is to share it. Like love and music, there is no limit on how many times you may go back for some more.
3
Though I hate the way donald trump and his Fox News cronies use the word “ Invasion” to foster FEAR among White Americans; being a naturalized citizen who had to wait YEARS before entering this country LEGALLY, I have to agree with them that allowing ILLEGAL immigration by ANYONE, or giving unregulated REFUGEE status to untold numbers of foreigners, IS tantamount to an INVASION of this country.
I went to buy a used tricycle near a small neighborhood park in Sacramento a few months ago, and that park was so FULL of Arabic speaking women and children that I had to do a DOUBLE-TAKE to make sure that I was still in America and NOT in Iraq or some other Arabic countries.
It was at that moment that I understood why Rush Limbaugh and his ilk are using the term “ INVASION” because that’s EXACTLY what it is, and ALL Americans need to be able to speak about this issue without being called RACIST.
This is no surprise. If the NY Times really wanted to cover where the phrases come from and what is going on in rural areas they would begin monitoring RW AM radio talk shows, especially in the evening and in Red States. It would be hair raising reporting.
3
This country was red and brown long before white Europeans invaded. Black people were brought involuntarily as slaves for the white people. Why the perception that it was or "should be" white?
5
The sad fact is that you can't make sense out of a senseless act...
To blame others (i.e. in this instance, conservative media) for the senseless actions of a psychotic mass-shooter extends the illogical reasoning, much as it did previously when people blamed heavy metal music for violence in America.
We're moving closer and closer to a society like the one Kurt Vonnegut detailed in "Harrison Bergeron" - and losing our sense of individuality, humanity, and accountability in the process.
2
“…the distinct or unique American culture”, so said Rush Limbaugh whose ancestors probably came from Germany. The question is what distinct, unique American culture is Limbaugh speaking about? Certainly not Native American culture that was displaced and largely destroyed by European settlers. The unique element of American culture is its great diversity. Not just white Anglo-Celtic-Saxon immigrants.
As a kid growing up in Albuquerque, I first met Hispanic children most of whom were bilingual. I learned that the first European settlers had been Spanish and had, at one time, been ousted by Native Americans in the 16th century. Albuquerque was founded in 1714 by Spanish settlers from Mexico. And in Texas where I was born, German settlers immigrated from Europe via Philadelphia to build new lives for themselves, displacing Native American groups that had been there for thousands of years. So, were the Germans “unique” in bringing their culture to Texas?
The minute someone tries to put a limit on what is uniquely “American” about our culture, he/she runs into the vastness of our immigration history. Hoards of people from Central America storming across our southern border? Didn’t happen. What did happen was that Trump and many other businessmen hired undocumented aliens from Central America and elsewhere, in violation of U.S. law, to work on their estates, in their businesses, and around their homes. Did they contribute to the uniqueness and distinction of American culture?
2
In describing large and increasing number of illegal border crossings, the word "invasion" isn't unreasonable, hyperbolic perhaps, but so is the word "inhumane" in describing a border wall. In day to day use, we also accuse someone of invasion of privacy, sometimes when that someone is only sitting too close.
It is however not using such a word, but using it five times in a sentence, that stokes hate. It is the hidden message and not the meaning of the word that grows the xenophobic sentiments, leading to hate crimes. It is not OK to do it in a rally, or on TV, and this is my personal opinion.
Media/press covering media isn't anything new. I only wish NYT had used a subtler title. When a Fox news consumer sees such a title, chances are, this person won't read much of the piece, nor will he like NYT very much. Don't we all want this country a little less divided?
Immigration and demographic change are very complex volatile topics. FOX used imagery and language that was sometimes inflamatory. But they articulated concerns of average Americans who were economically harmed by immigration. Liberals and the NYT ignored surging levels of illegal immigration for decades and the full range of consequences of such major population movements. Those who raised questions about the alleged benefits of illegal or legal immigration were imperiously dissed by elites as "racists" and "nativists" and "deplorables"--which put Trump in the White House. It is axiomatic that the U.S. was built on the backs of cheap immigrant labor, as dictated by global capitalism's efforts to sequentially "replace" one ethnic group with another cheaper one. It is still true today--especially when coupled with outsourcing. We need a serious, long two-sided discussion. This tabloid-type article sabotages such efforts.
Dear people who hate immigrants and foreigners. If you don't want them coming, stop making their home countries war zones!
Stop supporting the sale of arms and weaponry to them, stop working for companies that do, stop investing your pension funds in these companies, stop supporting war hawk politicians and stop listening to news drumming up support for wars.
You support an administration where the logical conclusion is more immigrants and refugees because we made their part of the world unliveable.
There is a wonderful saying, "you are only as rich as your poorest neighbour." How rich are you when you support the separation of children and caging them up like you wouldn't dare do to your dog?
3
Yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre is not free speech and the thinly veiled code words used by right-wing media loudmouths should be considered no less inflammatory. Such speech is specifically intended to incite, provoke, stoke hatred, instill fear, and pander to the base instincts of an ignorant, bigoted population, much to the detriment of the majority of fair-minded Americans.
1
The Times is sometimes right on, other times not so much. This article strikes me as idiotic. I think characterizing the flow of immigrants from Mexico as an invasion is entirely valid. Granted, some right-wing rhetoric is inflammatory and should be condemned, but this is not it. This is not yelling "Fire" in a movie theater, it's calling a spade a spade.
We have too many crazies at both extremes of the political spectrum, and they may take inspiration from speeches or arguments that confirm their own feelings of injury. But that doesn't justify blaming murder and violence on the messenger here.
We can debate whether we need a wall, and believe that folks who reach our borders should be treated more humanely than they are. But no thinking person can seriously doubt that large numbers of people are trying to enter the country illegally. That's a fact. Characterizing that fact as an invasion is not such hyperbole. Blaming violence on people who say that out loud is not justified. The Times should not pander to its more extremist readers by attempting to support that connection.
It's interesting this article ignored and omitted the shooters concern that we couldn't handle more immigrants for environmental reasons or because of robots taking job - talking points from the squad and Andrew Yang.
He also clearly had been taught the language of inter-sectional theory that sees people as part of groups before individuals but that theory was twisted so he was no longer the oppressor but the oppressed. Intersectionality and the alt-right are kissing cousins of each other that have grievance as their product.
The biggest thing this piece ignores, in it's attempt to promote an political agenda, is the hopelessness, nihilism and despair of millions of young men in our society. Yeah, the top 20% are doing great but the bottom 80% of males aren't.
About 3,000 men about the same age as the El Passo shooter have committed suicide so far in 2019 and shooting were happening before Trump. I don't think a political win is the answer.
1
The right to free speech must stop at the right to disseminate false lies.
1
If Tucker doesn't like it here, he can go back to whatever rock he crawled out from under.
2
Fox News and other more conservative media sources & stars have made millions and billions by helping to increase and promote fear in America around immigration. They help to create a crisis where there isn't one through their business model. They help to increase the anxiety and anger because it is a money maker for them. This time period in America isn't any more of an invasion than when millions of Europeans immigrated in the 19th and 20th century, or when we took in people after WWII. Every generation of immigrants and refugees eventually assimilates, it is inevitable because of the openness of American society. America transforms us all, one generation after another, and it starts in elementary school. There is nothing wrong with offering classes in any language, or teaching more than one language. It actually enhances our ability to learn, especially the young. And there is nothing wrong with holding on to some portion of your family's heritage, we all do you know, especially in the family recipes passed down from one generation to another. America has always been a salad-bowel of diversity, it is one of our greatest strengths.
1
The first amendment to the constitution needs to be re looked at. Facts and truth hardly matter anymore and conspiracy theories and misinformation have often become the norm! If this continues, what is left of the U.S. democracy will be totally extinguished.
If in fact the shooting in El Paso was influenced by incendiary language, the blame for the ensuing tragedy falls on both right and left wing media.
For example, Trump sends out a tweet in which he uses the term "invasion". The media reports the tweet., as they should . So far, OK. Probably only a small portion of the population even knows about it at this point.
But then, cable news might spend days of programming, hour after hour, continuously, discussing, criticizing often condemning the words used, primarily to rile up their own viewership, until they make sure that everyone knows about the language used. In doing so, they go far beyond basic news reporting and actually widely disseminate the very language they are condemning, and deliberately do so.
Those who first utter the words cannot be excused, but those who constantly repeat them exponentially increase the effect of those words. They therefor are at least as culpable in inflaming emotions. In areas of the law where harmful speech is punished, such as libel, the party who repeats the offensive language to others is often held as guilty, or even more responsible, for the harmful effect.
Those who sanctimoniously decry the objectionable language of another, then exploit that language by drumming it into our consciousness share responsibility for any tragedies influenced by the very words they condemn.
Does it really matter how the perpetrator hears the words, as long as he hears them?
This kind of language mirrors the eugenicists and anti-immigration radicals that were ascendant after WWI. Daniel Okrent's book "The Guarded Gate" documents it very well. Their efforts culminated in the restrictive immigration legislation passed in 1924. That legislation called for absurdly low quotas in a direct effort to minimize the number of "undesirables" that were let into the country. Then it was Italians, Greeks, Polish and other eastern Europeans (as well as Jews). Fast forward two decades and many of these people were victims of Nazi genocide. Even emergency legislation to admit 20,000 Jewish children died in the senate. God help us if this nativist racism becomes mainstream.
1
What if they knew they were listening to actors, people playing a part.
1
Until we take the conditions in our own hemisphere that are causing the refugee crisis at our border seriously, we will be dealing with this problem for decades.
Through inattention to conditions in our own backyard, the US has allowed El Salvador, Guatemala, & Honduras to slip into the ranks of failed states, infested by drug cartels, corrupt politicians, & lawlessness.
Further, many of those found huddling on our doorstep are subsistence farmers wiped out by 4 yrs of drought (a drought so severe it is effecting operations at the Panama Canal), this hemisphere’s first Climate Refugees.
The President of Mexico suggested a Marshall Plan for the region. That’s not a bad idea.
The original Marshall Plan rebuilt war torn Europe, but it also staunched refugee flow by providing safety, food, shelter, & employment. Most refugees eventually drifted home.
The Marshall Plan was also good for American business as we shipped building supplies, heavy equipment, medical equipment, & food to Europe, easing us off of wartime footing.
There will be, of course, a military component to this Plan, but at least it will be keeping the peace & driving cartels further from our borders.
1
We learned in middle school social studies class that the media must always be truthful in a Democracy. We learned about "slanted" news. We learned how it would lead to social chaos. It was unethical, if not immoral. We also learned how the news could be used to brainwash the public in places like the USSR. Perhaps the medium is the message, and the problem is not one political party or the other, but the source of the rhetoric itself and how it is being used for self promotion.
1
Well, yes, conservative media is certainly no ally to immigrants seeking asylum but what about Donald Trump referencing immigrants as "invaders" some 500 times at campaign rallies? He is essentially using this term as a dog whistle to incite hatred toward immigrants, even inspiring some among his fan base who feel as if it is their patriotic duty to take up arms to eliminate the threat of these "invaders". Words matter and carry consequences, especially coming from the White House. Senator Kamala Harris was spot on when she more or less said that while Donald Trump didn't pull the trigger in El Paso, his tweets and incendiary language at campaign rallies were the ammunition.
2
This story of the affect of right wing media on their listeners is not new. I recall that Limbaugh et al all were accused of influencing Timothy McVeigh.
Personally I stopped listening to talk radio and Fox decades ago because of the tone adopted by all of their talking heads. All of them seem to imply that not only are people who disagree with them wrong, but that they are also enemies to be defeated or punished. Obviously, this type of conduct is dangerous and its practitioners called out on it.
1
Perhaps some definitions are in order:
An 'invader' is someone coming to invade the U.S. as part of an orchestrated event, as in a military invasion.
A 'replacement' is someone coming to displace a U.S. citizen from a job, or in a program of eugenics.
A 'border jumper' is someone who wants to come to the U.S. to obtain a personal benefit.
A 'refugee' is someone who wants to come to the U.S. to escape famine or disease.
An 'asylum seeker' is someone who wants to come to the U.S. because they have a well-founded fear of persecution. That means a fear that someone is trying to kill, maim or impoverish them or their families. They have to document the persecution in order to separate themselves from the merely paranoid (a psychological condition).
1
Could this article incite some crazies to do mass killings of people being vilified? The answer is not intentionally of course. But politicians from both sides including Maxine Waters (and no it is not racist to criticize anyone whether they are of color or not) should tone down their rhetoric. I should say more so in the media Fox included but majority are not Fox, who seem to be at it leading the way.
So, if people like Carlson and Limbaugh are responsible for this, how is it that Trump, who routinely retweets and approves of what they say, not responsible Is complicity in acrime an impeachable offense?
2
The United States could reduce anti-immigrant sentiment by incorporating aspects of Latin American immigration laws. For example, Article 37 of Mexico’s General Law of Population bars immigrants whose presence would upset the nation’s demographic equilibrium.
Source: Ley General de Población de 1974
http://imumi.org/attachments/Ley_General_de_Poblacion_1974.pdf
Since Tucker Carlson must come from a superior form of life, he deserves to enjoy his riches while he still has his youthful charm and good looks. Why not make the vacation permanent?
3
There resides in these united states of America a quiet confidence in the inherent and multifarious appeals for immigrants to become Americanized, based on their own interest to do so, at the behest of their appreciation for the opportunities that America offers them and the values and principles it was founded on.
This is one of our country’s greatest assets and strengths: that the assimilation process and the will to assimilate derive not from a forced assimilation pursued by the state. Such a policy derives from a fear that citizen loyalties are not to the nation but to sub-nations. Take the historical case of communist Bulgaria. Citizens of Turkish descent there were forced to adopt Slavic names. The Turkish language was banned in public. That regime had self-awareness that it could not rely on the authentic desire of citizens to be patriotic, it had to be fostered via indoctrination and the vagaries of subtle and not so subtle threats.
Our success as a nation is embodied in the freedom we give to citizens in pursuing their love and loyalty to our nation at their own pace, in simultaneity with the speaking of multiple languages and cultural ties.
My parents came to this country and came to love it not because the government said to do so but because there were clear and compelling reasons to do so. They remain proud members of the Turkish nation but not at the expense of American patriotism.
3
"Not so long ago we fought World War II against the kind of culture we have become. "
This comes from a commenter below.
I am sickened by the speed at which the right has turned this country from the most revered and loved country in the world. We were looked up to because of our clarion call for Democracy, our freedoms and our governments decency toward it's people and the people of the world, as a whole. We are now the leaders of hate and the peers and friends of the worst of the worst , anti Democratic countries. Our allies have seen what can happen when we let our guard down. They will not trust us for a very long time. Years of hard earned respect and trust have been torn asunder and we will be hard pressed to earn it back any time soon.
Where we land after this is up to us. I for one will not stand for it. VOTE, work for honest and thoughtful leadership. We can turn this around. VOTE.
2
Whether Trump creates phrases or repeats them, the key thing is that the President of the USA has used them. There will always be extremest media, but when a supposed leader of the USA uses charged phrases they are responsible for the consequences.
2
The right loves to find a boogie man (nationality, group, religion and more) for all of it's issues. Pandering in fear is easier than finding solutions to real problems.
1
@Speedo it's just a smokescreen for tax cuts for the rich, other forms of corporate welfare, and letting the fat cats off scot free, like when they round up the illegal workers and NOT the employers. They shoot the shoplifter but the crooked bankers and politicians walk. You get it.
1
So let me get this straight. Rush Limbaugh, not fatherless homes, lack of Faith in God, violence in society, violent computer games, and seeing a illegal mass migration into our country on tv inspired this particular massacre.
Then that logic would dictate that the Ohio shooting was inspired by Elizabeth Warren and her ill conceived policies.
Or the shooting of the Republican congressmen was inspired by Bernie Sanders.
1
@Frank my parents were raised in fatherless homes. They don't go to church. They never committed a crime. Sorry to see you recommending that we do to people fleeing violence and oppression the same things that were eventually rejected when it involved the Irish, Italians and Chinese, among others.
1
I fear that our country is dominated by the media. FOX versus CNN and CNBC are slugging it out with no interest in finding solutions. I long to hear a reasonable voice - someone who can weigh the issues that face us all without distortion. The media has lost its soul if it ever had one. Why is it that the loudest voices screech their way to the top? Boycotting by large advertisers will get my attention.
If the culture Fox, Sinclair and other right-wing channels wish to protect is reflective of their values, I hope more people come across the border. The sooner the better.
3
Certainly the right wing media hosts are fanning the flames of racial conflict. But their leader is Trump.
While hate speech is well defined and commonly understood in the US, there are currently no laws prohibiting it. However it is ILLEGAL to make bigoted statements while threatening bodily harm to a person or group, or to incite violence against a group who are the targets of bigoted statements.
Clearly Trump's first speech as a candidate, in which he railed against Mexicans as rapists and murderers, and his frequent hateful mention of Mexicans as criminals and invaders, incited the mayhem in El Paso.
Furthermore, Federal government employees are not allowed to discriminate against members of a protected class. Clearly, and proudly, Trump discriminates against immigrants based on their race and country of origin.
Will anyone in power notice? In particular, will congressional Democrats notice? Trump has committed yet another crime, right in our faces, this time with violent, lethal consequences.
He incited violence in speeches against Hillary Clinton, and against "the Squad", which only coincidentally did not result in actual violent acts.
And we can easily anticipate that Trump will foment hatred and incite violence again and again as the 2020 campaign advances.
How much more do Dems need to impeach him ???
1
And what of the Dayton killer? There doesn't appear to be nearly as much interest in the illicit drug-using registered democrat's motives.
Words matter! The Democratic Party desperately needs to work on this.
Say "gun safety laws", not "gun control", "affordable education", not "free college", "health care for all", not "free health care".
The GOP has learned their lesson well on language, words, repetition. The Democrats need to catch up.
One of the MAIN reasons for the "invasion" is the drug war going on in Central America. American's demand for marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamines, fentanyl, and other drugs (many made in China and imported through Central America) has caused unbearable crime causing the inhabitants there to want to flee the chaos and murder caused by the drug cartel. We in the USA are responsible for this magnet effect drawing the people there to perceived safety here. So....., we have no one to blame except ourselves. It is OUR SINS AND CRIMES which have caused this mess. Time to get on our knees and ask forgiveness from the Almighty.
What about Jessica Vaughan and Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies? What about Stephen Miller? Connect the dots. Look at the work done by The Southern Law Poverty Institute on connecting the administration to nefarious anti-immigrant lobbyists.
1
@Christine A. Roux Immigration needs to be legal and orderly and in the best interest of the citizens of the U.S. It's that simple. Anybody doesn't have the right to come here, especially with bogus claims of asylum or economic depravity. We can't have millions of people flooding into this country every year without periods of assimilation. We can't provide for millions of people who have extreme needs. And if you don't think that this is where we're heading then you are not living in the real world of the U.S.
This was an act of terrorism and it should be called out as such. Why do we tolerate this? Why do we deflect into parsing words, describing video games and abstracting on the NRA? We should be simply and loudly calling the current administration accountable for the huge increase of terrorism on their watch and not letting them change the subject. And democrats can stop their leveraging of this for partisan gain.
1
There seems to be a theme here from those that believe the "refugees" from Central America are legitimate Asylum seekers. Well for those of you who think this think again. Our laws provide this "out" for those who want a better life. A better economic outcome for their families. I get it. If I lived in one of these countries I would want the same for my family. But we cannot take all the people who wish to come here. It's not about changing the looks or the makeup of our country. It is just we don't have the resources.
I am one of these people who believe that there should be a comprehensive immigration plan, but frankly, there is no will on either side of the political aisle for that. It is just all about who can make the other side look worse.
All out politicians, Republican and Democrat alike are to blame for this.
4
This is not news. There is probably a "striking degree" of overlap between politicians, and media outlets, whether MSM or not, on the left or right on any given day through the use and proliferation of "talking points" and the intrinsic contagiousness of language through conversation.
What exactly is "striking"? "Striking" relative to what exactly?
2
I was under the impression that the white nationalist/supremacists were chanting “Jews will not replace us,” not “you will not replace us.” Am I mistaken?
In any case, this is well researched and documented reporting that demonstrates how poisoned the media world, particularly broadcast and cable tv, has become; while at the same time the reporting demonstrates the need for federal regulation of the cable companies and the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.
1
Thanks for pointing out how often common words like “invasion” and “flood” are used everyday! I had no idea.
It was surprising to see that no space was taken to examine whether the word was appropriate or the statement factual. In fact, the language used by the President and the objective media sources referenced is entirely accurate, a fact the author chooses to ignore.
Next time, can you lookup how many times “Russia collusion “ was used in the MSM and left wing politicians over the past three years, when in fact this was pure speculation and coordinated misinformation? I look forward to your next exciting expose’!
6
It's about the money. Fox and other right wing media make money on hard core right wing talking points. Fear of Muslims, of Socialism (not farm subsidies, government backed farm insurance, flood plain insurance subsidized by the feds, subsidies for oil exploration and drilling and on and on) "others", folks that don't look like us, folks who aren't Christian like us. It works for the 42% that think the president is appointed by god. As long as money can be made by lying, cheating, accusing others of your own sins Fox will flourish and right wing media will trudge on.
Trumps actions remind me of the phrase "The beatings will continue until moral improves". Lets hope for an ending to this debacle in the next election.
1
Unfortunately, these pundits will not take responsibility. And they call themselves protectors of American values. Sad.
1
There is only hate radio now-Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham and others. There is very little sane talk and liberals have been pushed out by companies that are the extreme right wing. This is all you hear if you put on the radio even in New York City. When there is no alternative what can you expect? These ultra right wing media companies will not allow another voice. And now America is suffering.
1
@Sue NPR Is there for you and you should be there for NPR.
Big "C" conservatism has become a cult. That is not an exaggeration or hyperbole. Many that don't have strong critical thinking skills and have a predisposition of fear have become indoctrinated by this ideology to the point where facts cannot penetrate.
This is a much bigger problem than Trump or even the GOP itself. Anyone that has experience with religious cults understands and recognizes the patterns, however few others can fully grasp the danger. Cult members don't give up their beliefs, even when their belief system fails. They simply rationalize the inconsistencies or outright failures of the system and modify the beliefs to make them palatable.
It is a VERY bad thing for the USA that 33% of Americans have been duped this badly.
2
Would not overdue the mimicking of hateful rhetoric he may have read and copied. I believe it camouflaged a desperate and tragic attempt to get attention. It was there in his history of being a loner who could not make understandable and appropriate comments when he was in high school. On more tragedy to add to the one that he perpetrated. Where and how he attained the capacity to commit such an atrocity is still a mystery.
1
You all forgot this:
"My ideology has not changed for several years. My opinions on automation, immigration, and the rest predate Trump and his campaign for president. I [am] putting this here because some people will blame the President or certain presidential candidates for the attack. This is not the case. I know that the media will probably call me a white supremacist anyway and blame Trump's rhetoric. The media is infamous for fake news. Their reaction to this attack will likely just confirm that."
2
People are motivated to “ invade” a country when they know that jobs are available. Clearly, border security and controlled immigration are part of the problem, but what about the businesses or individuals who hire these people. Surely, they are as responsible as Barack Obama or any other liberal these commentators would care to name. But no, they love unorganized, exploitable pools of labor more than they hate the invasion. They want it both ways. Start busting businessmen and others who hire undocumented workers.
Creating guest worker programs where people can work seasonally in agriculture would create a legal pool of badly needed workers in places like California. I also think that Democrats are being badly outflanked on this issue by Trump. Undocumented workers are a profound threat to organized labor and to health and health and safety standards that labor helped to create. That group has every reason to follow Trump.
4
@Timothy what about the American people? How often do folks ask if a business uses eVerify? Eschews the cheap lawn service? Refrains from using drugs from those countries which drives the violence? Insists on enforcement of OSHA standards everywhere, which would put these bottom feeding business under. Practically no one. Easier to blame someone else and keep eating your cheap food picked by cheap labor. It's really like entering a pie eating contest and blaming Cool Whip for being fat.
Reputable sources report that there are 10-20 million illegal immigrants in the US.
Sounds like an invasion to me.
5
"Tucker" Carlson, frozen food heir: I will never, ever, eat another Swanson meal. Not that I planned to anyway.
1
Great reporting. The only thing I would have done differently would have been to actually name these hateful "pundits" in the headline. Carlson, Ingraham, Hannity, Limbaugh, all have blood on their hands. How do these guys sleep? Are their mattresses so stuffed with cash ill-gotten from their hate-spewing that they can ignore their responsibility? Hey, Tucker, since you're on vacation this week, maybe you'll have time to read this piece and actually reflect on what you have helped create. You worried about the safety of your children when there were protesters outside your home--how about worrying a little about the safety of other people's children as well.
2
Unfortunately, this type of fear-mongering even slips into the NYY, On Aug. 3rd, the day of the El Paso shooting, three NYT reporters wrote the following in an article covering it: "Thousands of Central American families have flooded the city and surrounding areas seeking asylum..."
Flooded?! One gets the image of people amassed on every parking lot, every yard, every street. It takes digging elsewhere to see that in the city of nearly 700,000 (plus suburbs), there are only a few thousand migrants seeking asylum. How about "approached", or "sought refuge", "have pleaded for asylum", or "waiting" for a more accurate (and less alarming) description?
2
It appears that Fox News and Rush and ilk have successfully spread hate among their supporters, including our toddler-in-chief, which has resulted in their cult followers to harass and kill the supposed "invaders".
I would like to know more about the owners of Fox News, the Murdochs. How do these people sleep at night knowing their station is spewing hate and dividing our nation? Seriously. They love their money that much? Definition of greed.
1
After America got freedom from British Rule,many new immigrants came from European nations for work and better future in masses. Was it invasion then? If not,stop using words like invading,invasions and invaders now. Migrations happened since existence of human race and its evolution for work,food and economic reasons. We need talents as well as workers for farms and factories. Who give work to so branded illegal immigrants including Trump Organizations? Without work,they can’t survive,so instead barking against them,give the ones here temporarily work permits on yearly/monthly basis with renewal provisions at end of permits,make them to pay taxes and if commit crimes,deport them immediately. If they have no employment guarantees,stop renewing the permits. Meanwhile,tighten the boarder security in such a way which can stop people entering through our boarders ya overstaying at end of visitors visas. Without them,who gonna work on farms ya homes as nannies? Look at the facts instead shouting loudly against anything somebody hates ya speak against with stupidity without knowledge of reality. Phytoist.
So USA have a president that enables and encourage to domestic terror. Wow.... and still he have the backing of the GOP and around 35% of the population.
3
So we're just ignoring the Dayton murderer and his ties to Antifa, Warren, Sanders... ? How convenient.
1
"An evildoer listens to wicked lips..." - Proverbs 17:4
1
I truly wish a Native American would comment on the posts I've seen below. Talk about feeling dispossessed and drowned out. Native Americans were not granted, get that "granted" U.S. citizenship until 1924. A few weeks ago I was listening to The Texas Standard and a Native American was being interviewed and he just broke down crying on open air because what had been done to his people is systematically being done to his brothers and sisters south of the U.S. border. So feeling dispossessed means you go out and shoot people to death, run them over with a car, beat them, hang them do whatever it takes to annihilate them. Many different immigrants from all over the world come to this country and do learn English, their children learn English. To be honest with you I cringe when I hear some of my fellow U.S. citizens speak much less write in the English language. Sorry people I cannot and I will not agree with this "dispossessed" feeling, get over yourselves. You had the fortune of being born in a country that provided you with a decent education use your education to show how educated you are not how ignorant you wish to remain.
3
I think you left out a very important name in your headline. Trump.
2
An important aspect of this fear and hatred of immigrants on the southern border needs to be included--the belief that these immigrants will all be Democratic voters, whether illegally or legally, and permanently destroy the Republican Party. This is often stated outright by right-wing commentators and I'm not sure why it is often ignored when addressing this issue. Trump often complains of "millions" of illegal voters, which may well be a setup for rejecting the results of the 2020 election if a Democrat wins.
1
Having lived through the Vietnam war, student demonstrations, "4 Dead in Ohio", Nixon's shameful reign and the eventual duplicity of mid east conflicts and now the trump years of worsening civil discourse, I am truly exhausted and thinking hard about just who are my friends and just what has become of this nation. If someone has an upside to share, please write one. I feel something big is about to happen and it won't be pretty.
Brilliant concept beautifully presented.
THANK YOU NYT
1
The influx of people from Central America is another case of blow back from past US foreign policy that was intended to further the interests of US corporations doing business there. Other examples of blow back would be the 9-11-2001 attacks, the growth of ISIS and continual chaos in the Middle East, resulting from of decades of brutal US policy. Who benefits? Oil companies? Armaments manufacturers? The US population? Time for some serious introspection.
2
Why would anyone want to replace a culture that has been rooted in the El Paso region southwestern U.S. for the past 300+ years. Too many people equate the term "invasion" when referring to human immigration, when it not a "violent invasion.
1
This chatter about an invasion from Mexico is so ignorant. It was the USA that invaded Mexico during James Polk's (a Democrat) presidency and that left Texas and most of the Southwest in the hands of the invaders. So egregious was this illegal and violent assault that none other than Ulysses S. Grant was moved to state the following: "Generally the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."
1
As astute contributors to this comment section have already said with eloquence, it's about peddling fear. Fear is the mother's milk of talk radio, Fraud Noise's non-news programs, Republican talking points and campaign slogans. Fear of migrants is just the latest iteration.
They have played the incendiary and ignited a fire of hate and loathing against our neighbor countries to the south and their citizens. How do we extinguish or at least mitigate the inferno? To start, we must not just with words but actions and real proposals show we do not stand for anything approaching open borders. We do stand for due process, respect for human dignity and rights, including a right to claim asylum.
But we must also stand for the removal of those who have exhausted their administrative efforts and been found by our laws and regulations to be unqualified for asylum. Otherwise you have the situation which has given oxygen to the far-right in Europe: a bureaucratic/legal inability to remove anyone once they have gotten inside the country.
Yes, we must stand against the worst of Trump and Miller's xenophobic actions. That doesn't mean though we dismantle the border in all but name and give "freebies" to anyone who shows up as the left wing of our party wrongly advances. That stance means the existential horror for our democracy of a second term for you know who.
I don't know... people on one side of the political spectrum accuse liberal/communist faculty of putting words in the mouths of young people too.
Free speech is our foundation here in this country.
The issue we must address is the strengthening our social order that suppresses violence and corruption toward the dispossessed and unrepresented.
There is so much crime going on that we must focus upon to fight: yes crime with firearms, and also financial crime on Wall Street, cyanide bombs on Federal Lands, pipelines never maintained, chemical plants belching carcinogens, local governments denying infrastructure to communities of color.
Focus on that stuff rather than unmixing a word salad.
"Inundation" would be a more accurate and less incendiary term for what's happening than "invasion".
The "open border" progressives and the "free health care for everyone" nonsense spouting democrats are as much to blame as anyone for the shooting. It's common knowledge that "It takes two to tango" and the tango partners are the liberals and the conservatives. The Democrats must begin to use some common sense and stop acting and professing that illegal immigrants rights are the only thing that matters. How can this be difficult to understand?
5
If the US and Europe want to end the massive exodus of people into their countries, they need to stop selling weapons to warring factions, stop helping topple democratically elected regimes, stop waging wars based on lies and propaganda, stop putting maximum pressure economic sanctions that only victimize people, and instead apply pressure through the UN to help peacefully end festering conflicts around the world. The US, UK, and some European countries have turned several countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America into failed states e.g. Venezuela, Guatemala, El-Salvador, Yemen, Syria, Irak, Libya, Afghanistan, the Occupied Palestinian territories, and the list goes on.
1
I'd love to see a history lesson every now and then from the media regarding why these waves of immigrants come here. The majority this time are from Central America. Any clues as to why? Not if you read or listen to Fox, Limbaugh, Carlson, et al. In the mainstream, or more liberal outlets? No much there either. What role has the US played over the decades in helping to create this perfect storm? US corporations? Right wing dictatorships? Left wing dictatorships? Climate change? No one seems to want to address the why. They just want to vilify or deflect.
@Stephen Holland don't forget Americans' rampant drug use and love of cheap services, asking no questions about how they are provided.
When I was a teenager in the 1960s and the civil rights movement was underway, I remember thinking that if some demagogue should arouse the public to attack and kill African-Americans (not the term we used then), that person would find legions of willing followers.
That nightmare fantasy seemed remote at a time when we felt great hope: rights were being expanded, racial barriers were falling, we believed that progress would continue.
Fifty years later I see my nightmare staring me in the face.
1
Please write an article on how such Encouraging and inciting murder can be a cause of action for monetary damages, with some attorney quotes. Or, hopefully, a few major law firms or law oriented nonprofits might offer to help.
This column is VERY useful to American corporate advertisers. This way advertisers know who Limbaugh, Carlson and Hannity inspire and who their demographics are.
1
One of the hallmarks of Trump's ascent to power and his lack of impulse control is the immature inability to recognize the reality that words have power and consequences. While Fox and its minions will gladly take credit for those words when they generate the all important "ratings" about which Fox & Trump crow so incessantly, neither Fox nor Trump is willing to take responsibility for the negative consequences, such as white supremacist violence.
It is an Invasion. Period. And it is destroying this country and every other country that is being invaded.
3
"Correlation does not equal causation", anyone?
1
This is courageous and responsible reporting by a news organization unafraid to take the blowback and contempt sure to reverberate from Fox News. Fox in fact played a villainous role in the massacres in El Paso, and public safety requires that that cynical network be called out for it.
What is achieved by not intervening in working towards diffusing a volatile situation?
Both sides need to take ownership for the overheated rhetoric the core principles the representative party is built upon and lead by example. That's why Sen. McCain was such as honorable patriot, he was a man of principles and wouldn't cave to peer pressure.
These questions needs to be asked:
Where are we going?
Why are we in this handbasket?
12:11P CDT
8/12/19
Yes rhetoric like that does seem to set off some deranged people. Feel the same when i see people attacking Republicans in restaurants and beating up MAGA hat wearers. The same thing happened when the guy shot Congresman Steve Scalise in the baseball field. Copy cat killings inspired by Hollywood movies also happened. They still make violent movies. The Left still demonizes conservatives and vice versa.
Will it ever stop? Not likely. But should not be that easy to get these weapons. One should be able to see how effective any new proposed law is by doing a mean test. And pass a law which can keep them from buying it online or at gun shows or from third parties. No loop holes.
2
Well, surprise, surprise. All the parts of the right wing propaganda machine use the same language and make the same, often false, claims in unison. The biggest conspiracy of the last 50 years is sitting there in plain sight.
1
This story makes abundantly clear that right wing commentators and FOX news were heavily involved in the migrant invasion of the US propaganda. White nationalism is aided by this inflammatory wedge issue promotion and the NRAs appeal to anti-gov't rhetoric.
Looking through the lens of history, America should feel fortunate the current 'invasion' of migrants from the south is relatively peaceful. Compare that to the invasion of the white man of the United States even just 150 years ago, that was truly barbaric.
1
Funny how there is no mention of this guy saying that he was doing this for the environment. That he was a full blown environmentalist and bringing in all of these migrants would affecte the environment and strain our natural resources.
1
My mother's church got shot up by a man who was angered by their "Gays Welcome" sign out front. My mother had to step over the bodies of her dead friends, and the only reason she survived is because she sat in a slightly different place than usual. When they searched the shooter's house, he had stacks of books by Fox News talking heads on his coffee table. Fox News has been inciting violence and murder for a long time in this country. I thought that was illegal. Isn't it illegal to incite murder? I don't get it.
On a side note, though, I blame all the media for being more enamored of click bait for their particular audiences than of responsible reporting. Yes, murder and mayhem sell papers, but this would be a much safer and happier country if we focused on the positive. Let's hear more about what's going well, and the steps good people are making to deal with some pretty severe and looming problems. Give us all some hope and some information about positive steps we can all take for ourselves, our neighbors, and our planet.
4
Thousands of wars where millions upon millions have been shot by riflemen have been initiated and accompanied by the same repetitious language over past generations and centuries. Electronic media has only added to these perennial human war-making utterances. An individual using such language to warm up before his personal war cannot just be blamed on the media, but rather on circumstances and history. The "echo" of the shooters is an echo of mankind itself, just like what the "conservative media" has done.
1
If I accuse you of stealing my phone and I'm right, does that entitle me to shoot you? Obviously I might be right in my accusation and wrong if I were to shoot you. So just because I'm right in my accusation that doesn't entitle me to engage in violence. So one could be right
in one's statements and wrong in one's actions. If twenty million people enter and live a foreign country while at least another million per year come in without permission adding to another million entering legally with a significant number not acculturating, encouraged to retain their culture and language by a heavily imposed outlook that disparages the culture already in place, while it praises foreign cultures and classifies people for advancement and praise based on their ethnic heritage and victimhood rating, rather than character and ability, what would that situation be called? It can be debated.
Whatever it's called,does that entitle anyone to harm another? No. But let's not conflate possibly valid statements with abominable actions for the purpose of political advantage and the suppression of another's free speech.
5
I am a liberal and I totally refuse to accept the bashing of white privileged males. Our entire civilization is the product and testimony of their work in every field of knowledge . That said,stop insulting people for a past they are not responsible for. Dems you have lost my vote.
9
@JG
What white bashing? This story is about a young man who wrote a screed full of hatred towards a particular ethnic group, and then slaughtered them with no regard to who might be "illegal" and who might be "legal."
Don't conflate two issues. That's just a straw man.
3
Ok, cool, now do the Dayton shooter!
6
@Holden
Did he leave a manifesto (or other evidence) linking liberal sentiments to the shooting? No? Then this is pointless.
3
@Holden
Can you dig up his manifesto?
2
You take out the word "Central American" and put in its place the word "communist" and this is what my dear old mother has believed for years. She wouldn't know a communist if she hit one with a cement truck but she has lived in mortal fear of them. It has ruined the last few years of her life for no good reason. I'm just thankful she has actually met some of this angry invading Central American horde and knows they're not what the folks in the media make them out to be.
4
This article essentially argues that if you don't adopt the progressive position on illegal immigration, which is essentially open borders, you're guilty of hate speech. Sorry, but you're not going to shut down debate by claiming that some crazy person adopted your "rhetoric." Progressive politicians like AOC constantly accuse ICE of engaging in concentration-camp tactics; should they be held accountable when someone attacks an ICE officer? You can't have it both ways.
11
@R.P. Theoretically, yes. But in real life, no. When somebody 'attacks' an ICE officer it will most certainly be defensive in nature.
@R.P.
The progressive position on immigration is NOT open borders. It never has been. But that simplistic interpretation is what many believe. So the Democrats need to make a concerted effort to clarify WHY their position is not a simple matter of "open borders" and what they support instead--with an emphasis on protecting American workers and taxpayers while also upholding traditional American values, which include valuing and welcoming immigrants. Immigrants are not the enemy.
When anyone comes across our borders he/she is violating our laws and, hence, criminal. When groups of illegals flood across our borders, it is an invasion. It seems that Dems want open borders. Most Americans do not.
12
@MCH
When anyone comes across our borders he/she is violating our laws and, hence, criminal.
What about people seeking asylum, which is legal?
The NYT has "chutzpah" with this article on their front page. They reported last week that in an interview with the shooter, the investigators learned he followed the manifesto of the perpetrator of the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand on 8chan. I guess it didn't score enough points for its "blame the President", now want to blame comments from Fox? Will, they also look at the words being used by the Democratic Candidates against the President of the US, that is shameful?
7
We don’t need to tolerate Fox News or Fox. The airwaves are a public trust. The FCC could pull their broadcast license tonight depriving the fascist goon Rupert Murdoch of a valuable revenue stream to finance the lies and poison he injects every day into the American bloodstream. The next Democratic Congress could strip him of the honorary citizenship the 1981 Reagan Congress gave him so he could establish a right wing propaganda network in America. Do it and deport HIM and his sleazy minions to peddle their poison in Australia.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. We didn’t invite Dr. Goebbels here in 1940 to own radio stations and newspapers. We didn’t ask the Soviets to come here to own TV stations in the fifties. We don’t have to have Murdoch and his fascist Fox friends poisoning our political system, despoiling our democracy and rigging our elections.
Get rid of Fox: NOW.
7
@Ignatz Farquad
Spot on. I worked for Fox affiliates in the 80's and have seen inside the Sinclaire group of nihilists. These owners are dangerous and poison minds of low information consumers for financial gain. Nothing these owners do is important. Its so hard to accept the garbage they spew. Boycott and flood their phone lines and show up to their annual public licensing meetings and be heard.
This is not a problem that is conservative only and if you think it is, you are just kidding yourself. Look at the crazies in Antifa and other Left leaning people who perpetrate crimes and compare the words they use to the terms used by CNN, MSNBC and Democrat politicians and you will see the same type of correlation. Why was it that the guy who tried to attack the CBP office last month used the term "concentration camp"? Why did the Bernie Sanders supporter attack the Republican baseball team? Why did the Dayton shooter spout left-wing things on his social media? Because they heard/read them from left media outlets. So let's not pretend this is a problem solely contained on the Right...
3
Why would the NY Times downplay the role of Trump in using this language and originating and propagating these hateful lies?
They will protest this and deny culpability in the deaths of the victims in El Paso, but Trump and his friends at Fox, along with Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the fear mongering loud voices on our nation's airways are directly responsible for what happened. Their constant referrals to "the invasion" by Hispanics at the border was a call to action to the disenfranchised, armed and extremely dangerous young men equipped with legal battlefield weapons, who apparently felt it was their duty to "defend" their country.
Clearly the El Paso shooter was deeply affected by the rhetoric on the right, and it seems that the Dayton shooter, too, had been influenced: "Betts’s Twitter bio read: “he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / I’m going to hell and I’m not coming back.” His last post reads: “Millenials [sic] have a message for the Joe Biden generation: hurry up and die.”
Betts also appeared to be closely following the El Paso mass shooting that took place just hours before his own massacre, “liking” several tweets related to the incident, including one that labeled the suspected gunman a “white supremacist.”
Betts may have self-identified as a "leftist", but nothing about what he did or wrote about himself reflected such a leaning.
2
What are you left wingers afraid of?
4
@victor
The 1/3 of Americans that lack any critical thinking skills to realize they are indoctrinated. I have seen what religious cults do to people. Conservatism has become a large-scale cult. I would say that is something to be concerned with.
And no, I'm not "left-wing". Just sane enough to recognize that most on the right today are not.
1
We Democrats own part of this. Decriminalizing border crossings? What does that sound like? Walk right in and we'll give you free healthcare. "Invasion" = going en masse into a country not your own. An exaggeration, but not entirely. When whole cities start to look like other countries, people start to feel dispossessed. "Drowned out"? Is that a better term?
Why did we crucify Tom Brokaw after he said "both communities and families" need to do better teaching kids English? We Democrats own this. We are not listening to people feeling drowned out, sacrificing their kids' education because half the class doesn't speak English.
Democrats need to assure voters we are for legal immigration and for immigration limits. We need to tone down the "white supremacy" talk and understand people want their culture to remain the same for their children. It's only better because it's their own. Wanting to preserve your own culture isn't in and of itself a nazi-adjacent impulse. We can take in millions more immigrants if we helped them (and they were willing to) assimilate better.
111
@MPetrova
"Decriminalizing border crossings? What does that sound like? "
Sounds like how this country was founded.
47
@MPetrova, The idea that Democrats want "open borders" is a right wing LIE. Democrats have worked for years on immigration reform and all support legal immigration, which Trump is now trying to constrict.
In California you needed to learn English as well as a foreign language to graduate high school. What is wrong with knowing two or more languages? Might have alternative sources to the US press for your news?
37
@MPetrova Thank you for your post, well-put.
7
I can't think of a better word than invasion; we are being invaded by thousands of people from all over the world, and the Democrats think that's swell. It isn't. When my wife and I lived in Mexico, we did it legally and spent thousands of dollars to do so. If we hadn't we would have been deported faster than the eye could see. The US is a fine place, but it is not the free candy store for the world, waiting for anyone who wants to mosey in.
51
@William Powell
Try "inundation." As in, "our once-pleasant Mexican village is being inundated by American tourists."
17
@William Powell What is the answer then? Violence? Inflammatory language that inspires violence?
12
@William Powell, you’re obviously privileged and at least moderately well-off, choosing and being able to live in another country. Refugees and asylum seekers don’t have that choice. They’re not tourists. They’re fleeing violence, climate devastation, all sorts of things. What were you fleeing?
35
The conservative leadership of the public conservative leadership in our country have been masterfully applying this principle for decades now. A choice phrase, or, even better, a word is propagated as an immediate and constant drumbeat in the ears of the masses. Within days or weeks, that idea becomes the idea of the People, and the concern of the moderate to liberal leaning. Liberal leadership has been woefully unaware and unable to combat this messaging, and our country is suffering for it.
3
I understand the concern here, the seriousness of the matter, and of course the horrific and terrifying event. To be fair, I've heard and seen comments from the other end of the spectrum calling for violence and death for both general types of people and specifically named persons of the 'right'. Thank God that hasn't happened - it is perhaps the case that certain susceptible people incited by the right are more inclined to this extreme kind of violence. My point is that this kind of language is not exclusively the province of one wing of our political spectrum; we can see how such language influences some people. It needs to stop on the right and on the left and everywhere else - it's not appropriate for, and indeed is an integral element in the corrosion of, our pluralistic society. We ALL need to realize that our words have consequences just as much as our actions, and may influence others, even if in unintended ways.
I like you New York Times, your reporting and investigations are not only crucial for justice, but accurate with facts.
But you need to stop holding back. You know who is responsible for setting the worst example, and bringing these extreme people back into the spotlight and in positions of power. It’s not just these individuals only.
You need to do what’s right and hold Donald Trump responsible as well. He holds the highest office and allows this to happen pretty often.
1
In 1980 the Mariel boat lift took place and about 125,000 Cubans arrived in the Florida shores. That was a large number of immigrants in a very short period of time. At the time there was concern but we did not have a demagogue instilling fear on the US population that we were being invaded. We also did not have the opportunistic self serving "talking heads" that have no other motivation than enriching themselves at the expense of regular citizens that are not well informed. That I know of we are all well and good and many people don't even know about the Mariel boat lift.
This is a country of immigrants and they have kept our country's economy dynamic. They are needed now more than ever for demographic reasons and because "regular" Americans have become more complacent. As an example the amount of people relocating has been going down steadily and 2017 was the lowest percentage since the Census Bureau started keeping track in 1948.
1
@Conrad And the Mariel boat people had the law on their side when they came. Once they reached our shores they were legally permitted to enter the US. The current "invaders" do not have the law on their side. Once they cross the border they have committed a crime.
Do you see the difference? Probably not.
1
Immigrants to America have been labeled as invaders or intruders for centuries.
Tecumseh was anti-immigrant. He said, “Every year, our white intruders become more greedy, exacting, oppressive, and overbearing. Every year, contentions spring up between them and our people, and when blood is shed, we have to make atonement.”
Crazy Horse also expressed anti-immigrant sentiments similar to those expressed by El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius. He said, “We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not interfere with you. We do not want your civilization!” We carved his face on a mountainside in the Back Hills of South Dakota.
In the 1830, Hispanics grew alarmed when they realized Anglo immigration was transforming the demographics of Texas. Mexico enacted a law to ban immigrants from the United States. Texas was one of several Mexican states that rebelled when Santa Anna usurped the Mexican constitution and made himself a dictator. But Mexico waged a war of ethnic cleansing in Texas. It sent four armies to drive the Anglos out of Texas. But the Anglo refugees formed a militia and defeated the main Mexican army at San Jacinto.
4
Until white privileged Americans admit they are generally racists and bigots like Trump, we will forever be debating the negative relationship we continue to have with black and brown Americans and immigrants.
Also as long as white Americans continue to watch and support the racist and bigoted staff of Fox News they will continue to tune into a "news" station that provides little news but right wing opinion to stoke fear that leads to un-democratic views by many Americans. I ask all white Americans to boycott Fox News and most of their idiotic "commentators" who are too uniformed and too racist and bigoted to be a voice for most Americans.
2
Alexander Hamilton was an immigrant! Thank you Mssrs Chernow and Miranda for reminding us that our present constitution exists in no small measure due to an influential immigrant advocating its adoption in the Federalist papers. These right wing 'thinkers' are literally unpatriotic, ignoring the wisdom of founding fathers. Read the Federalist Papers, you fools!
3
@John R Alexander Hamilton was a legal immigrant. So were the majority of immigrants that came to our country in it's first 2 centuries of existence. Only in the last 40 years has it become fashionable to come illegally.
Don't you know the difference?
@Bill,
I do know the difference. The consensus is that the illegal immigrant population ha declined since the peak in 2007.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigrant_population_of_the_United_States
.. Democrats have failed to address the immigration issue, and that has given right-wingers the ability to set the tone..
.. The migrant influx into Europe clearly showed the political hazards of large scale immigration..
..There has been a broad right-wing-turn in Europe (as in Brexit), much of it the result of immigration issues... But the Democrats here completely failed to see that tidal wave coming...And Trump rode it to the Presidency..
... And Dems still fail to offer anything to people who have immigration concerns... no clear message or solutions.. Meanwhile Republicans have hammered home the dangers of immigration and the need to stop it...--
.... What we're looking at is more a failure & void created by Dems... which Republicans have happily filled..
3
“Ignorance is the parent of fear.”
— Herman Melville
4
This is garbage research. It trades constantly facts in the positive and facts in the converse, which aren't implied by each other. It gives a characterization of these words you chose as being essential to the killer's document. In point of fact, the word "invasion" occurs only 3 times in the document, all of them in the first paragraph. The word "flood" occurs twice, both in the same paragraph, once to refer to the total immigration as a "flood", and once to claim that Hispanics will be "flooding" skilled jobs. It uses the word "replacement" only twice, both in the first paragraph, and uses the word "replace" once to talk about automation and jobs.
As for whether the document demonizes "immigrants of color", it specifically talks about "Hispanics". The words "color", "black", "Jew", "Muslim", or even the stem-word "afri" do not appear whatsoever. Only "Hispanics".
Finally, the fact that you are now in your second or third article "analyzing" the document but you do not make it available is reprehensible and unethical. Either decide it's too dangerous to be viewed by the unwashed masses you're writing for and stop "analyzing" it, or decide it's up for discussion and link to it.
Otherwise, even if everyone agrees with you about the right-wing media, which I do, you are doing the exact equivalent to, "I have a list of 210 card-carrying Communists working in the Department of State," -- a list we were also not allowed to see.
6
Do Jeremy W. Peters, Michael M. Grynbaum, Keith Collins, Rich Harris and Rumsey Taylor know how to use a dictionary?
Since we do journalists or pundits have to follow a rule that common words cannot be used to describe the action of another, even when the words are used correctly?
Of course heaven forbid that the Times editors ask such a question!
From Merriam_Webster:
Definition of invade
transitive verb
1 : to enter for conquest or plunder
2 : to encroach upon : INFRINGE
3a : to spread over or into as if invading : PERMEATE
doubts invade his mind
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invade
5
Somebody might want to remind the 'white' people of Texas that they relatively recently invaded a part of Mexico inhabited by the original settlers, that is, Native Americans who were in turn invaded by the Spanish half a millennium ago. If anyone has a right to complain, it is not the white interlopers.
7
This narrative is an attempt to censor speech via guilt by association.
5
American nationalism, American nativism and American conservatism has always embraced racism. We shouldn't be surprised that it continues to do so today.
While its more populist elements are driven by white fears, that's not been exclusively the case.
Anti-Irish sentiment characterized them as dirty, uncivilized, and by virtue of their Catholic religion, unfit for white, Protestant society.
When immigration from Europe was at its peak from 1890 to 1920 the Jews, Poles, Italians Greeks were all characterized as some sub category of the white race. This divide between civilized northern Europe from the less civilized south persists today.
When Nazi Germany was considering enacting race laws they sent a delegation of lawyers to the US to study our laws. Ironically, they concluded that our "one drop" rule to define who was black was too severe. They instead decided to only trace Jewish heritage back two generations.
American racism is a constant, reoccurring feature of our political landscape because we do not push back against it with any sustained, ongoing effort.
When it subsids, we pretend that it's gone away. Post racial America is one such example. When it re-emerges with a vengeance, like it recently has, we act surprised and editorials proclaim that "this sin't who we are."
The truth is this is exactly who 'we' are and until there is a serious counterweight to this phenomena it will continue to be who we are.
4
Uh huh. I can show you hours and hours of footage of young white men at the controls of video games pretending to murder groups of people. But when that's brought as a possible contributing factor the Times very quickly trots out scientific studies showing that no, playing hours of violent video games every day has no effect on the people playing them. Fine. All I want then, is for the Times to require a scientific study to be done showing that shooters are being influenced by political speeches to shoot people before it publishes another article like this one full of pseudo-facts and "common sense" generalizations.
I won't hold my breath. The Times has a much lower standard when it comes to evidence supporting its preferred policies. The problem is, that double standard is so obvious that the paper has lost its influence except among its core audience. Every story preaches to the choir. You know what other media outlets do that? Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
3
Thank goodness for liberals they have the totally objective and never hyperbolic MSNBC to keep them tethered to solid ground. Sigh. If ever a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The only thing more biased than Fox and MSNBC is Don Lemmon of CNN when he’s feeling especially self righteous, which post Mueller seems like every night.
6
I don't know when the word 'invasion' became inextricably linked in Leftist minds with racism and white supremacy, but it is a good ploy for them to use this perfectly legitimate word as a battering ram against any honest expression by the Right regarding the illegal alien situation (oh, I forgot, that should be "undocumented immigrants"; how easily semantics are turned to favor our agenda, but they are still aliens and still here illegally). I keep reading that the country unwillingly hosts some 12 to 14 million illegals aliens. In a population of 325 million people, that comes to about 4% - repeat, FOUR PERCENT - of the entire population of the U.S.
Why does the word 'invasion' not apply? It is not, and never has been, strictly a military term. We read constantly of criminals staging 'home invasions' - even in the NY Times - as just one example. The puerile efforts of the Left to equate Trump's comments about the infestation of rats in Baltimore with some kind of racist trope against blacks is another example. Some of the dopier current candidates tell us that the word 'infestation' has always been used as an attack on black people. Really? And would any of these people give us some real chapter and verse on where and when this has been the case? Apparently, Leftists can make any term mean anything they want it to mean, especially with the knowing connivance of Leftist media (like the Times). This article is a great example of that kind of connivance.
8
This is perhaps the most important alert style article written and printed in the Times since I have become a subscriber..only Nancy MacLeans "Democracy in Chains" outlines as well the subversive plan of these cabalists.
@James Osborne
I would say that 12 to 14 million aliens entering and living in our country illegally, and being supported in their illegal acts by politicians sworn to uphold the law, is a pretty good definition of the word "subversive." How the pundits mentioned here become "subversive cabalists" by simply calling attention to this situation and arguing against it is both a negation of common sense and an unfortunate (and very agenda-driven) betrayal of any coherent understanding of the English language.
I would like to add words like "vermin" and "infestation" that Trump and his ilk have applied to people requesting refugee status.
These were the very words used repeatedly by Hitler as he sent millions to murder camps (like so many bugs to be exterminated, including much of my family ).
On the other hand "enemy of the people" was Stalin's word (even though he had managed to completely wipe out a free press under his regime, something that Putin aims to do and has come close to "accomplishing" --or perhaps has already done?)
It is evident that Trump is an equal opportunity "lover" (his own word) of the worst dictators around (i.e. Saudi Arabia, North Korea...etc)
I fear for the future, for history repeating itself over and over again......
3
"Conservative Media Stars don't kill people; people kill people."
2
Articles like this are bordering on agitprop masquerading as news.
James Hodgkinson went “hunting” Republicans and shot Steve Scalise and others. He was a self styled resistance member. Willem Van Spronsen attempted to firebomb an ICE facility. He was motivated by Democratic verbal attacks on ICE and talk of concentration camps.
But a wacko from the right commits a violent crime and it is the fault of rightist talk show hosts.
Where were all the articles blaming extreme leftist rhetoric for the previous attacks?
9
@Meg
Ditto the Dayton shooting.
1
Two minutes of HATE, 24 hours a day.
1
The fact is, Republicanism has been a fraud all along.
Rush Limbaugh said so last month.
Here's the exchange he had with one of his callers:
CALLER: "In 2019, there's gonna be a $1 trillion deficit. Trump doesn't really care about that. He's not really a fiscal conservative....."
Rush Limbaugh: "Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it's been around."
"Bogus"?
Yes, I always thought so.
Every time a fall off the cliff conservative would say something like, "School lunches for the poor kids are bankrupting this country!" the commenters of the Times would demand proof; to which the righties would just call them stupid and cut the food for the kids..... and then give themselves a TRILLION DOLLAR TAX-CUT!
"Bogus"?
What does Rush Limbaugh care, he's got his billion.
You know, this is soooo beyond that laying down with flea-riddled dogs......
Republicans aren't even trying to hide their grifting and greed anymore.
Stop listening to idiots, America.... or, at least while they are picking your pocket.....
3
Conservative talk radio the likes of limbaugh have been demonizing immigrants for years. When unemployment is high due to a recession brought on by a republican administration, they're here for our jobs. They're criminals, drug mules, disease carriers, we've heard it all. Fox news is just an extension of that.
I suppose the melding of modern day conservatism and white supremacy was inevitable. They use fear to scare the masses, twist it in to hate and wrap it up in fake patriotism.
Although I have to admit carlson caught me with the idea that white supremacy is a liberal hoax, like he'd never heard of the KKK before.
1
FOX, GOP, etc. all are inciters to violence. Clear and simple.
This was always kind of inevitable, though? If I poke a snake a few times, it will get angry and bite. I don't really blame the snake for this, it is just acting like nature intended.
The word "invasion" - well, it does imply a sort of organization and maliciousness that isn't present, but there's honestly only so many synonyms for "mass migration" and "demographic shift/reorganization." That people dumb it down isn't a surprise, any more than talk about climate change is severely dumbed down for public consumption and distribution. Few people want to get into a long talk about arctic permafrost, methane, disruption of the gulf stream, and so on.
Finally, back to inevitability. This is kinda what inevitably happens, every time and every where, throughout human history, whenever there is a migration that results in profound demographic changes to existing populations. Even animals do it. Do you think a chimp acts the same when there is one strange new chimp in his territory, versus twenty strange new chimps? Or even a bunch of dumb ants, who only "see" with pheromones? You don't have to be able to understand or plot out a dynamic population model in Excel to grasp the basics: "A shrinking, B growing, Me angry"
This is just animal stuff. Am I supposed to be shocked that Americans act like all human beings have throughout recorded history? Or that humans act like the apes they are?
/shrug
It is what it is. That's life. Give it a few decades and we'll have a new equilibrium.
There is no doubt that Fox News is a part of the problem with is “slant” on the news and particularly it’s commentary. It would often be on in the lunchroom during my break and I would have to leave. I’m talking pre-Trump era as I no longer work at that company. I often wondered how many people it’s not so subtle rhetoric was having an influence over. I was hoping with the passing of the torch at the Murdoch empire we would see change but that is not about to happen as Lachlan has similar views as his father. Until the hold Fox News has on this country’s political apparatus is broken I’m not sure we can heal as a country and grow as a democracy.
2
A good friend once explained the actions of the government. He said, "nothing is what it seems". I'm sorry but I cannot help but think someone is trying to encourage more mass shootings with the goal of taking all the guns from everyone. This article shows how this is done. Fox News is an expert. A second example is Mr. Trump's visit to the sites of the most recent events. His presence acts to bring out more mass shooters hoping for their name in lights.
We need to see these things for what they are and adopt better policies but before any of this happens we need to understand each other and where each of us is coming from.
Sadly both the Democrats and Republicans have made such a mess of government that recovery may be impossible.
1
It’s not just the incessant use of these terms and this rhetoric by media stars. An equal cause is the way they are received by listeners and viewers. An increasingly large segment of American society lacks the ability to critically assess rhetorical techniques, and responds primarily by receiving them literally rather than figuratively. As we have seen for the past thirty years, a significant segment of the Republican base is the evangelical Christian community whose doctrinal foundation rests on a literal interpretation of scripture and the unquestioned respect for authority figures within the movement. Such listeners and viewers are putty in the hands of someone like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Tucker Carlson and others. I would say that this provides all the more incentive for public educational policy in the US to emphasize critical interpretation of texts and media, but this community has averted that as well, when their children are home-schooled in the same worldview. This has made me increasingly pessimistic about the future of intelligent political discourse and democracy in America.
1
"After they arrive, immigrant workers, entrepreneurs, and investors increase the productive possibility of the U.S. economy and currently account for about 11 percent of all economic output. Crucially, they do so with very little impact on the wages of native-born American workers. . . Immigrants of all skill levels expand the productive potential of Americans directly and our personal family options. Immigrant child-care workers help boost the labor market participation of American women while also increasing their fertility, allowing Americans the option of fulfilling careers and larger families . . . The current gains from immigration are small compared to what they could be under a more liberalized system." See CATO Institute's "Myth and Facts of Immigration Policy" at http://www.cato.org/policy-report/januaryfebruary-2019/myths-facts-immigration-policy
According to this conservative "think tank", Trump's and his supporter's immigration issues are with something that is very beneficial to our country's economics. If their concerns actually are outside of simple hate and fear then reasonable discussions and resolutions to their immigration policies should be possible. Instead, Trump and his supporters continue to stoke the flames of hatred. Unfortunately, biases and prejudices are not so easily remedied.
2
At what point does this hate rhetoric cross the line into incitement of violence or death? At what point can the inciters be held criminally accountable for the actions they incite?
If Joe said "Hey Fred, go in that Walmart there and kill as many as you can", I have little doubt that Joe would be arrested too. If it's less specific, like Rush saying 'Eliminate the invaders from Central America, they're trying to replace us', it may be harder to connect to a specific shooting, but as we're seeing it has the same effect.
I was surprised when Trump's statement of "Maybe the Second Amendment crowd can do something about Hillary" wasn't met with his arrest, or at least a clear warning to not repeat. A threat against a candidate, Secretary of State and First Lady would ordinarily be taken very seriously. If one had said "Maybe the Second Amendment crowd can do something about Donald Trump", would it get a reaction from Security?
When Ann Coulter says "You can shoot invaders", and the El Paso killer does just that, why is she not held responsible for what she incites? If someone said "You can shoot lying conservative talk show guests" would anyone have a problem with that, or is it just what we're deteriorating into?
1
It would be helpful if someone, like Tom Steyers, would lead a class action lawsuit against these trump, Rush, Fox News, etc to hold them accountable for their actions. It is illegal to yell fire in a theater.
1
“Lawrence Rosenthal, a professor at the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, said that the shared vocabulary of white nationalists and many prominent conservatives was chilling. “Where that intersects with the Republican Party today,” he added, “is the Republican argument that the Democrats are in favor of immigration because that will give them a permanent majority.””
It’s not just an argument made by Republicans.
“The Hispanic vote in Texas will continue to increase. By 2024 Democrats can win Texas, Arizona and Florida. A big blue wall of 78 electoral votes.” - Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro
And I’ve read many versions this same immigration-demographic political scenario by reporters who support it. So I take the problem as seen the the NYT to be those who don't.
4
This entire "right wing" bigotry thing is so un- American that it should be totally rejected by all our citizens. Particularly the Republican Party that still claims to be an American party. It is hard to believe, let alone understand, how an American political party could possible contemplate running a candidate for president like Donald Trump who has proven himself to be so unfit, uninformed, so down right ignorant of America history and standards, and, above all so down right racist and actually destructive of our human and natural treasures. If they sponsor him for re-election the party must lose its right to function.
Texas was part of New Spain and Mexico far longer, (315 years), than it was part of the United States, (174 years). In the early nineteenth century Texas was "invaded"" by Americans, predominately from states that would be part of the Confederacy. They were welcomed as long as they pledged to obey the laws of Mexico. When Mexico tried to enforce its laws against slavery the invaders revolted and Texas became independent. A part of the armistice said that Texas would not become part of the United States. Nine years later Texas became part of the United States in spite of much opposition in Congress.
Now some Texans worry about a Latino invasion.were
2
Revealing article by all. To Fox, we can apply the old Soviet aphorism, "There is no truth in Fox News."
I listened to Carlson briefly one evening and the way he tossed around the word "invasion was insulting to whatever intelligence that Fox leadership might have had.
The nasty fact is that Fox Noise is a Chayefskian organization, based on providing entertainment to its market share. And trump people get upset when I call them dumb. Guilty, politically correct millennials will come to their defense as well, but there is no invasion of our nation from Latin American countries, or anywhere else. It's a marketing ploy by Fox. And trump conveniently tags along... or vice versa, as this informative article tells us. People who believe that there is an invasion are, uh, dumb.
If trump is deposed in 2020 and the G.O.P. loses congress, the Republican Party will have to rebuild. In that process, the new Republican leadership is going to have to sit down with the Murdochs and have a long conversation about changing the business plan at Fox that supported social upheaval. Republicans won't be able to get elected with that strategy.
And it may just be that the likes of Ingraham, Carlson and Hannity are gone. Everything trump touches dies, to quote Rick Wilson. The execs at Fox Noise better read his book.
Why has't the NYT talked about the Dayton shooter's support for Senator Sanders, Senator Warren, and the left in general? He was killing people black and white and doing so totally without regard to the Coulters et al. The point is these shooters are deranged and it is not some one's rant on TV or elsewhere that is causing these massacres. As to Carlson in particular, though he has some goofy ideas about UFOs and he is an isolationist, his comments should not be dismissed out of hand as radical right. He does provide some balance to the non-stop haranguing on CNN and MSNBC as to how terrible Republicans are and how evil etc etc Trump is. In some ways what Carlson has said has proven to be correct. He was saying that the charge that Trump conspired with the Russian government to influence the election was without evidentiary support. The Mueller report said just that: no evidence was found that Trump or his people conspired with the Russians. Contrary to the position on the right is the reality that citizens should not have assault rifles. Maybe the NYT should push that idea and go for veto proof legislation or maybe what we really need--- a change in the US Constitution to get guns out of the hands of everyone except law enforcement and the military.
3
Wondering what percentage of Fox, etc. consumers own guns vs. all of us?
I dare anyone who is a religious Fox
(or other conservative outlet) consumer
to question and research or
to put two and two together or
to think for themselves:
explore the world outside Fox or Rush or any other others.
Awaken to reality.
Face truth.
You would be blown over with how you have been taken, lied to, duped, rolled, grifted, swindled, falsely promised, embezzled, played for fools.
Many of us have been conned at some point in our lives.
Take heart, learn your lessons and keep on going.
There is no salvaging what you thought trump was or
what you wanted him to be.
It is time to accept hard lessons and move on.
The repair and recovery must begin in January 2021. The only way to do that is to vote a straight Democratic ticket for local, state and national elections.
2
There is no justification for the murder and shooting in El Paso which was committed by one confessed shooter Patrick W. Crusius, 21 of Texas. There is a lot of hostility between the Trump defenders and the Trump haters and mostly in the news media which spin news and fuel the anger. So What we have freedom of expression and both sides are abusing it to the fullest. As an independent, I follow news from all sides and make up my own mind. There is no way I am going to lose my sanity over what Rush ells me or Lemon or Cooper tells me. All I know is none of them have my sympathies. They are all multi millionaires and news personnel are laughing all the way to their banks. Ever since Trump crashed into the news scene there has been an ever growing audience with Trump derangement syndrome and an ever growing antiTrumpers trying to make a quick buck. The latest being Mooch (Scarmoochi). Fox has also done the best it has ever done by backing the Trump card and becoming the highest rated news.
So my dear fellow Americans open your minds and eyes DO NOT RESORT TO VIOLENCE and do not let any opinion columnists, spin doctors, TV anchors and politicians from either side influence your thinking. They are all in it for the money they make from what they do and that money will stay in their own pockets. Your power is when you vote for the person of your choice. Vote 2020.
1
Of course, El Paso and all of Texas were formerly a province of Mexico. It is we Americans who are the invaders. Who should be surprised if the demographics still tilt towards its original settlers?
2
Perhaps the authors of this essay should try to think things through more. Does this article mean to suggest that we don't have a real serious problem at the border? Does it mean to suggest that Fox News commentators are not telling the truth about a crisis at the border? After all, it wasn't that long ago, maybe a month or so, that this paper splashed headlines insisting that there wasn't a crisis at the border. Then, when it became impossible to pretend otherwise, everyone admitted that there was indeed a serious crisis.
So here we have an attempt by five, no less, supposedly serious reporters suggesting that because Fox News commentators used words like "invasion" and "flooding" and "replaced" to characterize the border crisis, and because the deranged killer used such words, it means that he was compelled to kill because of the words used? Do these writers actaully wish to suggest (and they do) that Fox News is actually the source of the this killing?
How would The New York Time like to characterize the now and finally acknowledged crisis at our border? A romp? A movement?
A wave? Such tepid characterizations would be seriously inaccurate.
And now this: attempting to link the killer to Fox News. Such a lie can be compaired to the other lie, of linking Donald Trump to Russia. Both are dishonest attempts by this paper to bring down a patriotic and conservative perspective. Both are lies that this paper is attached to, and that link will not fade.
3
Does the murderous actions of one person automatically invalidate a political point of view? I think no, and if the NYTimes was truthful to their readers they would not spread such nonsense.
Did the baseball park shooter, Hodgkinson, invalidate the stream of anti-GOP vitriol spread by MSNBC and CNN? While I could argue that it should have, it did not.
Did the actions of John Brown at Harpers Ferry, invalidate the cause of abolitionists? No.
And, we could go on and on throughout history.
4
You know, both right-wing extremists and right-wing media eat meat. Maybe beef consumption is the missing link between the El Paso killer and right-wing media.
1
When you videos of people lining up to hop the border fence, "invasion" seems like a reasonable characterization.
The foreigners crossing the national border illegally are obviously not a military force, but the word invasion is used outside the context of military conflicts all the time. These are alternate definitions:
the incoming or spread of something usually hurtful
the act of entering a place in large numbers especially in a way that is harmful or unwanted
an incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity.
an unwelcome intrusion into another's domain
Does right wing media talk about illegal immigration a lot?
Yes, of course. But it is an important issue that many Republicans and Democrats care deeply about.
I guess it's not surprising that the Times is running 3 stories today about bias in right wing media (this + Youtube Brazil). When was the last investigative report on left wing bias in mainstream media, which is much more ubiquitous?
5
Another scary possibility is that both the right wing media and the gunman share the same dictionary.
It it remains unclear whether it could be Cambridge or Merriam-Webster. These dictionaries are also attempting to spread fear and hatred of tourists.
The Times needs to investigate further.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/invasion
an occasion when a large number of people or things come to a place in an annoying and unwanted way:
the annual invasion of foreign tourists
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/invasion
The town is gearing up for the annual tourist invasion.
1
We desperately need a change in our culture. Not so long ago we fought World War II against the kind of culture we have become. There is nothing good about a culture that demonizes others on the basis of immutable characteristics. I would like to think our younger generations will not tolerate this culture and will work to create a more tolerant society, one in which Trump and Fox News will be relegated to the sidelines where they belong. It is ironic that Carlson, Ingraham, Limbaugh, et al complain of an invasion when that’s exactly how you could describe what our so called pioneers did all over this country.
76
@Susan Piper And by "immutable" characteristics, do you mean LAW ABIDING?
1
@Susan Piper If you were a Trump supporter, you would likely be afraid of the rage and hatred coming from Democrats. Last week a CNN anchor said Trump supporters have to be "eradicated". Huge numbers of D's compare us to an evil that, we as a society, went to total war (and all the killing that entails) to eradicate.
You folks scare me. It's now in the third year of the D's tantrum and they are talking violent.
Everyone wants to turn down the rage and hatred from the other side but give a free pass to their side.
2
SPOT ON. For further reading on the Republican/alt-right messaging strategy, read A Political Mind-Drew Westin.
The beauty of Republican rhetorical strategy is obvious: you just repeat a simple but frightening set of words over and over until your listeners think they must describe reality. This strategy was outlined by Newt Gingrich in 1995 in his GOPAC pamphlet "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control." When you use simple repetition, you can avoid ever confronting a real issue, an inconvenient fact, or a blatant hypocrisy. You get to ignore what's really happening at any given moment while you wave your pre-selected vocabulary at your followers, who are too lazy to check out the facts or consider a different perspective. This works especially well on Americans who think looking a word up in a dictionary is laborious and confusing. I am beginning to think we need a US Dept. of Rhetoric, which will issue advisories on which pundits are fighting dirtiest. Ad hominem attacks and rote repetition of scare words will lose you points, while describing possible solutions to defined problems will earn points. Elizabeth Warren can develop a plan to staff the department only with third generation Independents who love poetry, or write poetry. Everybody talks about unfair language, but so far, nobody has done anything about it. Let's stop manipulating each other and do something about the [expletive deleted] climate!
89
@planetc The beauty of Democratic rhetorical strategy is obvious: you just repeat a simple but frightening set of words over and over until your listeners think they must describe reality. Russian collusion, global warming, Warren is part American Indian, tak all guns and shootings will diminish, etc; etc. Illegal aliens are just that....illegal.
4
@planetc where do you think conservatives learned this lesson?
RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA.
3
@Joe Um, Joe? I hate to break this to you, but those concepts you attribute to Dems actually have a basis in fact. You know. The real world. The modern Republican party...and apparently yourself? Not so much.
9
We need to go on the offensive against this fifth column, this self inflicted wound on our country. These people are not patriotic in the least, they have been sowing divisions in our country for the past two to three decades and their goal is not policy but money and who. All these people are worth millions and Limbaugh a half billion! They championed the war in Iraq based on falsehoods and claimed those that opposed were not patriotic or were traitors. We need to use their words against them and show America how bad they are for us.
105
@Bigfrog The way to fight them is through their advertisers. Starve the beast. Media Matters lists the advertisers on the shows of these instigators of ethnic violence. Let them know how you feel!
11
@Bigfrog
I think even the Chinese consider the cultural revolution a mistake at this point. It would be hard to get a straight answer from them considering the state censorship. But maybe we can do it better.
2
@Bigfrog We need to go on the offensive against the "squad". These people are not patriotic in the least, they have been sowing divisions in our country since they've been elected.
2
“The use of what once would have been viewed as really extreme and inappropriate and sometimes conspiratorial, sometimes dehumanizing language is really striking.”
The language is still extreme, inappropriate, conspiratorial, and yes, always dehumanizing. The fact that large news outlets have adopted it is unacceptable, but does not negate any of those things.
1
Perhaps it’s time for a complete boycott of all things Fox. Specifically its news propaganda apparatus with focus on its sponsors and their products and services. Including its entertainment and media franchises.
1
Great service performed here. In 2020 the Democrats will have to recognize that they run against not just a political opponent and his party, but against the monolithic machine of conservative media with its socially constructed fantasy world. In FOX-Limbaugh world, white people are the victims of discrimination, climate change is a hoax, gun violence can only be stopped by adding more guns, the theory of evolution is "just a theory", and so on.
The Democrats have nothing like conservative media. The Washington Post and NY Times report "both sides" of any given issue. It is this inherent advantage of the right-wing to shape public opinion with false narratives that was the biggest factor in 2016 and will be again in 2020.
2
Fox news and other groups representing the rich have only one goal: lower their own tax rates. There is little moral difference between them and slave owners that got poor whites to fight for their cause. Not one of Trump’s supporters will ever call him out for employing undocumented immigrants or making his MAGA hats in China. It’s all about getting these people to vote for the right, to erode the social safety net and create an environment where they can make even more money. And when American agriculture dies with manufacturing and American cars are all that we can afford at double the cost they used to be the right will continue to sell the narrative that the country is on the right track. And the poor conservatives in the South that can barely afford the gas to go to their dead end jobs will line the pews and cheer the American dream.
1
Tens of thousands of migrant entering the country illegally each month might well be called an "invasion" or a "flood" of people. That's not hate speech. That's not to say they shouldn't be treated humanely. It's just describing a problem that needs fixing. Congress is at fault for decades of failing to deal with the problem.
4
If someone yells fire in a darkened theater, they could be arrested and charged with a serious crime. Fox News is doing exactly that and yet they aren't being arrested. Their audience is huge and they are willing listeners. That's far more dangerous.
Why doesn't the incitement statute that applies to a theater felony apply to incitement countrywide.
Trump fits into Fox's dialogue because he is a replica of Fox News with their lies and propaganda. The Liar-in-Chief and his willing audience. Sad.
3
@Underdog Yelling fire in a darkened theater is criminal; stating invasion, when in the midst of an invasion, is observant.
1
dehumanifying a subset of people makes it easier to hate/kill/exclude them.
While the use of invasion and replacement will make people defensive, I think it is the SPECIFIC way that Rush and others use those "facts" to defend their belief that we are unique and have to defend our "special ways" and that any changes to "our culture" and "our beliefs" are ... well, pick an insult and fear about the left or Democrats or liberals or Republicans who aren't Trump lemmings.
This is exactly what Trump runs on ~ protecting his voters' ways, convincing them that their bit of Andy of Mayberry is under siege.
Well then...what shall we call it when over 20 Million foreign nationals reside in our country illegally (according to a recent Yale study), evading our immigration laws, exploiting our public services and birthright citizenship...while tens of thousands more brazenly jump our borders every month? The atrocity in Texas does not give anyone leave to whitewash these facts.
The mendacious, histrionic aiding, abetting, and obstructionism in support of illegal aliens by ‘progressive’ factions actually serves as an enticement to millions of foreign migrants at the border...yet ‘progressives’ have the audacity to charge ‘conservatives’ with escalation?
4
It is an invasion.
7
It has been grimly amusing to read and hear the mainstream press natter on about white supremacy in the week since the mass shooting in El Paso, and their ongoing attempts, as in this article, to link its perpetrator to conventional lines of conservative thought. But, never once has it been posited that the shooter was a member of any organized group that advocates and commits acts of violence against ethnic or racial groups, or in fact has ever been in communication with anyone that is, not to mention the commentators mentioned in this story. This leaves one to conclude, for now, that the shooter was a lone madman who was not going to be stopped no matter what was being said outside his own mind, and the efforts to connect murder with those who are just using their First Amendment rights to express their opinion are a disgrace.
4
What the article describes is right wing propaganda leading to its inevitable conclusion – i.e., violence, hate crimes and eventually acts of terror and ethnic cleansing. We saw it with the Nazis; we saw it in Rwanda and we saw it in Bosnia and Kosovo. Now, we are seeing it here in the United States. The Republicans (and yes, it is the Republicans and not just Trump) have got to be stopped. There are tools that can be used to do this including elections, civil lawsuits, hate crimes legislation, honest journalism, anti-trust enforcement against media monopolies and shunning those who make a living from spouting vile lies and racial provocation.
This is important reporting. Is becoming better known - and needs to be better known even more. Few other organizations have the bandwidth to do a piece like this. Keep up the great work.
On the evening before Halloween in 1938, Orson Welles and "The Mercury Theater on the Air" performed a radio play adapted from H. G. Wells late 19th century science fiction novel, "The War of the Worlds". Orson Welles narrated the story as "breaking news" speaking in a serious and horrified tones bullet point bulletins about the terror coming to New Jersey. Listeners across the country panicked. Local police and sheriff departments answered hundreds of frantic calls. It was a national hysteria. This is the power of words. Orson Welles attempted to present fiction and was genuinely surprised the next day at how many Americans heard and reacted to the story. As this article points out, Conservative media by fictionalizing the facts of Central American migration both invalidated the status of the migrants and their fear and replaced, co-opted their fear by making Americans fearful of an invasion. The instilled hysteria has proven to be lethal. Orson Welles apologized to the nation even though no one died. Will there be apologies forthcoming from Conservative media with respect to El Paso? People did die!
1
@craig80st
I used to live in East Windsor, New Jersey, a few miles from from Grover's Mill. Several years after my wife and I moved there, I was astonished to learn that the place I had been taking my lawnmower for routine repair had been the site of the site of such a famous hoax!
2
Hang on, this was how American history was taught when I got to college - as the European invasion of North America. I always thought that this was a bit overblown, since we know the full extent of the military ability aboard the Godspeed (because there was only one - Captain John Smith) and the Mayflower (because there was only one - Captain Miles Standish). I don't think that we can call one an invasion and the other a, well, whatever the opposite of an invasion is.
Also, would it have killed you to do the same after the Scalise shooting? When the Bernies of the world talk about revolution, sure, they are just salon radicals that are fantasizing about revolutions that they dream of leading, but which will never happen. When you become a national figure, however, there's always going to a nutter that wants to start making it happen right now. I guess you were less curious about that.
2
Hmmm... nothing about the shooters fear of overpopulation and environmental destruction.
4
The term invasion can certainly inflame and scare people but is just a part of the polarization of this immigration debate. Illegal immigrants or aliens become undocumented immigrants or workers and finally refugees and asylum seekers on the left and on the right they become “invaders”. At this rate, it’s only going to get worse.
1
Fox & Co. survives because advertisers pay them big bucks to place ads. Who are these companies?
We need to know who supports Fox, Limbaugh, and all of those who are blasting the country with propaganda.
Boycot them!
1
These demagogues' xenophobic fear mongering is especially outrageous when you think about the European invasion, subsequent flood, and ultimate replacement of the native peoples and cultures who were originally living in the land we now call the United States.
It's ironic that we debate the worthiness of the relatively obscure website 8Chan... we aim to stop Google and Facebook from selling ads we don't like... but we let Fox News continue to call itself news.
1
These hate mongers are all millionaires and billionaires. For centuries, this type of individual has used fear and hate to control the masses. They live in luxury. Their followers are individuals who often can't manage their own lives and welcome a scapegoat. They have now found it in the desperate populations looking for work and peace. As the president pretends he was unaware that ALL of his clubs have made a practice of hiring these hard working illegal immigrants in order to further enrich himself, his media force portrays them as a danger. Why is it so difficult for his followers and FOX watchers to put the pieces together here and understand that a pack of sociopaths is feeding them manure for profit?
Words have power.
For prominent Fox hosts to use incendiary and white supremacist language so frequently is beyond disturbing. That it can be timed to tie in with the 2018 election suggests political intent that matches the president's campaign of hate language towards refugees.
The "Build the Wall" trope was dropped. It was replaced by deliberately cruel treatment of thousands of refugee children and families that Trump admitted was to be a deterrent. It comes across as mass reprisals against innocent children. The wall was a failure, and Mexico did not pay for it.
Fox's full-throated participation in this propaganda campaign is not just political: the open racism of these terms echoing Neo-Nazism is unmistakable. This is not a White Santa Claus moment: it is a KKK moment.
Since much of illegal immigration is in fact visa overstays, placing targets on brown refugees at the border is interjecting racism and this "invasion" concept, even when seeking asylum is legal and many are small children, not armies with tanks.
One of Russia's favorite tactics is inciting racist fears. Murdoch's ties with the Kremlin go back to at least 2012. Fox seems to be the perfect storm of sexism (as seen in all the sexual harassment lawsuits), racism, and Russia-encouraged propaganda.
The anger and vitriol from the modern GOP, both in the media and in DC, is nearly always directed at those minority immigrants coming here (the actual people), and rarely if ever directed at the employers of illegals. Illegal immigrants generally only come here because they find work that pays, and they can find work because someone or some entity is willing to hire and pay them (many times the same republicans railing against immigrants).
That's how you know the GOP campaign against illegal immigration is a long con intended to rile up their base, while the GOP has absolutely no interest in actually addressing the issue. The issue is too valuable as a political carrot to keep their base voting GOP against their own economic interests. Trump knows this and is simply the loudest, most vocal about it, but this approach by the GOP will remain after and with or without Trump. Moreover, the GOP knows illegal immigration is vital at keeping costs low for their clients, their donors, thus they will definitely never seriously address illegal immigration.
5
I must wonder about the number of American troops scattered around the world and how citizens of those countries perceive their presence. I am sure that they would be seen as invaders as well, but also armed invaders supposedly there to protect human rights, but actually there to protect corporate interests. Oddly enough, these so called invaders from central America, are welcomed to work for corporate entities in the USA, but those same corporate entities are never to blame for using these poor people to further their profits.
4
The far right press is propelled by money from advertisers more than their warped rhetoric. The more dramatic and emotional they can make any story the more dupes they can recruit to a given cause (and charge more for advertisements). Might start by boycotting all their advertisers. It could be that their followers who wallow in ignorance and fear don’t have the economic punch to keep the advertisers going concerns.
But the issue surrounding immigration still will exist and congress needs to fix that problem. All the voters I know think something (probably many things) must be done to fix the immigration situation. If current circumstances continue to fester Trump will continue to have a stump to stand on and that is NOT a good thing.
1
All media outlets need to highlight the connection between violent racist rhetoric and Fox 'news'. This is no coincidence. If enough people make this connection, a boycott could become meaningful. It's time to let Fox 'news' go.
3
The most extreme Trump supporter I know is an elderly white gentleman who has a person from Oahca as his sponsee and his white grandson plays shortstop on a little league team comprised of 8 other boys of Latino descent. He loves those boys on that team with his whole heart, they just got back from their world series and did very well. He drove over 4,000 miles round trip to cheer them on. He's a former big-league player and world series champ himself -- they all love him.
The world is a complex place, and I can only hope it is complexity, in the end, that can save us all.
2
Wondering whether this is at all actionable. Can they be indicted for conspiracy to incite violence?
1
Conservatives are deeply afraid - of anyone but them having anything. First it was the right for women to vote, then Jim Crow laws, then social security, then medicare, and now it's being safe in public.
Trump has just shown that conservatism begins with a con.
3
The US almost became a failed state because of an internal threat.
Never once an external one.
Fox News, Tucker Carlson, etc. all know what they are doing, and they know they are preaching and fomenting extreme forms of racism and bigotry. The bottom line is that they make exorbitant sums of money to promote hate. These so called “news” casters create a climate in which it is ok, and in many ways encouraged, to kill innocent people. Meanwhile, they hide in their luxury homes and in many cases secure gated communities, to isolate themselves from what they’ve created. They may even employ some of the people they’ve targeted as housekeepers and gardeners. They may even have them as family members.
One day the tables will turn. One day they may end up being the hunted and the victims of the violence they promote. For all their greed and lies there may eventually pay a price. I’d like to see Fox and these people sued and bankrupted by victims’ families.
This is not protected free speech. It as inciting domestic terrorism, which is NOT protected by our first amendment. From that perspective Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist. This needs to stop.
If they don’t like this country, maybe Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, Laura, etc. should go back to where THEY came from and let the rest of us live our lives in peace. SEND THEM BACK!
1
The El Paso shooter also said: “Our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country … creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations are heading the destruction of our environment by shamelessly over-harvesting resources … the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.”
These words provide context for his objection to the “invasion”, a context that is more in tune with the green left’s rhetoric rather than the right’s positions on environmental issues. Somehow the NYT has left this part out of their coverage.
4
When are the Republicans going to offer the American people any solutions? Any real, effective policy?
They traffic in fear because they have nothing else to propose. Shame on their voter base for reverting to basic animal instinct, instead of looking at actual facts and policy.
Shame on us for letting them get away with it.
The United States has always been a ready market for purveyors of hate and racism like Trump and his Fox News supporters. We fought a civil war over the issue 150 years ago and things haven't changed much since. The "invaders" from the south are simply a lot of poor, subjugated people looking for a decent life but the Trump crowd has managed to characterize them as a horde of criminals and subhumans. It got Trump elected as president of the United States.
"The medium is the message," as Marshall McLuhan said, a sentiment reflected in William Kristol's quote. The worst of the current wave started a few decades ago when people started to take stories in The National Enquirer seriously. Now, people viewed as clowns and fringe wackos even five years ago have been invited into the halls of power and, supported by hard-right media (note, liberals, it's wider and deeper than Fox, Breitbart and Newsmax) and political muscle often earned through distortion and deception, are taking their off-the-wall opinions to new extremes - which their supporters will take even further.
An obvious lesson these folks never yeared is that they shouldn't douse something with gasoline and then light their cigars close by; sooner or later something will explode unpedictably. I fear that it will be sooner.
Fear is at the heart of all right-wing thinking, specifically, these three fears: Fear of the Other. Fear of change. Fear of losing one's position of privilege. Those are really the big three, and they're all intertwined.
Without these fears, the whole right-wing enterprise collapses in on itself. For the astute right-wing politician, the question is how much fear to bring to bear. For certain, when they go full hysteria, that's when they've got nothing else left to offer.
They will always be terrified -- and even when past fears are assuaged, there will be new ones to take the place of it. What's frustrating about the reactionary mind is it gloms onto phantom threats and ignores actual ones. Reactionaries love themselves a good witch hunt, best of all from inside a burning house. Likely why they're pretending climate change is a hoax while attacking refugees and immigrants.
107
@Daibhidh, so I guess it would surprise you to find that the killer did not believe climat change is a hoax.
4
@Daibhidh
I'm afraid of losing my right of free speech.
5
@Daibhidh Fear of Communism was all the rage during the cold war. Then they pivoted to Islamic terrorism. Now it's immigrants and "illegal" foreigners. Demagogues, looking for the next fear to hammer away at.
9
This is not about shutting down free speech. You can discuss the issue of illegal immigration without using over-the-top inflammatory wording. Calling what clearly is just desperate people trying to improve the lives of themselves and their family "murderers and rapists" has nothing to do with discussing reality. I think a lot of people have a good case for demanding damages paid from those who used such words and caused the killings.
3
There was indeed an invasion of what is now Texas and much of the rest of the Southwest, including what is now Arizona, New Mexico, part of California and other states. The invasion took place in the years leading up to a war with Mexico in 1847, which ended with U.S. annexation of the territory, In the years before the war Americans settled in what is now Texas, bringing slavery to an area where the Mexican government prohibited it. Eventually, the invaders from the United States declared themselves independent of Mexico, leading to a war that ended with Mexico ceding much of its territory to the United States. Yes, it was an "Invasion", and yes, white Americans "replaced" the Mexicans who had been living there.
2
I'm a progressive liberal and want medicare for all. That is coming in the future. And I'll vote for Bernie but never Trump or Biden. I may be stuck with Biden because of course I'll never vote for Trump He is a pathetic little man. I'm an atheist and want maximum freedom for everyone; and I want everyone to be law-abiding.
But one cannot let anyone into this country who wants to come here. In fact the desperate people in central america have had their countries used and abused by US for decades and decades; that can be seen in some beautiful Noam Chomsky videos or in any good history book. We must have immigration laws and they must be enforced. The United Nations must help central american countries. But we must not let in all persons who want in; that won't work. That is all very sad but life is full of sadness. The world is overpopulated and I have seen this coming for half a century.
Birth control, a movement away from fossil fuels fast, immigration control, help for the central americans. If we don't act the world will enter desperate, irreversal states.
2
This ugliness can all be traced back to the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. We can thank Reagan for that.
1
Thanks to the NYT for highlighting the disgusting language of the right-wing media and, of course, our president.
I'm also sick of the language of the left, that I feel only fuels the 'replacement' theory: that white men are awful, mediocre, and that their time is up. This newspaper peddles of lot it.
No more talk, please, of a zero-sum game, by which in order for some to win, others must lose. More talk of equality and love.
4
@seamus5d - “I'm also sick of the language of the left, that I feel only fuels the 'replacement' theory: that white men are awful, mediocre, and that their time is up. This newspaper peddles of lot it.“
And that rhetoric drives the anger of unstable young white men.
How many of the Nobel Prize winners in America in the past century were immigrants or first generation children of immigrants and how many were the descendants of those who came over on the Mayflower?
What wonderful new cultural ideas in the Arts in America were introduced by White Europeans' descendants, like those now wearing MAGA-hats, as opposed to immigrants from all over the world, including Mexico and Central America?
And what wonderful innovations in societal values, economics, technology and science, and the arts were introduced into "White American" culture by the great minds of Fox Television like Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter, Jeanine Pirro, and their Puppet/Clown Mouthpiece, Donald Trump?
Maybe someone reading this comment can answer these questions because I certainly have no answers to just what positive useful values have been brought to make America Great Again by those shouting that slogan like a pack of howling coyotes.
1
@RLW, outside of music, sports, arts, and entertainment, non-whites have a very tiny footprint in American achievement. Effectively nothing in the technological, scientific, or economic spheres, and the Civil Rights movement is their only contribution to societal values. The abolition of slavery, enfranchisement of women, men without property, and blacks were all mostly white actions, Frederick Douglass and a few others notwithstanding.
You can argue that slavery and Jim Crow prevented blacks from fully participating in science prior to the 1960’s, but no one in their sub-Saharan homelands ever contributed anything either. You can also argue that there were relatively few hispanics in the US until a few decades ago, but again you face the question of whether they were able to achieve any technological breakthroughs in their native countries either.
Europeans, on the other hand, created almost everything that makes the modern world possible - machines, mass production, medicine that is really effective, democracy, women’s rights, etc. They did this regardless of which country they were living in at the time.
1
When you get right down to it, unless you are a Native American, we are a nation of immigrants. Whether you are of English, Irish, Spanish, or Italian extraction, etc. or a combination there of, you can be classified as an "invader" as well. That list includes Trump, Hannity, people who use 8chan, and the El Paso Shooter.
2
So, what would you call millions of illegals that have come to America without permission. I call it an invasion. If 20 people entered your house without permission you would call it an invasion, call the police and they would be arrested and perhaps put in jail awaiting a trial. So the illegals broke into our house (America) and should be charged with breaking and entering at a minimum, and deported when they are caught, they can wait outside America for their trial, and come back for the trial if they chose to.
8
Why is anyone surprised at this?
But, it is an invasion... Why don't those illegal border crossers from Central America just go to the US embassy in their home countries and apply for the proper paperwork to migrate? Is there a war in their home country like in Syria?
6
@Petunia: What the right wing haters refuse to admit is that the vast majority of the illegals are legally lying in to the US from Europe and Asia as "visitors".
Do you know how to stop the illegal invasion? It is really simple. All we have to do is to prosecute the business owners who hire them. No jobs equals practically no illegal immigrants. But the Republicans protect their own. They will not even make mandatory the Federal E-verify program that checks to see if a job applicant is her legally.
Articles of this nature just throw more oil on the fire and let the Investigators gather all the facts and make decisions on evidence not speculation KOOL IT
2
Back off. Democrats do it too.
Here are the words of the late Samuel P. Huntington, Democrat, Harvard professor, White House official in the Carter period, and world's most visible theorist about the relationships of civilizations (races, usually).
A) Huntington's overall view:
"The persistent inflow of Hispanic immigrants threatens to divide the United States into two peoples, two cultures, and two languages... Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream." Foreign Policy, 2009.
B) And here is a comparison of the Right with Huntington, Foreign Policy, 2004.
Limbaugh: "If the immigrants from Central America [aren't] stopped, the United States [will] lose its identity."
Huntington: "In this new era, the single most immediate and most serious challenge to America’s traditional identity comes from immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico...[continued next quote]"
comment: "identity" vs. "traditional identity"
The Right: You quote several Right speakers about "replacement". The idea is that the white population will decline toward zero.
Huntington [continues last quote]:
"...and the fertility rates of those immigrants compared to black and white American natives.”
Which, mathematically, means that the white population will decline toward zero.
comment: identical reasoning.
C) Hey, Democrats. How about an "oh oh..."
6
So the best you could do to defend your point was one example from ten years ago?
@alyosha: they said that about the jews, the irish, the italians and the poles too.
"In the four years since Mr. Trump electrified Republican voters with slashing comments about Muslims and Mexicans, demonizing references to immigrants have become more widespread in the news media, the Times review found."
So "slashing" is now a synonym for racist? Come on guys...
Facts are it's been referred to as an invasion for many years.The truth is there's conclusive evidence that various groups have supported the caravans monetarily ,sustenance wise and with transportation and clothes. Whether humanitarian or not the end result was definitely to place the Presidents intentions towards immigration reform in a negative impression.Most Americans have reason to be concerned when populations of migrants suddenly increase over 80% in their communities within only a few years.
7
@Alan Einstoss
The president does not need any help placing his immigration policy in a negative light...
1
@Alan Einstoss: If Trump and the Republicans really wanted immigration reform, they would prosecute the bosses who hire the illegals. No jobs equal no illegal immigrants. Trump and the Republicans are using the issue to inflame their racist base.
Of the states with the largest immigrant population only two are larger than 4%, Delaware and Minnesota. I doubt any one area has had a growth of more than 80%.
There is no evidence that the caravans are being funded by any one group or groups.
They aren't taking our jobs, they aren't disease carriers, etc., etc. It's propaganda.
The worst actors in all this are not the opportunistic vicious purveyors of these verbal lynch mob assaults on innocents of various groups or their foot soldiers, as bad as they are. They may commit the verbal abuses that feed the fury of the irrational mob, but they are small in number.
The worst are those upper middle and upper income people who state that they “don’t agree with all of Trump’s statements” but continue to support him because they believe it will make them more affluent.
The first group is driven by a burning irrational hatred fanned by the fires of twisted ideology. The second group has no principles at all and knows full well that it is innocents that are being abused so that they can make more money. That’s why often, if a child is abused by one parent, the child grows to hate that parent, but often hates the other parent more, because the other parent does not have the excuse of being sick – they knew what was happening and were okay with it.
1
I have older friends who have been radicalized by Rush and Fox and Company. They have always been kind and good people. They now conceal carry and parrot everything they hear from this media. Nothing punctures the cultish devotion they have for it. All the world is filtered through this warped lens. I love them but they have been zombified and there are thousands of them and they vote because their entire world is this. I do not know what can break the hold they are under. It has consumed them.
5
In this article's discussion of how the language of our president mirrors the language of right-wing media, you forgot to include a link to this earlier article from July 2019: White House Hosts Conservative Internet Activists at a ‘Social Media Summit' https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/us/politics/white-house-social-media-summit.html Taken together, it is clear how deeply embedded this language is in the president's bid for re-election.
1
A very useful story. I began this morning informing those from whom I buy products or services that I will be purchasing elsewhere if they continue to sponsor ads on Fox News. I started this AM with my insurance broker saying that "at some point, corporate responsibility to the nation is higher than its own profits." List of advertisers is conveniently found at: https://www.mediamatters.org/these-are-fox-news-leading-advertisers
Can we shut down trump's twitter account? Without it he is impotent.
1
This article was news last week when Jack Mirkinson wrote it in splinter news. He took whole sentences from Carlson et. L. and found them in the screed.
Where is analysis of the anti corporate drivel. Or the odd NPRish complaint that paper towels are used for drying hands. In fact, where is the digging into the absurdest climate change foundations of this speccious maunder.
When I initially read this my thought was that the piece was beyond the talents of the Plano grad who went to community college for 2 years. But then I was stunned by the use of y'al and Confederacy when and only when African Americans were being despised.
I remain left with the feeling that this piece of evil is more complex than the story now told.
1
“If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.” – Walmart Shooter
Sustainability, the Holy Grail of Greet New Deal leftists. (And the Manifesto contains many other leftist clichés.) So, why not this headline? --
“How the El Paso Killer Echoed the Incendiary Words of Leftist Green New Deal Stars”
Why not? Because it's indefensible (not mention too easy) to blame political discourse for the conduct of the insane.
Did our beloved media blame Sen. Sanders for his nutty follower who shot Rep. Scalise and others, and did said media blame the Left for the crazy leftist Dayton shooter, or President Obama's numerous fighting words for Obama era massacres? Hardly; that's fair only for President Trump & Co. Fairly unbalanced.
4
Funny how Fox talk show hosts like Carlson suddenly take a vacation when the heat is turned up over some dumb comment they've made. Pirro and Ingraham have taken similar vacations. Beyond that, has the right wing media ever explained how border crossings went from a 50-year low when Obama left office to the "invasion" crisis that exists today - at least in the minds of the right wingers.
This kind of hate and fear mongering has been emanating from the republican party since at least 1960 and its southern strategy.
Nixon, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Buchanan, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, Trump all practiced and promoted some form of fear mongering and racism as part of their campaigns. George W. even used it against McCain in South Carolina. The recent tapes of conversations between Reagan and Nixon reflect it. Lee Atwater and Kevin Phillips perfected it and Karl Rove built on it. All clothed in the "respectability" of community and business leaders who get wealthy at the expense of the duped working class. Wake up America.
2
And the shooter in Dayton? Why not talk about his politics?
6
Don't you get it? "Both sides" doesn't apply here. Where is the political left or media left inciting hatred and violence? No cherry picking please.
2
@2observe2b if you can connect the Dayton shooter’s politics and actions to specific politicians or mass media that promote violence and hate, say so. But we don’t know his motive at this point. His politics seem to be fringe. The point of this article is that previously fringe politics became mainstream, and the white supremacy that motivated the El Paso shooter is blatant, pervasive and easy to track.
3
Can we at least all agree that "replacement" of the likes of Ann Coulter, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and the FOX morning show hosts wouldn't be a bad thing?
Carlson didn’t “liken” it to a hoax, he said it was a hoax.
3
hate is the vehicle the right has chose; most don't realize they are descended from immigrants.
I wonder what the Native American word for invasion is. Go back in history just a few hundred years and the invasion was very much real. Even the Native Americans fought among each other, killed and enslaved each other. There is no "right" or "wrong" in all this, though. Throughout history, land has been conquered through one means or another.
Human history evolves, takes on a different shape during the course of time.
One can't remain stuck at a point in history and wish for those times in today's world. The paranoia about "undesired" ethnic groups "taking over" and dominating the demographics in America is unfounded. Haven't people of the same race killed each other in war and continue to do so? Would you rather have a murderer next door of the same race as you or a friendly, helpful person of another race? I don't understand the hysteria. Does "love thy neighbor" mean love your neighbors only if they are of the same race?
1
@Matt
So what’s your solution?
No borders? No countries?
Insofar as America, ie, the US, is a “melting pot,” it’s not clear to me anyway, what America’s uniqueness is except in its variety of traditions that find ways to help living become life ... abundant life through sharing and broadening, actually. Surely the threatening language of the media persons noted in the article spawns the opposite this. But why? What is behind this on their part ... which includes, downstream, Trump and opportunistic political likes of him? Maybe power in order to feel alive, generous living for these not being available or satisfying enough? And as for the consumers? Maybe the loneliness of their lives, that death-mimicking haunt motivating them to do what they do to be, finally, part of something that seems popular and heroically acceptable? Not to support in any way the ugly language and destructive behavior involved in any of this, but the basic issue may be in failure of American society to include even these persons in the first place. These individuals may be dangerously improvised and ripe for exploitation. As the saying goes, a sound social principle, “It takes two to tango.”
Has anyone followed the money between Trump, conservative PACs, and conservative "Media"? That could be an important piece of investigative reporting; at least as important as that on Russia-gate.
And shouldn't this article point out prominently, indeed right off the bat, Trump's own "invasion" speech, and how that sat with the timing of all of the references to "invasion" in the news?
Back in the simpler times of 2007 even the NYTimes allowed voices that challenged the prevailing conventional wisdom that "diversity is strength". Robert Putmans study showed that there is a inverse relationship between diversity and other things like civic engagement and trust. In 2019 this very reasonable and well founded observation is drowned out by accusations of "racism", "white supremacy" and "hate". Things are getting worse. Articles like this use word counting to present propaganda with the veneer of quantifiable science deftly bypassing any actual conversation about the issue at hand. The issue at hand is the question of whether diversity (and its shadow white decline) are really desirable.
5
More importantly, those are also the words of Trump.
And that last line about a pre-planned vacation, will someone turn this into a conspiracy as well?
I suspect that these pundits are pleased when their words find fertile ground.
Trump inspired and literally promoted this. Does that make him responsible for the crime?
Clearly speech which makes absolute and, in many cases, highly pejorative generalizations about immigrants and migrants contributes to a volitile political atmosphere. But xenophobia has been a feature of American immigration going back to the Great Waves. Nordicists and "scientific" eugenicists sought to cease immigrants by groups considered "genetically" inferior to Northern Europeans. Congress passed exclusion acts against the Chinese (not rescinded until we need an alliance in WWII), and much of the WASP Establishment regarded Southern Europeans, Slavs and Jews unworthy of admission. Yet how many mass murders targeted immigrants over all those years? Could the rise of the internet, social ennui, familial breakdown, and the widespread availability of assault weapons be more important factors? There's also no clear line connecting opinions to anti-social behavior. The writers equate opposition to mass illegal immigration, which America has experienced in increasingly large numbers since the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, with racism. The numbers are colossal (a Yale-MIT study estimated the size of the illegal population at upwards of 20 million, not the endlessly recited 11-12. According to a well-respected poll, some 76 percent of Americans want LEGAL immigration halved. In a thoughtful article in "The Atlantic." David Frum states if liberals refuse to enforce immigration laws, then the American people will "hire fascists to do the job liberals refuse to."
4
Shared vocabulary does not mean shared ideas or solutions...
The latest Democrat talking point, repeated by many of them and most of their presidential candidates, is that the President of the United States of America is a racist, xenophobe, and white supremacist.
How long until someone on the left decides that the only viable action is violence against the president?
The left spends a lot of time vilifying ICE and CBP, including and especially Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and her cohort.
How long until someone on the left decides that the only viable action is violence against Federal law enforcement officers?
ELF and its ilk already commit violence in the name of the environment. With all the climate change hyperbole and ever-hastening deadlines for action, how long until someone on the left sees violence as the only answer?
Antifa already engages in regular regular political violence. It often goes unreported, due to sympathetic members of the media. But, how long until someone is killed?
Our political discourse has become dangerous. Not just on the right or left, but across the spectrum. This either has to stop or we're going to end up living in a country where political violence is the norm rather than the exception.
Articles like this one create more division, feed the self-righteous arrogance of those who agree with its premise, and are very simply not helpful.
10
@Elfego el Gato Wow, you sure twisted this 180 degrees. Nice job! You've managed to entirely blame the left for the racism and xenophobia of the right (and the inciters at Fox). You're almost as good as Kellyanne Conway.
And that's not a compliment.
2
Businesses that advertise on Fox News are responsible for spreading the hate speech. One thing opponents of hate speech can do is urge advertisers to stop. Please act.
5
@Ron
To you, because it’s not pro liberal, it’s hate speech.
But to the rest of us in normal land, it’s called the news.
4
@Sports Medicine I’m well aware that Fox News watchers consider hate-filled commentary “normal” and “news.” But instead of labeling the politics of someone you don’t know, you may do well to consider new ideas. I want to fight the language a mass murderer used for motivation. Please join me.
The growing neo-fascist movement, which has already co-opted one major political party and a substantial portion of the mainstream media, has reached a point where it is a clear and present danger to the fundamental ideals of the country. The only way to excise ourselves of this cancer is to forcefully and immediately remove these tumors in-situ from their strongholds. The alternative is to abandon any pretense of liberty, freedom and democracy. At that point, like Mr. Lincoln, I "should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
2
@John: "The only way to excise ourselves of this cancer is to forcefully and immediately remove these tumors in-situ from their strongholds. " That sounds like a call for vigilante violence.
1
I agree with the contention here, but I’d like to point out that Jo Becker used the term “refugee flood” in this paper just yesterday. The New York Times and other legacy outlets don’t make a campaign of propagating this toxic rhetoric, but they share a role in crafting a public perception of immigrants and refugees as a malignant cultural force, and they need to reckon with that.
1
The "Hispanic invasion" rhetoric combined with racist rage that inspired the El Paso mass shooter are echos exactly what the American far right Conservative groups emboldened under the Trump dispensation are relentlessly pursuing as their goal however distorted a view of history that might present such as the fact that Texas was annexed by the US from Mexico.
2
Rupert Murdoch can't evade the reality of aging forever. Then his children will be the ones making decisions, and few people can sustain the elder Murdochs quest for money above all else. A decision here, a decision there and the Fox brand of racism and hate mongering will temper. Not a lot but enough. There is hope.
The purpose of this tapestry of fear woven by Trump, Fox, Sinclair and the Republican party is to retain political power in order to allow a) for Trump, keep his job and avoid prosecution; b) for Fox and Sinclair, make money; and c) for the Republicans to pick America's pocket with tax cuts for the rich. The idea of a progressive America with a positive "can do" we can overcome any problem--a part of our American culture, Rush-- doesn't advance the Republican cause, so it has to be buried in lies, hate and fear.
2
Of the three shootings that occurred, the only commonality between all three, was they were young.
Yes, Trumps rhetoric is one of the components, but how do you explain the others? Young angry people.
The generational component is being drastically overlooked, and until it's addressed, will continue to be a threat, to anyone in public gathering areas.
5
@Joe SonoLibre
The young shooters grew up in their formative years knowing only war, killing, hate and anger they saw on Television.
1
Disallowing lawful immigration by changing the rules is exactly the opposite of what Limbaugh means when he states, "the UNited States would lose its identity". They (media cons) don't know they are the opposite of themselves, or indeed they do and that could indicate a mental problem.
Words have always mattered. In the Internet Age, words matter even more. The Internet amplifies words over numerous platforms and reaches hundreds of millions of people worldwide. This bully pulpit allow hate speech to resonant now more than ever and those who use hate speech must be held accountable when their words are weaponized by someone with a weapon.
Trump is responsible and must be held accountable for spewing hate sppech through social media. He cannot hide behind the First Amendment just like the proliferation of weapons of war cannot be protected by the Second Amendment.
1
Fox and the right-wing media were out of control before Trump became president. They were viewed as fringe in some of their beliefs, but now those same talking points are mainstream and echoed at the highest levels of our government and politics. Fox in many cases makes policies and talking points that Trump repeats and focuses on in his rallies and tweets. Is it any wonder that those among his base who have decided to act violently in his name would not parrot these points of view as their rationale to take the lives of others? Trump has brought together the perfect radical belief storm in the last two plus years. As long as he holds office with the utter complicity of the Republican Party and the total support of Fox and other right wing media, these kinds of violent domestic terror events will become more frequent and more deadly. We are so far down the rabbit hole with nearly 40% of America supporting Trump and his belief system that I'm not sure that there is a way back from this dangerous, ugly, deadly place.
4
Has anyone asked these TV personalities to give an example of an invasion? Invaders are more powerful than the invaded country, not feeble like these people after having walked for thousands of miles. The word makes no sense in normal language and gains its meaning from the widespread adoption of incendiary context. And, that gives fuel to the talking points among like-minded people.
2
@Cemal Ekin From "invasive" meaning taking over ,like plants ,from beyond our borders.Perfectly sensible analogy.May happen slowly yet steadily ,taking advantage of natural surrounding and resources eventually displacing or establishing its own environment.
1
@Alan Einstoss, there is a significant difference between invasion and invasive. I hope you can see that. "Putin invades Crimea" is orders of magnitude stronger than "crabgrass invaded our lawn." In the second sense, to which you elude, the "invasion" is far less significant than the first. I hope no one attacks their neighbors because their crabgrass invaded their lawn.
Right-wing talk has always been about fear. That's what turned me off for good against Republicans. I realized they were trying to make me afraid, and the reason they were trying to do this was to control me. But sorry Rush, Hannity, et. al., — I am not afraid of the "other," I am not afraid of immigrants, I am not afraid of intellectuals, or the government, or liberals. I am afraid of people who are trying to make me afraid.
364
@Citizen-of-the-World
I'm afraid of people who think censorship will make them safe.
3
@Citizen-of-the-World "...that the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself" FDR
4
@Brian
Who said anything about censorship? They have a right to rant, even if their rants are based on misinformation, but what is sad is how so many people respond to them. I am a septuagenarian, and have seen a lot of hate in my time, or so I thought, but I didn't realize how much hate there was in this country until Trump.
11
On June 14, 2017, Republican congressman Steve Scalise, , was shot and wounded by a man who apparently opposed conservative causes. The right wing media went into a frenzy, asserting that incendiary language by the left had inspired the shooter. Now what are the right wing pundits saying about the El Paso shooter? And why did the El Paso shooter feel it necessary to deny that Trump's rhetoric had inspired his actions?
2
Let's not conflate free speech with consequence-free speech. Words have consequences - positive and negative. Unfortunately, this president sees his speech as having positive consequences for his political goals and shows little concern for the negative affects on the country as a whole. Those of us who aren't in lock step with racism and attack-dog methods coming from the occupant of the Oval Office certainly have the right to deliver negative consequences.
1
The worst part about this 'idea' that immigrants would somehow 'replace' us is how it highlights our weakness.
What kind of job do I really have if a mom from Honduras that doesn't speak English can easily replace me? Americans need to break-out from this self-imposed mediocrity and return to being the best educated, the best suited, the best Ambassadors for business around the World.
Instead, we're retreating behind 'walls' and demonizing immigrants. Just 20-30 years ago we dominated the World of business because people elsewhere 'trusted' that Americans were doing something good and they wanted in on it. Today the World looks at us like we've lost our compass and abandoned our values.
3
The war-like terminology describing immigration as "invasion" is met with war-like response from deranged individuals vulnerable to influence from those right-wing celebrities, using weaponry meant for battlefield. Hannity, Ingraham, Tucker, Coulter and Limbaugh all have innocent people's blood on their hands.
1
I agree with this article 100%, but can't help wondering where is the Times article on the Dayton shooter, Connor Betts, who was a far-left supporter of Antifa, eco-terrorism, spewed bile and hatred towards Joe Biden (and his generation) while supporting the candidacies of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders? To suggest that hate speech is restricted to the far right is, at a minimum, misleading.
A more complete assessment of hate speech needs to be done, and must include the language of the LEFT and RIGHT in order to be taken seriously.
8
@John, if what you wrote is accurate — and I have not reason to believe otherwise— are you suggesting that the Dayton mass murderer used his political or social views to justify the killing?
I think that is the distinction that the media are trying to make. The killings in Charleston and El Paso... and the shooting of Scalise, I think ... we’re motivated by the shooters’ beliefs. Those in Dayton and Sandy Hook were not.
Of course, the availability of assault weapons is another core issue.
2
@Karen Lee
Good questions. Unlike the El Paso shooter, Mr. Betts did not leave a "manifesto" so, to some extent, his motivations are certainly open to interpretation. With that in mind it is reasonable to dig into his background and beliefs to try to find the motive, and doing so reveals someone who does not fit into the "white nationalist" uber conservative domestic terrorist picture that is (rightfully) making headlines these days. Rather, his social media presence and online footprint reveals someone on the complete opposite end of the spectrum - a hard core far left liberal who viewed baby boomers, conservatives, etc as the enemy of progressive progress.
What's disheartening to me about the coverage of these shooting is that the Dayton shooting isn't getting nearly as much coverage from the media, in my opinion, because the shooter was not a white nationalist. Hate and dangerous language are alive and well at both ends of the political spectrum.
I recently saw a HBO Documentary about poverty in Tennessee.there are millions of Americans that scratch out an existence.They are single mothers who work numerous jobs to keep their children fed and clothed.In this documentary there seemed to be much more white than black single families that live from pay check to pay check.
Charity must begin at home,The immigrant problem reeks of politics, mostly, by the Dems, who are working it for all it is worth. There is nothing as incriminating then a crying child who is calling for their parents.Trump has added to the problem by the inhuman policy of separating families.
We must first take care of our own poor, and then resolve the immigrant problem, of giving those that are seeking asylum a path to citizenship.This must be the first priority of our Government.
5
@Independent1776
A few years ago, I saw a similar documentary about poverty in the rural South. One tootless. bedraggled guy living in a run-down trailer complained on and on about all of the "welfare moochers" in Northern cities. When the interviewer pointed out that he himself didn't have a job and was living on foodstamps and other govt assistance, he said: "But that's different. If I got a job, I'd lose my foodstamps."
That's when I gave up caring about poor people like that.
If Red states like Tennessee actually cared about its residents, they wouldn't have rejected programs like Obamacare. But they chose to make a "political statement" rather than care for their own.
Meanwhile, rural mining families in West Virginia complain about us Northern Elitist Socialists, but gladly accept the special subsidies that Obamacare sends them because of Black Lung Disease.
I can't feel sorry for hypocrites!
1
@Paul-A They wanted to make this a NYT favorite but, you know.
This is probably the most partisan, emotion rather than fact inspired story I have ever in the Times. Americans have always copies the language that they read or hear in the media. That is why many are said to have white privilege, a made up term that the left wing media spreads through the culture every day. And the notion that white supremacists are hiding in every bush or that racism is worse now than 50 years ago. So when pundits on the right talk about the invasion at the border, it is not surprising that the term will be adopted by both the unbalanced as well as some who watch videos of the border and reasonably conclude that the thousands of non citizens rushing the border are engaged in an invasion.
6
Until the investigation is complete, it appears that the Dayton shooter was not motivated by politics, whereas the El Paso shooter was clearly motivated by an ideology. From that standpoint, you can't equate the two. However, the common denominator was their gun, and the type of gun they used: to kill as many as possible in the shortest time.
1
What I don’t see anywhere is an alternative description for what is happening. Unprecedented numbers of immigrants are entering the country, many illegally. What should we call it?
I, for one, do not want unfettered, unlimited immigration. The elimination of ICE. And some of the other absurd ideas propagated here by our very far to the left fellow citizens.
I am concerned about the change in culture this situation points to.
I’m mostly concerned that I find it impossible to talk about these concerns without being labeled a Trumpist, a racist, a hate monger.
So I, like I’m sure millions like me, don’t engage, don’t talk, don’t discuss.
7
I replaced the faucet in my kitchen, an internal mechanism in it broke and flooded the place. The damp wood brought on an invasion of termites.
An invasion of earth by space aliens was being hatched on planet Zartron to replace earthlings with a flood of cheap imitations.
During the great flood, Noah built a replacement enclosure for the toads. Apparently they got out, invaded the lower deck and gave everyone warts!
2
Fox and Limbaugh are really entertainment like wrestling on TV. But like that type of wrestling with Vince and Linda McMahon many people believe it's true. It's really hard to change people's minds when they are convinced something is real.
Twenty five years ago my husband and I drove from our home in Illinois to Texas to visit our daughter who had recently moved there. In those days, the car radio was our diversion on this long drive. When we crossed the border into Texas we found that many radio stations had the same commentator with his hateful messages. His choice of words was meant to rouse the citizens against each other. I said to my husband, "I hope he is taken off the air and never reaches national audiences. If he does, he could take the country down with him." His name was Rush. And, sadly, my prediction is coming true.
1
My father used to watch O’Reilly every day; now he watches Carlson. When I mentioned that I’d read that Carlson’s reporting is biased, Dad’s response was, “No no no no no”. Dad canceled his subscription to the Post last year because of their biased reporting.
I didn’t realize Carlson only has about three million viewers per show. At least this might make him unlikely to become president, right?
Btw, to me, Trump repeating something, as he is wont to do, DElegitimizes it.
If the right wing fix of daily anger lasted only as long as the Two Minute Hate in Nineteen Eighty-Four, we’d be in better shape than the 24/7 Fox News channel and satellite radio programming millions of us keep locked on the dial.
Thank you for beginning to outline what is and is not permissible speech.
I was afraid it would be totally arbitrary now I know I can't describe the influx of illegal imigrants as an invasion or a flood and any use of replacement in the conversation is verboten.
I appreciate the New York Times service in providing an outline of the new free speech and look forward to more rules and clarifications in the future.
This is not sarcasm someone will have to tell us what's ok language to use and how to talk about certain things to avoid hate speech which could get you kicked off your favorite social media.
3
Too many "analysts" have attributed to Trump a phenomenon that he had absolutely nothing to do with -- the transformation of the Republican Party into a far-right angry party that is perilously close to fascist territory. He has neither the oratorial skills nor the intelligence to lead an ideological movement of any sort. When he descended the elevator in Trump Tower in 2015 to announce his candidacy, he uttered the magical words that attracted the real powers behind the transformation of the Republican Party -- right-wing radio nuts like Limbaugh and "Fix News" personalities like Sean Hannity. The rhetoric of these individuals has over the years driven the party further and further to the right and also has set the agenda for GOP legislatures around the country. After 2020, should Democrats regain power, they must consider re-instating the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting in order to eliminate these anti-democratic forces whose motive is "domination" of one sort or another.
2
@Alfred Yul
Of course! The left can get only so far in stifling opposing voices with physical and social intimidation. Better to use the power of government to silence all opposition.
7
@Hansen
No, the purpose of the Fairness Doctrine was to prevent use of the public airwaves to spread falsehoods and undermine the democratic (small 'd') process. The reason conservatives have lately become averse to science, facts, and the truth is precisely because of right-wing radio's "freedom" to interpret public policy using outright falsehoods. Democracy cannot survive in such an environment. So, in the end, we have to make a decision about what we want as a society -- a public information system that is fundamentally about the search for Truth (capital T) or one based on propaganda whose aim is to mislead.
1
Limbaugh and his ilk, and the gang at Fox, have been around for a long time. They haven't changed their tune in 30 yrs. I'm not sure why everybody's suddenly so surprised . Perhaps it is just now that a few individuals are beginning to turn their words into action. I'm not sure why we are so surprised by that either. If you lie down with lions, the lions will be the last to starve.
2
This is the talk that was central to fascism in the 1930s.
8
These men are just showmen - none are journalists - two - Hannity and Limbaugh never even completed college. We would never have expected the likes of Cronkite, Brokaw, Serveraid to appear at campaign rallies i.e. Hannity. They do what they do to make money for FOX and it is disturbing that DJT values their input. This is why Trump has no policy agenda; his presidency is all about messaging. That’s all those characters know.
6
Last Thursday my community in Gloucester, MA gathered for a vigil in the Wake of Gun Violence. Buddhist leader Mark Nelson invited the community to share in this vow from Thich Nhat Hanh's "Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings": "Aware that words can create happiness or suffering, we are committed to learning to speak truthfully, lovingly, and constructively. We will use only words that inspire joy, confidence, and hope as well as promote reconciliation and peace in ourselves and among people. We will speak and listen in a way that can help ourselves and others to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. We are determined not to say untruthful things for the sake of personal interest or to impress people, nor to utter words that might cause division or hatred. We will protect the happiness and harmony of our Sangha (our community) by refraining from speaking about the faults of another persons in their absence and always ask ourselves whether our perceptions are correct. We will speak only with the intention to understand and help transform the situation. We will not spread rumors nor criticize or condemn things of which we are not sure. We will do our best to speak out about situations of injustice, even when doing so may make difficulties for us or threaten our safety. Such is the Ninth Mindfulness Training—May all our vows be realized."
Words, community and wisdom matter. There are too few places in our culture to reflect on these things together.
2
Thank you so much for this article. It is probably fifteen years overdue. Bring out the big guns, show these explicit and horrific causalities - over and over and over. Please, continue with this line. Fox and the conservative radio personalities in particular need to be shown for what they are. There's little that can be done about the fetid corners of the internet but they're not accessed by mainstream Americans. The hate that serves as everyday infotainment for tens of millions has dire consequences.
4
Thank you for your patriotic bravery.
This article substantiates the fact that Television has been used to kill people. It really is that simple.
Thank you. best regards from Patrick
5
Delve into the comments on any Fox News article related to immigration and you'll see plenty of people advocating for shooting immigrants at the border, laying down minefields, razor wire, etc. If it were just a few comments, you could dismiss it, but its a lot more than just a few people.
4
Prime example of how words can kill.
Whether it's the president or anyone else if you fail to choose your words correctly you can either cause a riot or have people miss something important.
This is why we need adults in the room.
3
Money. I'm sure that Rush and Ingram and Tucker aren't volunteers at Fox. They're getting a lot of money for their words.
1
pres. trump and the right wing media are inspiring unjust legal violence and violent crimes in the name of patriotism. trump said that 'in the panhandle you could get away with shooting people' just as he said he could 'shoot someone on 5th ave and get away with it.' just as he urged a 'second amendment solution' to hillary clinton's candidacy. listening to trump it seems not just his fixation on perpetrating violence but his salacious fascination with blood - listen to his tone of voice in attacking london's mayor by imagining emergency rooms awash with blood. or other of his statements on the wounded and dead. it is probably a good thing trump dodged the draft and its a really bad thing a man with his mindset is commander in chief of our military. real soldiers are self disciplined. real patriots appeal to reason.
3
The article is nothing but 'dancing in circles around the bush'.
The real issue is :
Severely restricting automatic/semi automatic rifles only when needed for legitimate purpose, when not in use - to be stored in a sport firing range or a police station, making it impossible to buy one in a State other than the applicant residence, not more than one rifle, raising age requirement as well.
This nation has put a man on the moon!
1
One thing is certain; Humans are not nearly as advanced as we think we are as the most basic instinctive emotions of hate, anger, prejudice and tribalism still rule our conduct. I dread what that means with such extensive use of the media.
1
Keep it up, NYT. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, so keep on shedding bright light on those whose language creates the society of hate that characterizes so much of civic life today.
3
What I find astounding is how shameless these media types are even though they are clearly constructing a reviewable timeline that will forever keep their biased behavior in the crosshairs of history.
Comparaitively speaking these individuals will now be associated with multi-media organizations whose behavior during the 1930's and '40's mirrors is what the likes of those in the employ of Fox News are guilty of today, specifically their singling out entire races and nation states for condemnation because of their religion, ethnicity, or genealogy.
3
I'm deeply grateful for your diligent and exemplary work for composing this historic piece that has substantiated all claims that the Visual media can and does kill people, albeit indirectly in this example, but it does.
2
The incendiary rhetoric of the "right-wing" and "alt" media IS creating the culture of fear and hatred and inciting violence. They should be held accountable. How do we do that? Free speech is a basic human right, however, there is also incredible danger when it is broadcast to millions on a daily basis and takes on the illusion of "truth".
2
Fear sells. Fear generates listeners. Fear provides viewer. Fear generates clicks. And just like a drug, the intensity needs to be increased to keep the listeners, viewers and clickers.
Most of the bigotry has arisen from those in the south clearly indicated by southern politicians being proponents as well as Trump now calling Florida his home. You must understand they are drawing lines and it is imperative that law enforcement must act to punish the treason of a few to avoid a war within our nation. Don't just listen to what the proponents of hate are saying, but what is influencing them. I think your article about Sweden's right was in the right direction. Who gains by another world war. You must ask that now or we suffer one.
1
@PATRICK
In that article about Sweden, you made the important connection to Trump's national security adviser Bolton. This indicates to me the White House is attempting to spark conflict in other nations as a diversion from their responsibility in creating social chaos in ours and the events that may unfold. The cyber war has now been fully projected into the visual media realm. They are diversions. Perhaps the anti-social conservatives might consider using love and friendship as a means of survival, because they are self destructing now.
Vocabulary does matter as pointed out in this article. The left uses undocumented workers in substitution for illegal alien which is outlined in our laws. Now they use asylum as code words for people seeking a better economic future rather than the intended use in our laws. Dreamers instead of children of illegal aliens. And the solution from the left is open borders and the illumination of ICE, driver licenses for illegal aliens and now free healthcare. What we need is an non code worded debate about the issues. Unfortunately neither media side is willing to that. The far left media is just as bad as the right media outlined in this article. I really miss balanced reporting and discussions.
8
@Just 4 Play
Yes but the critical point you left out is that no one is using those words and concepts of liberals as an excuse/reason/justification to go and commit mass murder.
Lets keep focused on what matters, not a semantic one-upmanship.
2
@Just 4 Play, the only people using the phrase “open borders” are on the right.
@David
And neither are Republicans or independents using them to condone mass murder. That is again a left taking point.
2
After listening to right-wing radio for more than thirty years, one thing is very clear: The aim of the "hosts" is to rile people up so as to get them to call in. That's all the so-called "hosts" are really doing. What is scary is that so many listeners go along with the inflammatory speech of the "hosts" and also that the "hosts" begin to believe their own propaganda. This is not about "conservatism." It's about stirring people up to the point where they become angry and spiteful. Do this long enough and we wind up with the mess we are in now. The "hosts" don't care as long as they are getting those huge paychecks.
5
"What is it about the word 'invasion'...?" Limbaugh asks. This is a very deliberate word with particular significance - see the 'suspension clause'
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.”
Could it be that the pres and his loyalists are laying the groundwork to justify rounding up people and deporting them without any due process? By characterizing the influx of immigrants as an 'invasion' that threatens 'the public safety,' they can bypass constitutional protections by suspending the writ of habeas corpus.
We have seen this before - constant repetition of a word or claim to create the perception of a new reality. By repeating it, they make it so. How many times have we heard this - 'Everyone's knows'.... 'I know it, and You know it too'?
5
Terms like “invasion” often have multiple meanings. I hear people talking about ant invasions of their homes, and I have used it myself. I have to have my kayak inspected before putting it into lakes around here because of the zebra mussels invasion. Add in the invasion of street drugs, killing so many in our country. On the other hand, there was the British Invasion of our airways, led by Generals McCartney, Lennon, Jagger, Clapton, and Townsend. None of these were/are military invasions, and one of them was not unwelcome.
I do, however, object to the use of the term “invasion” when discussing refugees, the vast majority of which are fleeing conditions I would find life threatening or untenable. I object because it tends to lead to call for a stiffening of our “defenses” or to resist the “assault”. It fosters an us vs. them reflex.
The situation these people face should call for a twofold response, temporary aid to help them here and aid to help their countries fix the problems they are facing at home, so they can return home. Americans bear a good deal of responsibility for the situation these refugees faced at home, whether it is from gangs (we exported a gang developed here, MS 13, to the region), right wing dictatorships (our anti-communist efforts), tremendous inequality of wealth (American commercial interests in the early 1900s) or climate change (America leads the world in per capital creation of greenhouse gasses). That makes it our problem to solve.
5
The media should really act more responsibly because they have the most influence in the way they frame the narrative.
The media should encourage potential readers or viewers they should not continue on their sites if the content makes them angry. I personally can’t watch CNN for more than two minutes before I want to throw my television through the window.
Therefore in order to maintain some semblance of sanity I change the channel.
2
For further news on this subject see The Great Hack, now streaming on Netflix. It's about Cambridge Analytica and how this psy-op works: this isn't free speech, it's weaponized speech.
3
When did the Second Amendment supersede all the other rights guaranteed by the Constitution? Bullets from an assault rifle have no eyes. They pass through walls, windows and people. Those that hate immigrants are not free from harm either. When a deranged gunman fires into a crowd all are at risk no matter what your skin color or ethnicity is.
Assault weapons and military style magazines must be banned. Rhetoric that is coming from the White House and Fox News needs to be called out for what it is as racist and inflammatory. If they want to use the word invasion then they need to apply that to the white Europeans that originally invaded this country and took it by force from the indigenous population that had been here for over 10,000 years and now exist as a suppressed minority.
6
I think I understand some underlying sparks that ignited the obvious C.I.A. Military social "Shock and Awe" conduct of the visual media players I call, the Psychlops. A few decades ago, some demographic reports indicated that the frequency of Hispanic migration and population growth would result in Hispanics becoming the American population majority. That along with the ultimate decline in White populations after the parting of the baby boom generation and the declining birth rate due to choice and and a breakdown of marriage will support that contention.
Your article is remarkable in it's awareness of the effects of the Visual media on the minds of Americans, and those in other nations suffering the prejudice we do now. Everyone must realize the visual mediums are keys to their minds that are able to indelibly set beliefs in them they cannot fight. It's brainwashing. You see a pretty girl, you fall in love, or vice versa. That is but one example.
There is real demographic proof in what they believe, but unlike us who embrace the fellow human race, they cannot.
I know this won't be a popular idea to those such as I who hold a deep dedication to freedom of speech for all, but when the Television rabble rousers yell "Invasion" in a crowded television venue, something must be debated and done to save lives.
I also see the Southern part of the nation as an origin of this hysteria, perhaps by latent segregationists. Will we ever be free of this?
2
Funny how these right wing pundits enthusiastically supported our invasion of a country that had done nothing to threaten us—Iraq. They had no problem with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
6
I have no clue what the likes of Ingram, Carlson and Limbaugh are so freaked out about. Illegal immigrants probably have a 0% negative impact on their lives. On top of it they are gaining all the benefits of cheaper food, landscaping and other benefits due to the fact there are immigrants, illegal or otherwise, in this country.
4
To be sure, immigration is a concern in this country. Similarly, the language used by the GOP and their Trump to describe immigration using white nationalist and fear-mongering terminology is of grave concern.
But what aren't we paying attention to as a nation when we stare at the shiny objects, such as fear of an invasion, dangled by Trump?
The GOP donors are raiding the cookie jar, filling the courts with regressive types, slashing health safety-net programs, and peeling back workplace and environmental regulations. All this is happening while we are filled with so much fear and anger, tilting at windmills.
It's the classic strategy of oligarchs: keep the rabble angry and fearful so as to control them by their emotions. A good proportion of our population falls for it every day.
3
This is not conservatism, it is racism, bigotry, pandering to the resentful and mediocre, and should be labeled accordingly. Conservatism is not necessarily monstrous, but racism and bigotry are perverse. Remember Hitler and the appartheid?
6
Let's be clear: the term "invasion" belongs to Trump.
1
Thanks to the Times for laying out this history in a clear, if horrific story that demands our full attention. To name only two of the many examples of rabid ideological commentary here by people who have used their privilege, their positions of power and their ability to twist language and truth in an attempt to dominate political discourse in the United States, I urge us all to look at the full records for Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh, beginning with the data here, but going back for decades. I find profound dishonor of the founding principles of my country in their words, written and spoken. Though many of my ancestors have lived in this country since the 17th century, that does not give me or anyone else the right to pose as judge and jury on others who share the lands we live on or communities we have tried to build together. We have reached a turning point where we must recognize deliberate attempts to splinter this nation for what they are: abuse of power.
6
Only a few years ago, powerful men believed they could get away with sexual abuse but the @MeToo movement etc changed that and those men are now being charged.
Politicians and media figures need to realise that their current behaviour - encouraging racism, blocking gun legislation and building hatred and fear will, in time, result in their being called to account.
People will resent feeling unsafe in churches, stores, playgrounds, clubs and schools. So many people will be directly affected - injured, bereaved, traumatised - that there will be no excuse and no escape for those politicians and pundits who have continued to spew hatred and lies despite the links being clearly made between what they say and the actions of the people they influence.
There is still time for some of these idiots to turn around - admit they were wrong and change their messages - but for those who fail to do so, there will be legal reckonings for incitement to violence and racism.
Trump may not be impeached for his corruption but he may well be jailed later for his disgraceful and shameful role in what will be seen as the most dangerous abuse of power in US history.
4
The real "invasion" started with a man named Murdoch who brought his vicious ideology with him from Australia to the USA and put it on a USA TV station. He sits pretty soaking up the American dollar while he leads the nation into oblivion.
14
This article is fair only if it is acknowledged that liberals use their own set of charges terminology too.
Illegal immigrants are here illegally. They are not “undocumented”.
12
@G True. But "undocumented" does not have the emotional charge of "invasion" or "replacement". So while what you say is factually accurate, it is not equivalent as far using inflammatory terms for stoking up divisiveness.
6
How, just how, do we get this information to family and friends who have dug in their heels & refuse to encounter the truth?
One reply will be a bible scripture quote: don't worry about tomorrow.
One reply will be a quote from a "stoic".
Another reply will be some statement of "what about".
Another: 'I can't deal with this stuff anymore, please don't send these emails anymore".
Anyone here have a suggestion ? thank you.
2
Why do Republicans always run on “fear” sadly because it works. I will quote Martin Luther King “never has a privileged class given up those privileges willingly”. This is what you can see playing out nightly on Fox.
This is a fight for the soul of America and sadly the stain of Trump will be difficult to wash off the face of America and impossible for republicans to wash off for a generation.
5
The scariest part is not that the El Paso shooter adopted his ideology from the far-right - Fox - Trump vortex of inflammatory speech. The scariest part is that roughly 40% of Americans evidently agree with that dehumanizing, hate-filled rhetoric since they continue to support Trump.
6
15 million voters is a powerful block in the upcoming election. Naming names is really going to draw lines which will be used as ammunition. While I can see some justice in calling out the ones in the media who are presenting a message of division and discrimination, the long term goal beyond the election should always be the focus.The long term goal is the creation of an American culture which nourishes human potential and creates opportunities and a sense of social responsibility. We should try to build a society where the immigrants come not be "takers" but to also develop capacities to become "givers" or "sharers". This means these people will think of themselves not just as new American citizens, but as citizens of their birth places, who can return and give back the best of what they will find in America. As "teachers" of these new people we should be teaching them the lessons unity and not division.
1
Fine. Now please include the murderer’s rants about leftist issues. For example, his screed on the environment is missing from this discussion. Report the whole truth and not just dwell on your little darlings.
12
I'm thankful that I live in a country where there is no fear of turning on the TV or radio and hearing the brain washing propaganda of the far right. Your country used to have something similar to what we have when it concerns political speech; the fairness doctrine. Geez, who got rid of that and promoted a law to help Murdoch obtain citizenship and begin building his American empire of televised sleaze (after hooking a generation to their brand with shows such as the Simpsons)? As a "bonus", the same people have magnificently used this propaganda outlet to completely obscure the jurisprudence of the 2nd amendment. Then, for a multitude of reasons (that I don't think will ever be completely understood), Individual #1 becomes your President, an "evangelical" becomes your VP and Ayn Rand became your Speaker of the House. Individual #1 appoints a government (approved by the far right Senate, sometimes by just the 1 vote of the "evangelical" VP) that has as its mission to erase/destroy laws & regulations that benefit the 99%. They also disregard and break treaties that lent to stabilizing much of the world post USSR. For me, a post WW 2 baby, the USA is looking, with each passing day, more and more like the last years of the Weimar Republic. Individual #1 bristles at travel warnings issued by certain countries and organizations but is now on a mission to destabilize world currencies. War mongers head the State Department, Defense Department and the NSC. This won't end well.
9
And what about Trump?
1
Fright-wing enablers like Fox, Breitbart and others want you to think your fears are your own, natural and instinctive, not the end product of sophisticated social and political manipulation. It's like a little voice whispering poison in your ear, then quickly adding "I was never here." I don't understand why that's so hard to figure out.
6
Paying attention to the rhetoric from the right, it is impossible to not reach the conclusion that the conservative movement and the Republican party have been hijacked by demagogues and bigots. This is an existential threat to the UNITED States of America.
7
Just finished "The loudest Voice", who describes just brilliantly the hypocrisy of Murdoch and Roger Ailes, when they claim that they are "giving the the people want they want", when they in fact are just pushing a narrative that supports their own agenda and wallet.
The responsibility lies however with the viewer, but obviously a lot of us are incapable of critical thinking these days....!
3
Because of Trump/GOP’s embrace of radicalism, I, as a lifelong Republican, no longer support Trump/GOP. My party has been hijacked by racists & extremists. I know of many other lifelong Republican friends who feel the same way. RIP the GOP that I used to know!
6
Many of trump followers, especially those who cannot think for themselves, listen to Fox News, Limbaugh, or others 24/7, while they’re cleaning and polishing their assault rifles, and the next thing we hear is another mass shooting. They are all have blood on their hands.
5
FoxNews' opinion leaders play the role of a 'Fifth Column' in the national discourse. It's quite a stain on reputable journalism, masquerading as they do under the leitmotif of being 'Fair and Balanced.'
I doubt the sincerity of these editorial refugees from reality in that hefty salaries buy tongues and mouths. The ability to cherry-pick facts and simultaneously offer faux praise and derogatory opinion are prerequisites for those nightly slots. Compared to Carlson, Pirro, Doocey, Ingraham et al., Bill O'Reilly was a lightweight.
1
I've said it before, if any of the pack of extremist, radicalizing inciters highlighted in this article had been brown-skinned and broadcasting their filth from some dusty place near the equator, they'd have had an intimate encounter with a payload of drone borne armaments a decade ago.
But the 'war on terrorism' has always had its privileged exceptions, and those have always been race based.
5
So, shall we also link the left to the antics-supporting crazy that shot up Dayton? He was most definitely a leftist. The only person responsible for the shooting is the shooter. These attempts to equate conservative views with leftist-defined hate speech is simply an attempt to silence opposing views. Reminds me of Orwell's 1984 with newspeak and government approved groupthink.
This is a deeply disturbing attack on free speech and those that disagree with the prevailing political views of the authors and NYT. It's stuff like this and other attempts to stifle opposing opinions that genuinely make me worry about this country and, more specifically, the leftists trying to take control of it.
This portends dark times for our society.
10
@Hillary, the difference is that the shooter in Dayton wasn’t motivated to kill people based on his political or social views.
The shooters in El Paso and Charleston WERE.
1
This is an impoverished analysis. It is as impoverished as the analysis that goes into blaming video games or metal music or absent dads. It is simply stupid to suggest that mass media which is absorbed by millions is a root cause of any shooting. Better to look at the easy access these murderers have to their weapons of choice than to try to indict the thoughts and beliefs of millions. Because now all you're going to get is someone at the other end of the political spectrum asking where's the analysis of the news feed absorbed by Steve Scalise's shooter and what could have been learned from that. And that will all distract from the real problem - uniting the field to address gun laws.
9
Last May, when Elizabeth Warren declined Fox’s invitation to participate in a town hall event, she offered up the truth, but few seemed to catch the full of her meaning. She denounced the cable news channel as “a hate-for-profit racket.” Now, why would hate yield profit? Hate justifies anger, and anger is addictive. When the guy in the expensive car with the license plate ALL4EGO cuts you off, you have been wronged, forced momentarily out of control and nearly into a crash. You might have someone you love in the car, a friend or a child, and your rage rises, unleashing adrenaline and dopamine in amounts that Schedule II drugs can. Though it is a fury on top, beneath is righteousness, justification for the anger you feel. ALL4EGO is all in the wrong. You, the aggrieved victim, are all in the right. This is the kind of certainty you almost never know, so perfect, so transcendent.
Fox is peddling hate, all right, and it is addictive.
5
It's Germany 1934. We ignore the warning signs at our peril.
5
In 1981 or 1982, I think it was, I took my wife to see Neil Diamond. Neil was riding high with his patriotic ditty about immigrants coming to America with the song “America” and Reagan was President and patriotism was equated with conservatism and the crowd was high on that (among other things) as Neil enthusiastically belted out his jingoistic paean to immigrants, who evidently at that time were not thought of to be a marauding band of Hispanics coming to take American jobs.
Fast forward nearly forty years... I haven’t heard that Neil’s song “America” is exactly a staple at the Trump rallies. Am I wrong? And why do the Republicans of today, who found the song so patriotic under “old shining city on the hill” Reagan, seem to have changed their minds about “coming to America” today, under Trump?
1
The first Amendment rights are being used by mainstream so-called conservative media to spread hate speech. People who are brainwashed by the racist rhetoric and xenophobia have easy access to weapons of war and some of them will act to kill those ‘invaders’. The combination of toxic rhetoric and spread of guns both served by Republicans is combustible and causing a surge in hate crimes and massacres targeting immigrants minorities. Compounding the problem is the resounding endorsement by the chief xenophobe in the White House, his administration and party. If US voters are not willing to mobilize and end minority rule in 2020, there is no hope to break this vicious cycle.
2
The great irony is that the Trump Organization has always employed undocumented workers, and it continues to employ them today. His managers help them obtain fake SS numbers and IDs.
Trump's inflammatory hate speech is completely cynical.
Why don't his supporters care that he employs the so-called "invaders?" This simple fact undercuts the notion that they're worried about immigrants taking their jobs. Trump validates their grievances, and in return they let him do whatever he wants.
Whenever someone calls Trump honest and plainspoken, they're saying that Trump expresses what they feel but previously hid.
4
İt is the country in which mixed races, languages stand everywhere. İt is the country founded with collective efforts. İt is the country slaves’ tears and sweat are on every single stone of the country. I think that United State of America not only belongs any single race; it has been producted with common effort and strenghtened by flow of folk from every corner of the world. İt must be protected.
2
I watch these shows on Fox News from time to time. There are couple of observations that I wish had been included in the article. One is that these commentators draw a blinding bright line between legal and illegal immigration. They do say the country is flooded, invaded, replaced by illegal immigration, and legal immigration based on merit is great and what the country needs. Second is that when Tucker Carlson dismisses white nationalism, I think he does it in the same manner as when President Obama dismissed ISIS as the "JV team." I think when the President made this comparison, I think he did it to diminish ISIS and to not give them any credence and prominence. I think Tucker Carlson was doing the same. It is looking like Carlson is underestimating white nationalism like President Obama did with ISIS.
From reading the article, I got the impression that the commentators inundate their comments with "flooded, invaded, replaced." In looking at the timeline in the article, these words are said over several years since 2013. These are daily shows, so the words highlighted have been uttered about 50 times over about 1,750 days [(260 working days a year - 10 vacation days a year)*7 years] - from this perspective, the instances of these words seem immaterial, and the linkage between the commentators and the shooter seems thin.
7
Mr. Trump campaign in 2015 -2016 and his federal executive administration tapped into an underground ocean of racism and xenophobia lying beneath the social "topping"' of presumed racial equality and misleading political correctness. Americans have been increasingly forced to grapple with the undeniable conclusion approximately 30% - 35% of the U.S. electorate hold social and racial opinions more belonging to the early 1950s than the 21st century.
Mr. Trump's core base of electoral support fully endorses his racist hate-filled rhetoric and manipulative exploitation of their racial fear and misplaced grievance. Mr. Trump is using a flame thrower of ethnic animosity on the tinder-dry forest of economic dislocation and the still-smoldering financial ruins of The Great Recession, on which the majority of working-class and non-degreed white America remains marooned, as the kindling for his presidential bonfire of narcissism and malfeasance.
To this, Mr. Trump is adding the most destructive and damaging ingredients; the blood, terror, and tears of many whose only real "crime" is their "otherness" by birth. While Mr. Trump may be justifiably labeled "racist" by his political opponents one cannot ignore the self-induced blindness and patronizing crusading of the neoliberal professional class who are far from innocent of creating by benign neglect the socio-economic conditions which Mr. Trump stumbled upon in his political ascent.
It remains extremist language. It is hate. It has nothing to do with reality or how most people feel.
I wish one of the other multi-billionaires in the world would buy out Murdoch and shut down FOX News and its offshoots. That would be a more humanitarian gesture than curing AIDS or polio.
3
Fox News has always been an opportunistic virus on the American body politic, eagerly spreading disinformation and stoking alarmist fear. But now its hate speech has become an existential threat to our democracy. We are suffering a low-grade civil war between violent fantasists and fanatics (and their enablers in the gun lobby and the right-wing infotainment complex) and the vast majority of the populace who follow the rules and don't hate (for a living or as a hobby).
1
ICE interrupted 680 peoples lives, all who were earning a living AND paying taxes, and rent and buying groceries, etc. But, now, over half of them are locked-up and have been injected into "The System."
AT OUR EXPENSE-The system that will: hold them somewhere that is privately owned; require personnel to monitor the people filled cages; feed the private incarceration business; and that will continue to feed divisive us-versus-them messages.
In addition to our paying for trump's golf trips; his trips to his homes; his trips to visit Kim and Vladimir; trump is creating a financial monster of incarceration of foreigners, a Guantanamo right here in the United States and forcing the US taxpayer, you and me, to cover it.
What will the next president do with all those people in the Guantanamo USA that trump is front-loading as a Giant time-bomb.
Meanwhile, on purpose, trump has punctured the American Economy's heart and the heart is gushing the federal government's financial blood that the government needs to serve the nation, and it's scheduled to give out just AFTER the 2020 election.
If it's a Democrat, it will swamp a Democratic president much like Obama's having picking up the national economy after the 2008 melt-down that EVERYONE KNEW ABOUT for years. If trump is reelected, it will give trump the political ammunition to increase military budgets and banish more government agencies to parts hither and yon or Kansas City.
This must be stopped.
This is not a drill.
3
This comments section, and many others on Nytimes articles, demonstrates a dangerous and demoralizing problem. There are a great deal of commenters who still repeat their debunked arguments after reading the very facts that debunk their arguments. Even if Democrats win the presidency and both houses in 2020 these folks are never going to see how wrong they are. My point is it seems we will never defeat the hatred manifested in the Republican party today.
4
@Max Deitenbeck, which “debunked” arguments?
Let's get real here, folks: the right-wing public relations people who are all referenced herein communicate with each other and agree to use certain specific words and stay on message together to make a full-court press toward the goal of manipulating the minds of American voters in hopes of bolstering the flagging Republican political party and its adherents.
Madison Avenue marketing 101, that is what this is. Someone who is a brilliant person with a devious mind on the far-right comes up with an idea, such as "Let's say the nation is being invaded," then they speak amongst themselves and agree to stay on message. This is not rocket science, it is the most basic public relations strategy anyone who has ever tried to sell something knows about.
We need to undermine the massive public relations effort by calling it out as such, by showing how it is manufactured, how it is a gross misrepresentation of facts, how it is cynical, disingenuous, how it is designed to drive people apart from each other, inspire hate, fear, and loathing, and how all of this sums up as one of the greatest acts of subterfuge in U.S. history.
Sure, going after these falsehoods requires naming them which risks reinforcing them, but to that, I say it is already too late. No amount of saying that "the use of the word 'Invasion' is a strategic and trumped-up falsehood designed to whip people up into a fury and vote Republican" is ever going to make the chicanery worse.
2
"... is the Republican argument that the Democrats are in favor of immigration because that will give them a permanent majority.
So which part of this statement is not 100% correct?
5
Free speech is a fundamental and protected right in American. But free speech is not unfettered. You cannot shout fire in a crowded theatre without criminal consequences. You cannot falsely disparage your neighbor without risking a defamation lawsuit. The reckless media voices as outlined in this timely NYT piece should be held accountable by strategic litigation brought by responsible individuals who fear for the future of America. Leaders like Michael Bloomberg.The future of the American way of life must be protected.
1
@Milton Lewis Free speech is protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution, and it is the American way of life. You note two small exceptions to the First Amendment rights, but our First Amendment precludes lawsuits to shut down disagreeable voices. The First Amendment also precludes hate speech laws like those those you have in Canada. Our nearly complete freedom of speech means that we counter those promulgating dangerous ideas with our own better ideas, not by forcing dangerous ideas underground where they fester and grow unseen.
1
Google's dictionary entry for "invasion" lists three meanings: (1) "an instance of invading a country or region with an armed force," (2) "an incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity," and (3) "an unwelcome intrusion into another's domain." The conservative commenters seem to be using the word in the sense of the second and third definitions, which is not out of line as descriptive and/or normative usage. The unbalanced El Paso shooter used the word too, but treated the word as if it were within the rubric of the first definition.
Must speakers jettison legitimate language usage because of alternative meanings that could be wrenched out of the language by unbalanced people?
5
Many thanks to the New York Times for its research into the daily television and radio right-wing screeds and the manifesto published by the El Paso gunman. It’s very clear that words like ‘replacement,’ ‘invasion,’ and ‘flood’ are ubiquitous in these outlets, as the examples show. But I wonder if a more granular analysis could make this case water tight. In my field, it isn’t enough to draw attention to discrete words to show influence; instead, a much stronger case is made by looking at the ways those terms are used in phrases. It would be very revealing to see extracts of the shooter’s manifesto placed side-by-side with quotations from Carlson, Coulter, Limbaugh, and especially Trump to show that the writer wasn’t merely drawing on vocabulary that is central to right-wing diatribes or the public conservative discourse fueled by these hosts, but rather quoting or paraphrasing the central players in this movement. It’s not that difficult: searching for strings of words from the manifesto can find such parallels, and any Professor in the country uses anti-plagiarism programs to find unacknowledged borrowings in the writings of students. If we want to really call out the degree to which radicals incite violence, we need to use every tool available.
3
Thank you for this excellent article. There must be a law that forbids incitement of civil unrest in the media? If Murdoch could be held accountable, at least the FOX side of it would go away. Jeff Bezos should buy it and fire everybody.
4
words matter. if they did not, we would not have a multibillion dollar advertising industry. words influence, good words and bad words.
1
The clarity of presentation makes this article useful for college students and scholars to cite, which is ultimately how to "win hearts and minds," "take back the night," "turn the tide," and otherwise reverse course from the "Eve of Destruction."
2
Words matter. Every successful political and social movement has demonstrated this.
Words and the ideas that they carry seep in even when people think they're immune to them. They affect even those who disagree with them -- you still absorb and begin to use and react to them in some way.
As this article suggests, simply repeating words and ideas, even if you're arguing against them, only increases their power. Every teacher knows that repetition is the key to learning and remembering ideas.
Both history and science have proven that the human mind is extremely porous. What it's immersed in determines how it thinks.
I honestly need someone to tell me what conservatives stand for, want, approve of, etc. It seems that they want to worship the rich, condemn the poor, and look for reasons to hate. I used to think they wanted fiscal responsibility but that went out when they shut the government down when Obama was president.
12
@Kathy
They stand for sovereignty. Respect for the rights of the individual and the family. That's why they want the right to defend themselves with arms, and the right to not pay half of their income to a DC bureaucracy. They want our borders secured, and national threats monitored and handled. They want 1A protected. They want the basics from government, and to be left alone to do the rest themselves in their communities.
If all you see is them looking for "reasons to hate," you're asking too many liberals what conservatives think. You're in Ohio, I'm from there too. There's plenty around. Ask them!
4
@Kathy
Fiscal responsibility went out the window with Reagan. It’s taken over 30 years to kill that idea’s association with the GOP.
6
This use of the term invasion reminds me of a speech by Lincoln in 1848.
As a Whig congressman, he pointed out that "the marching of an army (American) into the midst of a peaceful Mexican settlement, frightening the inhabitants away, leaving their growing crops and other property to destruction, to you ( the supports of President Polk who supported the invasion of Mexico) may appear a perfectly amiable, peaceful, unprovoked procedure; but it does not appear so to us."
The marching of an American army into Mexico would accurately be called an invasion. The annexation of major parts of Mexico would be called theft.
To call poor unarmed refugees fleeing poverty and corrupt governments today, doesn't approach the term invasion.
To call them such would better fall under the term of lies and propaganda. Or just plain racism.
5
@bill They are are not people! The US government is very flexible as to who is a person.
Know-Nothings, selfish bigoted nativists. A throwback to the 19th century, filling cable and internet with venom, appealing to fear of our neighbors.
5
It's not just the El Paso killer and it's not just Fox News. We are in a sea of dog whistles, emanating from the White House and pervading the Internet. Elizabeth Warren was not being inflammatory when she called Trump a white supremacist, and she is rightly exasperated that more of us don't see what's really going on.
7
If El Paso can be pinned on conservative media shrillness, surely the blame for Dayton can be laid at the doorstep of liberal loudmouths considering the shooters ultra leftist leanings?
12
@T. Varadaraj
When the Dayton shooter is shown to have had motives that echo what Democrats are saying we will acknowledge that point. So until we find his manifesto that says he shot people because he wanted equal rights for all, less expensive college and access to medical care for all you are just going to have to hold your breath.
9
This is an interesting analysis but can you broaden it to a longer span of time (e.g. starting 1980) and include all phrases describing illegal immigrants (e.g. illegal alien, illegal immigrant, undocumented immigrant, invader)? Yes, invader is quite harsh, but replacing 'undocumented immigrant' for 'illegal alien' is a softening the that the mainstream media has done over the decades. Perhaps Upshot can help here?
5
To me, this obsession with the words, invasion & replacement, show those people to be extremely insecure. i am also talking about the FOX "news" hosts. Very insecure, in so many ways.
1
Hate speech matters. It doesn't dissolve into the ether. It's horribly malignant, like the worst cancer.
Its devastating impact can be found, with ever-increasing frequency, in the blood, and the bullet-riddled bodies, and the tears, and the makeshift memorials, and the funerals, and the graves that result when hate speech mutates into marching orders for bigots armed with weapons of mass murder.
We've gone mad, America. And orchestrating that madness, accompanied by a vitriolic chorus of "conservative media stars" and their political accomplices, is none other than the Twitter-addicted hater in chief -- the president of the United States.
This is the first time in our history we've let anything like this happen, let alone on such a scale. Yet hate speech, amplified and perversely validated from the bully pulpit, is so normalized that it has become background noise for national divisiveness.
This is America?
501
@Dotconnector. I agree with your comment, until you said that "this is the first time in our history we've let anything like this happen, let alone on such a scale." Its happened repeatedly to various ethnic groups, and continually to one.
72
@Dotconnector It's not the first time at all. If you go back in history, hate and vitriol against certain immigrant groups has been prevalent multiple times during the 19th and early 20th centuries...several times culminating in laws banning immigration from certain countries and regions.
54
@Dotconnector. For now yes, this is America. But it won't last, because if it does America is finished.
40
When is the article.on the Dayton shooters leftist rhetoric going to come out?
11
@Bob, I doubt it even exists, but you're welcome to link to your evidence.
This is a strange talking point that's sprung up in the rightwing media bubble. No doubt many on the right feel they're being victimized by the media again, and it festers and produces this kind of nonsensical comeback. Conservatives are not being attacked. This article shows the connections between the El Paso shooter's beliefs and those espoused by rightwing media stars, including Trump. If there were a similar connection between inflammatory talk on the left and a mass shooter's manifesto, that would be reported too.
7
@Bob What evidence do you have that the Dayton shooter was motivated by a political agenda?
6
“But words have blood in them; they can make fate take shape when they pass from a mouth into a heart.”
Excerpt From
The Gone Dead
Chanelle Benz
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-gone-dead/id1329410486
This material may be protected by copyright.
1
It's just the latest iteration of what conservatives always sell: fear.
Fear of freed slaves. Of the red menance. Of women voting. Of women having careers. Fear of communists. Of minorities attending "our" schools. Fear of government. Fear of gays and lesbians. Fear of inevitable change. Fear of losing societal dominance.
Saying no and being fearful are the easy choices. Finding solutions and common ground have long been abandoned by the conservative party. True leaders rise to the challenge of their times. Those that exploit for power, prestige and wealth are always able to instil the fear that favors their selfish goals.
Those willing to engage and face problems realize our world is not static. And that positive determined effort is the only way to address and resolve the issues of our time.
622
@JFH Conservative thought, in and of itself, isn't evil. It's a measured, logical approach to politics, as valid as liberal thought. America has never really embraced either. Or maybe it's just that they're misshapen on American soil. Conservatism values tradition, but here that became southern tradition, with its racism and further back slavery.
25
@JFH I so agree. Ironically, each of the mentioned groups have enriched our society in myriad ways. Pluralism, diversity is not something to be feared but rather embraced.
Let compassion for those less fortunate be a hallmark of our policy.
25
@Briani agree with everything here except “southern tradition.” As a transplanted northernor and historian, I know very well that the worst of our conservative tradition has strong roots in the North as well.
15
It is a serious error to confuse what is happening in the United States as a question of liberals vs. conservatives. These so-called "conservatives" including Trump and his Fox/Breitbart media soundingboard are actually hard core racists.
It is now fundamentally a matter of fighting to maintain respect for what this nation has fought and died for. How can any true conservative Republicans who have any sense of decency not realize what damage Trump is doing to their party? How can they stand idly by and watch everything they believe in as conservatives be trashed by Trump’s racism and unending hatred amplified by right wing extremist media? Any patriotic American including real conservatives will vote against the Republicans that back Trump in order to restore decency to our government.
8
@Jefflz The conservatives reply: yes, but Gorsuch. And Kavanaugh. And tax cuts. While under their breaths, they mutter: and my exalted status.
"Conservatives" have interest in conserving only one thing: their own power, at all costs. They sold their souls and moral compasses long ago in pursuit of that goal, and should be called out in all news stories as the radicals they truly are.
2
There is power in words. First there was the word. The mindless blabber mouths of Fox fake noise are doing huge damage to our country. Fox with its disinformation is what has led the US to become so polarized. Walter Cronkite reported the news. Fox reports are entertainment for trump or the republican party. The farther we get from reality the more we can thank fox for confusing old people, and feeding lies to its gullible listeners.
3
@RDW Yes, but none of that matters because they earn a fortune for their shareholders.
When this country's obituary is written, the cause of death will be Rupert Murdoch's bank account.
2
We don’t need to tolerate Fox News or Fox. The airwaves are a public trust. The FCC could pull their broadcast license tonight depriving the fascist goon Rupert Murdoch of a valuable revenue stream to finance the lies and poison he injects every day into the American bloodstream. The next Democratic Congress could strip him of the honorary citizenship the 1981 Reagan Congress gave him so he could establish a right wing propaganda network in America. Do it and deport HIM and his sleazy minions.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. We didn’t invite Dr. Goebbels here in 1940 to own radio stations and newspapers. We don’t have to have Murdoch and his fascist Fox friends poisoning our political system.
4
@Ignatz Farquad Sorry, too late. Might have worked a few years ago, but
shutting down Fox News today would only enable Sinclair, and they're far worse.
@Ignatz Farquad
What happens when Trump starts deporting journalists and newsrooms of their broadcast licenses? I don't think you've thought this through, Mr. Farquad.
1
@Ignatz Farquad, ironically, your desire to have the government pull the license of TV stations whose politics you call “lies” because it differs from your political beliefs, fits the definition of “fascist” very well.
In the wake of the El Paso shooting, five reporters with elite educations spent their time scanning every statement ever made by every conservative media star that contained the word "invasion." Then they scanned the 10 million hits for those that also included the word "immigration." They could have interviewed victims' families. They could have probed the history of the shooter. They could have researched how the shooter got his guns. They could have talked to local Hispanics who are now afraid of retail shopping in heavily Hispanic stores. They could have updated the progress of proposed gun control legislation. But they were told to play word search and use the millions of hits to blame the shooting on conservative media stars who are as upset and traumatized about mass shootings as everybody else. Seems like a waste of an Ivy League education.
6
@michjas, I think it's important to understand what motivated the El Paso shooter--and the shooters in Christchurch, Pittsburgh, etc. I'd never heard of the replacement theory, but it's a central theme in white nationalism. It's also creeping into rightwing media, as this article demonstrates.
Reporters can do all of the things you mention, but this article is one of the most important pieces written about the El Paso shooter.
2
What's missing from this analysis is the fact that millions of Americans tune in to hear these media hosts spit racist hatred. These individuals say whatever it takes to make money, just like Trump says whatever it takes to keep his base engaged. That's the real problem--not these for-profit, spineless opportunists.
195
@Acep1111
Millions is an understatement. Trump has 63 million followers and I' guessing Fox over the course of any given day, is likely half that. A very large portion of your friends, family, and neighbors. Good luck in 2020...
24
@RHC, Trump's 63 million followers don't indicate 63 million fans. Just people (i.e., like reporters) who follow his tweets.
I'm guessing Fox has nowhere near 30 million viewers on any given day. Maybe a third that much.
10
@RHC
It's not really 63 million anymore. I've talked to friends and family that voted in 2016 for Trump and deeply regret it now. They were looking for a change, didn't like Clinton and thought that Trump would be a different president then the campaigning Trump. They now know better and will not vote for Trump in 2020.
24
Trump's enablers in Congress have drunk the Koolaid as well. At a recent Town Hall meeting held by my Representative, Glen Grothman, home for the August recess, I - and others - were aghast at the racial slurs and downright untruths Mr. Grothman made about those wishing to seek asylum in this country.
I was astounded too, about the fierceness with which his supporters defended his idiocy. A little anti-racism training in this country would go a long, long way!
294
@We the People.
We could start with better education in our schools. Civics and accurate history courses are not required and the loss is clear.
27
@We the People. - In my rather enlightened suburban New York public school system, we also had a course in late elementary school on recognizing propaganda. Generalizations, "glittering generalities" as they were called, were a major component. This is a topic that needs to be reintroduced into the curriculum, along with civics and real history, such as knocking the halo off the head of "Saint" Ronald Reagan. "Government is the problem" was wrong then but is becoming right now, not because of our system but because of those in power who abuse it.
18
@We the People. Just googled your rep. Good God, what is going on in the mid West? Was no one else running ever?
4
I find Rush and the FOX crowd downright seditious, as well as assassins of the English language. The influx of migrants and asylum seekers are hardly "invaders" which is a military term used for aggressor armies. Invaders are either repelled by opposing armies or if successful, conquered.
There are border controls to deal with the overwhelming majority of people who seek to immigrate. There are processes to follow--it's not the chaos of war, just the chaos of being understaffed, most likely deliberately.
The "solutions" FOX news hosts propose, such as "shooting the invaders," are as inhumane as they are unconstitutional. Not that they would ever acknowledge all that.
Their use of the terms of war for a situation that is anything but, is irresponsible and inciting, an attempt to fire up the people and give leaders "war-like" powers.
389
@ChristineMcM There's a crime called "incitement" that's been studiously ignored during the last few years. If you stand and shout "shoot the invaders," knowing that there are guns in the hands of tens of thousands of your listeners, that these people follow your words, and that some are capable of pulling a trigger - that's incitement. The inciter isn't as guilty as the murderer, but isn't not guilty, either. The law is surprisingly clear. It's about time it got used.
71
@ChristineMcM
'Good to hear that Rush, the ex-drug addict and draft dodging-deferring stay at home remains a hypocritical force for the Right.
18
@ChristineMcM:As you say: " There are border controls to deal with the overwhelming majority of people who seek to immigrate. There are processes to follow"
Our problem is that for several decades we have not enforced those processes. Illegal migrants have been lured across that border to be used as cheap "off-the-books" labor while those paid to enforce our laws looked the other way. Anyone familiar with our Southwestern land border knows this. The problem has grown beyond control, and there are now many millions of them here illegally. If those laws are not now enforced, it may well grow into the billions.There is a big impoverished world out there, and the impoverished are not famous for rational family planning.
3
The nation is more divided than during the Civil War. Followers of Trump will only believe the Fox News line no matter what counter evidence is provided. They have selected the section of the segmented media landscape that tells them what they already believe is true. The notion that they need to be listened to and it is necessary to understand there concerns is a fool’s errand. Even if Trump is defeated in the next election they will remain convinced of their conspiracies and alternative universe, consuming their version of reality awaiting their next messiah.
154
@DO5 You are absolutely right there. Once I had a “busload of voters” person on a comment site. The person was rational, in a certain way.
So response-by-response I took apart their position and how it was incorrect. Providing links to statistics, court cases, etc. etc. Rebutting the counter-response with facts linked to non-partisan source material.
The person finally ended with something like, “Well you believe what you believe and I’ll believe what I believe.”
It’s the definition of insanity. Welcome to America.
37
That's not just for politics, I'd argue that it is even more common amongst the highly religious when you calmly and logically show the fallacy in their arguments. Religion isn't evil and has done many good things, but when it is used as a a weapon and substitute for rational thought it can become extremely dangerous.
8
@DO5 . It's bad, but the leadup to the Civil War was much worse. And you're even saying it's worse now than DURING the Civil War? The U.S. was troubled by sectionalism since its creation, and most major decisions centered on the slavery question. Now look up the death counts during the Civil War. We are troubled now, for sure, but the Civil War was a catastrophe of another magnitude.
2
People follow these leaders and are influenced by the media. This is especially true in the U.S. and our worship of television. These "leaders" embolden the lunatic fringe to act and they do. In this case they killed what they have been told to target--invaders. The idea is stoked by the fear of being replaced. But that replacement is happening because the white Baby Boom population did not have as many kids and nothing that new immigrants do will change that. Instead, these Hispanic immigrants will one day be known as the Great Replenishment, a generation of people who came to America and whose progeny will help to rebuild it for the future. We are seeing America renew itself in much the same way it did in the past with the Irish, the Italians and the Jews. There were a lot of Know Nothing leaders and media people who opposed those groups too and they have relegated to the dustbin of history.
75
@North Carolina -- You've got it all upside down. Hispanics have been in this country way before the Irish, Italians, and Jews. In the so many years, you don't much about any significant contribution from the Hispanic community to the US' enrichment; what exactly do you see is going to change?
5
I have to agree with the NYT on this one. All the people saying this is trying to shut down free speech are missing the point. The conservative media is knowingly whipping up xenophobic sentiment. With serious consequences.
426
@Biz Griz
And they do it to make money. It’s a joke when they deride the mainstream media. No one in the mainstream makes as much as these purveyors of hate.
49
@Biz Griz Free speech is not absolute.
@Biz Griz Shut it down by boycotting Fox' advertisers. They understand one thing, money. Nestle's needs to know that advertising on Carlson's show and supporting Fox is toxic to its brand.
6
Hate mongering and hate speech characterize Fox and Limbaugh. They are clearly inciting people in terrible ways. This isn't the first time, of course. There are other incidents, just smaller scale ones.
The anger and bigotry on Fox are for money as much as ideology. Ties between Murdoch and Russia should also be examined since this is straight out of Putin's playbook about arousing white nationalism and anti-immigrant extremism. The bizarre alliance of evangelicals with this hatred can only be explained when you look back at how some churches supported slavery.
One characteristic of any genocide is that the victims are dehumanized. it also characterizes other crimes against humanity. Right now, that is what is happening against Latino immigrants, even small children.
This is dangerous, and it is getting worse.
Trump used to make fun of "Hope and Change" as a motto; he replaced it with "Hate and Rage" with rally after rally showing lynch mob type mentalities and chants of racist or sexist hatred.
Boycott Fox. Boycott any corporations that advertise on Fox. And vote out all Republicans.
220
@SMB What you suggest would go a long way to clean up the country. I still don't believe the majority of Americans would go to a trump hate rally. His cult members are still a small but dangerous minority. US citizens need to take a fearless moral inventory of themselves.
26
@RDW
I’m not so sure that Trump’s “cult members” are a “small... minority” given what I see and read. I don’t see hundreds or thousands of them traveling the country to be at even close to majority of his rallies. If only they were more like the “Deadheads” who followed the Grateful Dead. The majority at each Trump rally seem to be locals, who want to come out and be swayed by his rhetoric. Given the number of rallies he has help and the number of venues he has held them in, they must represent a sizable minority.
However, I will agree, wholeheartedly, with the idea that they are dangerous. The evidence clearly points that way.
11
@RDW Most people (including Americans) have no idea what a fearless moral inventory is or the courage to actually do one because it can be painful. It's been many years and I could stand to do another. Look it up on the Internet.
3
Fox News has proven that propaganda works. There is nothing wrong with wanting to limit immigration. In fact, there is nothing unreasonable or unethical to want to exclude certain people from immigrating (see Israel). That's perfectly fine, and we can have a debate on how to do that, and if Congress agrees, they can find ways to have a sane immigration policy.
But Congress doesn't want to do that, and demonizing people is wrong. This is what Fox Propaganda does. And that is unethical.
The fact is, the largely Republican business owners don't want to stop illegal immigration, because they are the ones who hire illegal workers and pay low wages and oftentimes under the table. But Fox Propaganda puts out awful messages concerning immigrants, and we see the result in El Paso. It's the Republicans who are hiring workers, and this is what is drawing people. For example, I guarantee you the people who own those processing plants down in Mississippi where all those illegal workers were rounded up are dyed-n-the-wool Republicans.
8
When an unbalanced person hears of a fictitious "invasion"
over and over on television, why act so surprised when he
reaches for his assault rifle?
266
@C. Whiting
You are exactly right. Unhappy white guys who feel they are being denied the jobs, girlfriends and status they think they are entitled to are all too happy to find a group to blame. Carlson and Ingram and Limbaugh, etc. are speaking their language, offering them the chance to "stand up," to be "heroes" and "defend the country." We've always had some resentful people who feel powerless, but now they can easily get hold of military-style weapons. When the Fox folks sound the alarm that the country is being invaded, angry white guys with guns are eager to heed the call.
10
@C. Whiting The faux shock and surprise are common for Republicans and their followers. Just as "thoughts and prayers" are their knee-jerk reaction to mass shootings. Soon some will even claim mass shootings as God's will.
6
@C. Whiting Right. Especially when that unbalanced person spends hours and hours every day engaging in fantasy role play video games where he is the hero using similar assault rifles to save the day by murdering masses of people. One source of media tells him what the problem is - the "invasion". The other shows him and even trains him how to solve it - with an assault rifle. Video games teach these guys which guns work best in different situations, how to move across the battle theatre and set up an efficient killing field, how to take cover when reloading, how to lead targets effectively and the best places to shoot targets so that they die. They also give them lots of positive feedback when they do well at the game.
3
Back in the olden days of the 2000’s there was a run on Wal Marts with people wanting to buy six shooters because they thought excessive regulation was imminent. Is the same happening now with people wanting to cross the border? A now or never movement? I wonder.
1
Because it is an "INVASION". One of the definitions of invasion: "an unwelcome intrusion into another's domain." So stop with the pity party for all these invaders illegally entering our country and try to have some common sense.
10
@Italian Dude I live in Colorado and I could use the word invasion to describe the flood of people moving to the Denver metro area and they are all US citizens. I just wonder why can't they stay in Texas, or Florida and fix the problems in their own states. We worked hard to have a nice city and this 'invasion' of Americans moving here is too much too fast. I resent it.
16
@zcaley Texas, Florida and California (which you did not mention) have very high levels of immigration from outside the United States. Maybe they're coming to Colorado as refugees from places that they no longer recognize.
3
How is this concept any different to leftists propagating the nonsense language used by Islamic Fundamentalists? Eg. They are only committing suicide bombings because of US intervention.
Where are your priorities?
5
I think the 2020 Trump Campaign ticket will be Trump/Duke.
Let's get it out there that there is no hiding the racist and white supremacist agenda that it is.
8
Fox News is nothing more than a modern version of a Russian tzar, giving a wink and a nod to goons starting pogroms to keep the Jews in line.
8
Tucker Carlson's vacation is presumably a result not only of his lethargic allegiance to facts but because his advertisers are also taking a vacation.
We can't, and shouldn't boycott everything that we disagree with but targeted boycotts of advertisers who support the worst of the worst, like Carlson, combat their garbage.
It's not just that words have consequences; history shows that words like "infestation" have violent consequences. Kristallnacht sprang from Nazi propaganda.
Numerous lynchings were staged to "Keep Negros in Their Place". Now that the President has made prejudice against Latinos respectable among his followers, he bears responsibility not for pulling the trigger but for encouraging prejudices from which violence flows.
8
Please NYT. Stop dropping the word ILLEGAL when writing about the fraudulent refugee claimants who are invading our country. American’s get to decide who immigrates and the only factor considered is will the immigrant improve American society. Poor, unskilled, uneducated illegal aliens are a burden on society and will remain burdens their entire lives. Compassion ends when it threatens the quality of life and standard of living that all of us benefit from and want pass on intact to our children.
13
@Bayricker you know nothing about immigration or their value to the country. These people are not unskilled, in fact, they are highly skilled for the jobs that they eventually find in agriculture, in construction, in landscaping, and in animal husbandry. In addition, looking at only one generation of immigrants and their impact and value to the country is shortsighted. Over three generations of these immigrants and their children will help to replenish our country like many other immigrants have in the past. As for your children? You left them a world that is burning. And one in which your generation is not replenishing itself with a lower birthrate. America's future is dependent on these immigrants and even with them we will not be able to replace the current population we have. Europe and Japan suffer the same fate. So we need them. You need them to help pay for your social security and take care of you in your dotage, which appears to be fast approaching.
27
@Bayricker
Wow - you need to read up on a little - actually a lot, rather, most - of American history. It is pretty much totally. About. Immigration!
18
@Bayricker My grandparents were from Sicily and Austria. They were poor and uneducated, but raised my parents to be hardworking who then raised me and my siblings who all hold Masters Degrees. Most immigrants who came through Ellis Island were poor and uneducated who were looking for a better life. Most of the illegals here in the USA arrived poor, but work hard to give their children a better life just like my parents and thousands of others...What 's the difference. I think Italians were considered dark at the turn of the century. Let's keep America a melting pot. Even Mother Nature does not favor monocultures but diversity.
6
"The Hispanic invasion of Texas."
A thought that could only live in the mind of someone with absolutely no knowledge of the history of Texas and/or its people.
61
@Patrick
Absolutely right. Crusius obviously has never heard of the six flags or the fact that Tejas was first populated by indigenous peoples who were overrun by the Spaniards. Anglos like me did not get here until the ~1830s.
4
These men are malleable and are shaped by Trump's cheap hate - all the moron knows - killing his nation - I'm afraid the USA is now truly lost. I am Canadian and disengagement seems smart - no free trade - visas, a failing nation and one not to be tied to.
16
This is an excellent analysis. Very educational and very well laid out.
Thank You for writing this.
It's easy for the right wing propagandists to find disaffected people and continually hammer the same rhetoric over and over and over again. It easy for frustrated Americans to find comfort in that they are told everything is someone else's fault.
What is interesting is why do they not focus on companies and employers who hire 'illegals' who have 'invaded' our country and are trying to 'replace' us. It's always blame the worker while corporations benefit from the cheap labor.
15
@zcaley
A new FCC chief should require those FOXN shows to have a disclaimer that it is OPINION, not NEWS. And that little thing they do before infomercials, how it isn't the opinion of the network. etc.
Cuz if it were the opinion of the network, supporting a political party, that would be problematic. The network, an honest network, would want to discourage that perception.
10
@Chuck Jones While I strongly disagree with this well orchestrated propaganda push, they do have the right to lie. And we have the right to expose them for it. I think in the long run it's better to have this mess out in the open so we can expose it. To me it's just trash talk. Why on earth did the President retweet a conspiracy that 'the Clinton machine' likely offed Jeffery Epstein?
Why on earth did Bill Barr come out with a statement trying to exonerate the President before the full report from Mueller came out? It's mind boggling the lies that are told in an effort to achieve an agenda. My question is what is the agenda? It seems awful shady to me.
4
I think the "Mooch" is onto something when he says that the GOP may need to replace Trump for 2020. Trump s a disaster as a leader. And Ozzie translplant Murdoch, along with such others who use their media holdings to incite violence must be held accountable for hate crimes. They are equally culpable. How journalists like Shep Smith and Chris Wallace can work at NewsCorp without holding their noses is quite the feat.
14
Ann Coulter said after the massacres in Dayton and El Paso that he sent his heart to the victims ... that's called hypocrisy, but the main responsibility is that of Donadl Trump who holds the highest government office in the United States at having called the Mexican rapists and criminals ... and his video with the victims of both massacres holding the thumbs up is the most horrible thing I've seen in my entire life, because it meant a mockery for the deceased and their families ...
20
You know, I'll admit that if my whole reason for being hired was to keep more eyes on MY news outlet and fewer on the voices for greater truth like the opposition, I TOO would be as jealous as could be - as the NY Times is.
Fox News, its sprightly-in-the-morning sister Fox Business Channel, and 31-years-strong Rush Limbaugh have been eating the progressive hate-trainers' lunch ever since the collusion myth was dreamt up in Hillary's vengeful mind and the Obama White House.
I was once in the Democrats' cheering section back when theywere still patriotic and capitalist, and it is still amazing to realize what the Hard Left has lost, probably forever.
But if you REALLY want to see the exact same catchphrase used a dozen times a day, listen to Limbaugh or Hannity play the audio of 10 or 15 CNNers, etcetera.
Remember how every J-school warbler said ''gravitas'' 50 times the week that candidate George W. Bush named his Veep running mate?
That was when the political Right realized that the Left had nothing to say, so they all said it together.
Your starter dose for Fox News may be Laura Ingraham the last hour of prime time weekdays.
9
@L osservatore
My goodness, but you prove the point of the NYT!
15
@We the People.
I also tried this no-thoughts-required repartee' once myself. but it never worked. Enjoy.
1
Texas already had 2 of the 6 top mass killings in America at the time of El Paso slaughter--so tinder was there to ignite. Add Trump's bombastic attitude towards El Paso and he just about literally drew a huge target ring around El Paso. So today Texas has 3 out of 7 top mass killings in America. Ban Assault Weapons Now! No Vacation for Congress--How can you sun yourselves on American Blood......
15
We're in a really weird place. The right, as the NYT reports, talks of an invasion meant to replace our culture. The left wants open borders. When, in fact, what's happening at the border in the last few years is entirely new: immigrant families seeking asylum en masse, not foreign workers illegally crossing the border for jobs.
I recommend "The Tortilla Curtain," by T.C. Boyle, published in 1995, to everyone. It's about, in part, the fear and loathing of upper-middle-class whites in gated communities in Malibu as Mexicans and Central Americans "flood" across the border looking for work. It reads like it was written yesterday, not nearly 30 years ago. And the Mexican characters in the book are looking for... work, and a decent life.
I am very liberal, but neither I nor my friends think having a totally open border makes sense. We're also disgusted by the jingoism.
I suggest that everyone who feels passionately about this subject, whatever side they're on, spend three months in Southern California and experience life in the country we're becoming. They'll eat very well, and will realize this, whatever it is, is not the end of the world.
5
@George Judson
Hi George,
For clarity, please define the terms "open border(s)" and "jingoism" as you intend us to infer them as we read your comment.
6
@oy_gevalt
Open borders: Crossing the border without papers is okay.
Jingoism: The right's demonizing of others, led by our president.
4
@George Judson
Thanks. Agreed on both parts.
1
I have seen the word "immigrants" or "migrants" constantly referred to here as something that the GOP rails against. Yet what I hear and read with my own eyes coming from the various right wing/conservative politicians are them railing against illegal/undocumented immigrants. There is a clear difference, but the writer lumps them all together to purposely blur the message.
This guy in El Paso was another angry person on a deranged mission.
8
@bart Yes, the El Paso guy was madder about the declining environment for a longer period than any wascally nativism he held against Latino immigration.
The ultimate truth: bad people do bad stuff. Politics is just tossed on the story like icing on a donut.
4
@bart "Send her back! Send her back!" What's that about only undocumented immigrants again?
8
@bart You claim the issue is legality. But just today the Trump administration is announcing its latest attack on *legal* immigration.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/us/politics/trump-immigration-policy.html
When a gang of people pours into your home uninvited while you are there, intimidates you and takes your property, it’s called a home invasion. How is that different - on a smaller scale - than what’s happening at the southern boarder? Call it what you want - invasion, mass illegal boarder crossings or trespassing - its unwanted, it’s against the law and the public wants it stopped. The issue is not why these people are coming here, its that they are coming - in violation of the law. It’s like a leak in your roof: first you plug the leak, then assess why it happened and work to keep it from happening again.
14
@Back Up Sorry, but you don't seem to understand either the law or our national history. The vast majority of those seeking asylum are, well, seeking asylum. They are leaving dangerous, often life-threatening, situations for a chance at a life; not simply a better life, but a life, period.
The United States has stood as "the shining light" of freedom and safety for most of its history. Our laws accept and are prepared for dealing with asylum seekers. Unfortunately, our courts aren't. But, that is OUR fault, not the fault of those who want to live...
20
@Back Up
You feel intimidated by refugees? My goodness you are insecure.
Also, way to go calling them thieves. Trump and Fox News would be proud.
8
@Back Up Finally. A sensible NYT reader. Thank you!
1
If I read things correctly, I believe the Dayton killer was a very left leaning, antifa supporting individual. Why isn't the Times providing equal time for this side of the story? All mass killing, or acts of violence, are terrible, but they are not the sole province of the right.
11
@DickH Agreed, however ... the vast majority of these "mass killings" are connected to right-wing (or white nationalist) ideologies. And, common to those shooters is a vocabulary used by Trump, Fox, Breitbart, et al.
The Dayton shooter, like the Las Vegas killer, seems to have been without real ideology other than to kill... Hard to deal with mental illness in depth BUT not so difficult to hear the reasons given by the majority of these shooters.
7
Some foment hatred for power. Some foment it for money.
Some do it for both. Maybe Lenin was right when he said:
"A capitalist will sell even the rope which they'll hang him with, in order to make a profit." Seems to fit our country anyway.
4
These abhorrent Fox "journalists" incited murder.
Trump too.
Shame on them all.
15
@moosemaps
Shame is too small of a word. It used to work in the fifty's to stop good people from doing foolish things.
How about "Lock them UP" using the same words that they used against Clinton and others.
Did anyone actually bother to read the 'manifesto'?
https://thefederalistpapers.org/opinion/el-paso-shooters-entire-purported-manifesto
Free speech ends forever when you listen to lame media outlets that Sell you the news but withhold the Truth.
Lots of things are missing from the Times 'expert analysis' such the fact the the shooter thought Democrat Party politics were the reason he needed to take such extreme action.
People need to demand the facts, not commentary. Welcome to the boot on your face forever. Brought to you by the media.
19
@Bill Wilson Sorry, time and again he blames Dems AND Repubs ... and in some cases, primarily the GOP. Plus.his argument is logically off base ... I wonder which media you actually trust...
4
@George Campbell But his point stands that the NYT analysis of the manifesto addressed only the writer's hatred of immigrants from Mexico. The WaPo presented a piece that addressed the other topics that also motivated this twisted young man. The Times can do better and I hope that they will in the future.
6
The President and his Fox propaganda outfit are inciting and percolating hatred and violence in America for their own political purposes. That is clear to anyone who listens for two minutes. Why are the FCC and the FBI not putting a stop to this crimal behavior?
8
Republicans know that the only way they can continue to raid the treasury for 0.1% and corporate welfare is to keep their milky white gun-toting base in a constant state of fear, paranoia and rage.
Rush, Hannity, Coulter, Trump and a radical red rainbow of rich Republican bottom feeders are more than thrilled to supply that electoral base with the Recommended Daily Allowance of White Spite and a constant IV drip of fear and loathing.
It makes grand larceny that much easier for the Greed Over People party to bankrupt the nation for the rich.
Decent Americans don't vote Republican or fall for their electoral tricks.
November 3 2020
286
@Socrates Oldest political trick in the book. Use a group of people as a scapegoat and create fear around them. Deflect from the evil you are doing by creating more fear and anger until they are completely blind or indifferent to the evil.
34
The idea that there is some sort of 'American Culture' that is not the direct result of 'immigrants' or 'migration' of people from different cultures who chose to migrate to this country is patently absurd. Almost as absurd as the idea that this 'culture' is not something that has been and will continue to evolve over time forever.
The more important question is how it was possible for this incident to have taken place over the better part of an hour in what is, according to these talking heads, and the head talking head bozo the president, one of the most dangerous cities in the country where there are supposedly thousands of 'bad hombres' with guns looking for any excuse to shoot a 'real American' and supposedly thousands of 'law enforcement officers' there to protect the 'real Americans'.
While I have yet to see a full timeline, it seems to be the case that this dude was walking around shooting and reloading in and out of the store for the better part of twenty minutes and no one else ever fired a shot. And no one appears to have been shot attempting to stop him.
So when you get done remembering what Cambridge Analytica was all about and how much bozo the president and his clown posse of talking heads in the media are attempting to do every single day by targeting clueless people with propaganda, see if you can put together a rational story for how over the period of something approximating an hour, this 21 year old was able to do what he did in El Paso.
6
Thanks to the Times for avoiding using the racist murderers names. It's a small but important editorial decision.
39
@dean apostol Amen.
3
Americans have every right to object to millions of people arriving here every year. That these people don't often use language that the NYT finds appropriate or that one killer used in the manifesto is of no consequence.
11
@Ed, I am going to assume you are native American. Since those are the only folks who have a legitimate gripe for immigration policies.
27
@Ed
confusing grammar- 'these people' might refer to millions, or to Americans????
anyway, your point is so cold hearted and blind to reality-- from timothy mcveigh to El Paso and dozens in between, white pseudo-nazi murderers have echoed the same words over and over. how can you ignore this if- hope- you are a decent American...???
21
@Ed
Ed, if you'r having problems, its probably not due to immigrants.
19
When our parents and grandparents were young, this also happened.
.
Father Coughlan.
Der Volkischer Beobachter
Der Sturmer.
.
When that was over, it was supposed to be "Never Again".
20
Trump is a racist. Fox news and consdrvative news outlets have alligned themselves with white suppremacists.
Good friends of mine who are Trump supporters are unwilling to admit he and the conservative news media are even partly responsible for this recent domestic terrorist attack on the latino community by a white nationalist. Deep down I feel some of them agree he is an awful person, but will not under any circumstances say anything bad about him or admit is he capable of being wrong about anything. Because partisan politics have become so toxic to the point rational educated republican friends of mine will align themselves with a racist because it serves their political interests.
Trump and the conservative media are dividing our country, and succeeding. They are by far the biggest threat to the future of our democracy. I'm afraid the democratic party can't save it with facts and good investigstive journalism, because the right simply doesn't care. They want to win at all costs, and if that cost includes white suppremacists killing minorities in domestic terrorist attacks on a semi-regular basis, it's acceptable collateral damage they can chalk up to video games and mental health issues.
We are truly screwed as a nation for the forseable future.
71
@Robert M, you can thank Roger Ailes, Atwater/Stone/Manafort and the Southern Strategery.
26
@WeeJay
and Murdoch
9
Why can’t Limbaugh, Carlson, Ingram be charged with hate speech.? If any Democrat would have ever said that Jewish people coming from Europe to Israel was an inversion can you imagine the uproar? He will be castigated in public by Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
15
The right wing media foments paranoia. It starts when you're always afraid. Intense fear has consequences. Perhaps that's their objective.
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Instead of blaming migrants for acting in their own best interest, American media personalities should focus on ways that the United States can reduce the push and pull factors that drive migration. Here's a simple five-point plan that should delight folks on all parts of the political spectrum:
(1) Stop invading other countries, overthrowing governments, interfering with elections, arming tyrants, financing militants, and selling arms. Conflict, like that in Syria and Iraq, is a major driver of refugees.
(2) Stop multinational corporations from exploiting labor, stealing resources, bullying governments, and destroying the environment in developing countries.
(3) Address inequalities in income, wealth, and economic opportunity within and among nations. If someone can make tenfold the wages picking crops in the US than in Latin America, then economic migration should be expected. In free markets, labor will move just as capital does.
(4) Acknowledge that domestic US employers pay millions of migrant workers to perform duties in a large number of service sector and agricultural jobs. We all benefit from unauthorized workers, but we've decided we don't want to see any unauthorized faces.
(5) Address climate change. If you think migration is bad now, just wait.
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@I want to leave this planet: First, me too. But people like us have to stay and fight the good fight.
Your comment is absolutely brilliant, and I believe you must be, too. Thanks.
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@I want to leave this planet
If you find a way, count me in... Well done indeed!
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@I want to leave this planet
And free modern contraception for all.
"if you think contraception is expensive, try no contraception."
Wake up, Republistan.
Your war on the world's uteruses is not helping the world's migration crisis.
Current World Population
7,723,949,845 (7.7 billion humans).... and counting wrecking the climate.
"Be fruitful and multiply" is a religious disaster of epic proportions.
Contraception matters.
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It seems as if “invader” has become the latest derogatory term to refer to Hispanic immigrants. The members of the far right can endow the word “invader” with all the spite and derision formerly applied when using terms no longer considered appropriate.
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"Demographics are destiny." So it is not possible to discuss limits to immigration without being tarred as racist and bigoted? Good luck with that strategy in the 2020 election cycle.
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@JDK The Democrats and most Republicans would be happy to talk about limits on immigration. They've been trying to do that for 30 years. The Gang of 8 had a bill through the Senate in 2013 (as I recall) but Speaker Ryan wouldn't bring up the bill because of the ardent views of a minority of his caucus. So if you want immigration reform, start calling your Republican members of Congress and demand it. Also insist that the president put forth a bill with his recommended approach. To date we've seen executive orders on bits and pieces, but no comprehensive plan. You can't complain that the Dems won't do something if the president refuses to state in clear, detailed language what he is for/against. It's called leadership.
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@JDK
It's not impossible to discuss the issue. It is, however, impossible to get Republicans to stop lying about it.
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@JDK Remember that George W. Bush tried to enact immigration reform in his second term. As a former Texas governor, he was friendly toward Hispanics. His brother is married to a Hispanic. He might have been able to do something meaningful. But he could not get his own Republican Congress to bring it about. Then he lost the Congress in 2006.
Go back and listen to his inauguration speech. The threat of "horror", the Other, is nothing new. There's software available to discover linguistic patterns (e.g. QDA Miner) that can reveal messaging patterns over time. He, and/or his cronies, want us to be divided. We are unique and brilliant, and our strength is realized by confronting this short-sighted and inadequate ideology.
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@Ryan
It is called Neurolinguistic programming. I had a couple of books on the subject in the '80s by Richard Bandler and John Grinder. Look it up, you can see it happening for the bad, not the good as it was intended.
Thank you for this article and the thoughtful analysis. I have been watching the vitriol in right wing media with growing unease and concern for the past few years. It is unrelenting. Whether toward the immigrants, or "elite" liberals, or free press ("main street media") - it is 24 X 7 unrelenting hatred.
It is very strategic in terms of its long term goal - to demonize the democrats, democratic positions, and anyone who would be supportive. The goal is not reporting, the goal is not analysis. The goal is Republican victory - at any cost. Immigrants have become the perfect pawn for this.
And I must say the propaganda is very successful in terms of influencing. Whenever I take my car to my mechanic, whenever my plumber of handyman come over, they always have the right-wing radio playing in the background or Fox news on the television.
I think there is good and evil in most of us. The right-wing media propaganda is strategically built to bring out the worst in people by fomenting hatred for the purpose of getting and keeping some rotten people in power. It is a page straight out of the notebook from the master propaganda-ist of all:
[Propaganda’s] “task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.” - Adolf Hitler, 1924
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@LakesOcean While I agree with almost all of this ... my mechanic is Hispanic, my plumber (and his helpers) are Hispanic ... more often than not, they listen to music or Spanish radio .... AND - they do super work (and, being New Jersey, they charge exorbitant prices, like everyone else) ... :)
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There's an incredible amount of money to be made spreading fear, hatred, and outright lies. All you need is zero conscience or honor.
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@Bill Camarda
.
The thing is, we've seen it all before.
.
Father Coughlan.
Der Volkischer Beobachter.
Der Sturmer.
.
It was supposed to be "Never Again".
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Words and similes have meaning. Frank Luntz describes his specialty as "testing language and finding words that will help his clients sell their product or turn public opinion on an issue or a candidate." If you read his book "Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear" (2007) you can understand how the GOP has moved to racism and white Christian nationalism in order to maintain political power.
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“The use of what once would have been viewed as really extreme and inappropriate and sometimes conspiratorial, sometimes dehumanizing language is really striking.” Many of us still consider this really extreme, inappropriate, conspiratorial and dehumanizing language. The only thing that is different is that when mainstream media outlets like Fox use it, other media outlets refrain from calling it what it is. As long as it was Briebart and his boys, journalists would call it extreme and conspiratorial etc--it still is--even when the President and Fox News are the users. I encourage all journalists not to allow the normalization of this language but to condemn it as extreme.
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What's more shocking than what these "news" personalities say, is that what they say is taken as fact. Of course racist killers repeat this tripe! Of course people on the aptly named Fox will do their best to distance themselves from mass murder! The NY Times is 100% right to investigate, categorize and report the unrelenting wave of racist tripe that comes out of the mouths of people who work at Fox "News". Unfortunately, those who most need to read the reporting can't or won't. They're poisoned and beyond helping.
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There is no longer any reason to argue about, or even criticize Donald Trump. Forget Russia, obstruction of justice and sexual predation. He is a dangerous bigot and should be removed from office on that basis alone. Now. No member of Congress should have anything more to do with him. Protocol be damned, the man is now fully beyond the pale.
There have been countless films and books using the theme of murder instigated by behind the scenes forces; 'by proxy'.
What's new is that the behind the scenes voice now comes from the oval office. Donald Trump is culpable. What are we waiting for?
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@Curnonsky: What are we waiting for? We're impatiently waiting for Nancy Pelosi to get out of the corner and finally start articles of impeachment, which the 2018 midterm electorate so loudly demanded in their votes, including me. If she doesn't get out of her corporate Democrat corner, she will not be speaker next time.
Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh and the likes need replacement- with trees so that they are beneficial to society.
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