EVEN “FOX NEWS” BELIEVES THE CORONAVIRUS IS “FOR REAL”

…Tucker Carlson, of Fox News, said of the coronavirus, “This is real”

Per a Trump Supporter: “This [coronavirus] hysteria is being created to destroy Trump!”

Over the past month, President Trump has regularly downplayed the coronavirus issues with a number of false statements.

Can you believe it, the Fox Business News removed their prime-time anchor for casting the coronavirus as just “another attempt to impeach the president.”  Other right-wing personalities continue to call the coronavirus a “hoax” and they have falsely blamed George Soros, the billionaire investor and liberal donor, for causing the hysteria.

You may also recall that last week, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), a leading toady of President Trump, he dismissed concerns about the coronavirus pandemic by saying on Fox News that “it’s a great time to just go out, go to a local restaurant.”

The  former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, a Trump supporter who Trump pardoned last month, he tweeted that: “This hysteria is being created to destabilize the country and destroy Trump!”

Inside the Republican Party and the conservatives that Trump commands, there is now a deep divide as the nation confronts the coronavirus. For weeks, many on the right, including Trump have minimized the virus.  Even in recent days, as much of the world shuts down to try to stop its spread, some Republicans mocked what they saw as a media-generated frenzy.

To make the real point, over the past few months, 24 times Trump has downplayed the coronavirus.

The far right’s reaction has reflected how the American conservative has evolved under Trump.  They have moved from being a bloc of small-government advocates to a grievance coalition highly skeptical of government; real science; the real news; and even federal warnings.

But these same conservatives and the GOP now face the undeniable reality as the pandemic’s death count here and abroad climbs.  Today's worldwide reach of the coronavirus defies the bounds of any political debate.

It’s damn clear that this is no hoax and should be taken seriously,” said Jason Miller, a former Trump campaign adviser who co-hosts a podcast with of all people, the former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon.  The podcast is called “War Room Pandemic,” which has documented the economic and health fallout of the coronavirus.

“The right underestimated this and thought the media was beating up on Trump again,” added GOP strategist Ed Rollins, who chairs a pro-Trump super PAC. “That was yesterday. Today is, ‘Life in America is changing before our eyes.’ ”

Trump has finally changed his own approach, after weeks of down-playing comments about the virus that unfortunately spurred his allies to initially, and falsely, dismiss the danger of the pandemic.

All the president could say about Representative Nunes’ comment to Fox News, was that Trump said he had not heard about the Nunes’ remarks, but would “disagree” with anyone calling on Americans to congregate in restaurants.  “I think it’s probably better that you don’t,” Trump told reporters.

DUH!

A turning point for Trump finally came last week when Fox News host, Tucker Carlson, whom the president regularly calls, said in his opening monologue, “This is real.”

“People you trust…people you probably voted for… have spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem,” Carlson said.

Carlson’s comments caught Trump’s attention and was one of the factors that led the president to start to reconsider his unrealistic position.  This is according to two White House officials who obviously required anonymity in order to speak frankly.

“The conservative media echo-sphere was playing to the president’s worst tendencies, but you can almost time his turnaround publicly to how Breitbart and Tucker Carlson have been covering coronavirus,” said Sam Nunberg.  Nunberg had previously advised Trump on the media in Trump's run-up to his 2016 campaign.

Hours later, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said, “I’m pleased that the president and the public-health officials seem to now be on the same page. I think there was a gap in the early days.”

Several top Republicans, including the Oklahama Governor, Kevin Stitt, who have faced backlash for breaking with public-health experts.  They had been shrugging off the call for social distancing by offering negative messages to those conservative Americans who were looking to the government for clarity and guidance.

Dark and false conspiracy theories have also made their way into the conservative talks about the pandemic.

David A. Clarke Jr., the former Milwaukee County sheriff and Trump booster, he has also suggested that the global panic about the coronavirus was being pushed by George Soros.  This has become a common subject of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and the former sheriff urged people to take to the streets.  “Not ONE media outlet has asked about George Soros’s involvement in this FLU panic,” Clarke said. “He is SOMEWHERE involved in this.”

When in doubt, you can always count on the conservatives to go directly after George Soros.  It been in their blood for decades.

Breitbart, the website, that was once led by Steve Bannon, has blanketed its pages in recent days with the coronavirus coverage. “War Room: Pandemic,” broadcasting out of Bannon’s home, has become another gathering place for conservatives who see the crisis as a defining test for the nation and for Trump.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-ARK), has joined a right-wing claim that has largely blamed China for unleashing “this plague on the entire world through their dishonesty and their lack of transparency and corruption.” His efforts come as other conservatives push to define the virus as “Chinese” rather than in medical terms, even as Americans with Chinese heritage face xenophobic challenges.

“We’re shutting down our country because of the cold virus, which is what coronaviruses are,” the right winger, Rush Limbaugh, told his national radio audience last week. “You think the Chinese are not laughing themselves silly over how easy this has been?” He later added, “The Chi-Coms run this scam on some sort of virus, and the Americans do this?”

During this year’s State of the Union address, Trump unfortunately awarded Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom “in recognition of all that you have done for our nation, the millions of people a day that you speak to and that you inspire.”

Of all people that do NOT deserve the highest, civilian, US award, it’s Rush Limbaugh.

Historian, Douglas Brinkley, said Trump “fueled Limbaugh” and others with his ridiculous response to the coronavirus, which included sweeping travel restrictions on China as well as Trump’s political shots at his critics.

“He lit up the conservative movement, which followed his lead,” Brinkley said. “They knew what to do when he said it might be a hoax…and they have seen him belittle institutions of government for years, from the CIA to the State Department to the FBI. That has had a corrosive effect on the country.”

Brinkley added that fierce partisanship, loyalty to Trump and a conservative media complex that is inclined to play up to Trump as unfair or “fake”, has left the nation divided and on edge.

An NBC News-Wall Street Journal Poll released on Sunday showed Republicans far less likely to be worried about the coronavirus, with 40% of Republicans sensing “the worst is yet to come” compared to 79% of Democrats. And 81% of Republicans approved of Trump’s efforts compared to 13% of Democrats.

Because of Donald Trump’s lack of truthfulness with the American public, and due to the Republican’s blind support for the president, the nation has probably never been as split between the two parties as it is today.

Copyright G. Ater 2020