Politics - News Analysis

Former Breitbart Editor Says the GOP is a Bigger Threat to Democracy Than Al Qaeda Was on 9/11

Asian-American and former Lincoln Project adviser Kurt Bardella appeared on Joy Reid’s show on Tuesday and promptly dropped so much truth into the conversation that Fox News took umbrage. Of course, a lot of people appear on MSNBC and say things that drive Fox insane, things like “The sky is blue and plants are powered by photosynthesis.” Facts.

But Bardella talked about some facts that Fox really doesn’t like hearing, namely that the MAGA-GOP poses a bigger danger to the United States than any terrorist group in the world. We might add that the country that poses the biggest threat to the United States right now is the United States. Regardless, this bothered Fox:

“I’ve been thinking to myself this whole time, you know, Al Qaeda, Usama bin Laden, the Taliban, the people who wanted to do harm to our nation and to our way of life and our democracy, they got nothing on what this Republican Party is doing. The idea that a member of their party, of their leadership, who’s last name is Cheney, could be purged from their leadership for telling the truth about January 6, for telling the truth about a siege at the US Capitol that claimed the lives of, among others, a Capitol police officer.”

Fox actually felt the need to say that the Washington DC Medical Examiner found that Sicknick loss his life on the night of the 6th due to “natural causes” (he had two strokes) and thus Bardella lied. Fox left out that the medical examiner said that the pepper spray, fear, etc. “contributed to the cause of his passing, the strokes.” Even laypeople know that extremely high blood pressure, perhaps of the type brought on by pepper spray and marauding crowds, is one of the greatest risk factors for stroke.

And yet Fox would have you believe that Sicknick would have otherwise gone home from work, hugged his kids, and then passed of a stroke that night. The fact that Sicknick was in the damned hospital at the time of his stroke really ought to tip people off that passing of a “stroke” doesn’t mean that the attempted coup didn’t lead to Sicknick’s passing. (This is our opinion but we’re damned confident that our opinion is better than Fox’s “opinion.”) We point it out to demonstrate Fox’s commitment to propaganda. The whitewash continues, ever-growing.

Fox then quoted Bardella further:

“The fact that people like Cheney won’t support the great lie that this election was rigged or there was voter fraud, the anti-Democratic forces are hijacking this party, purging one of the members who won’t abide by the party line, that is so detrimental and dangerous.” 

 “We are a two-party system in this country, that’s how it was built for better or worse. When one of those two parties becomes this radicalized and when the core of the party’s ideology is anti-Democratic, that is a very scary development going to result in more vi*lence, that’s going to result in more attempts to overthrow our government, that’s going to result in people losing lives just like January 6.”

Fox then noted that Reid didn’t push back.

Push back on what? When Al-Qaeda hit the United States, it was a terrible, tragic, and senseless loss of life. The victims made sacrifices that actually brought this country together. We were one. Yes, we faced vi*lence, but our nation was a “union,” one in which we all believed in “our country” and it was not threatened. Ultimately, Al-Queda lost, Osama Bin Laden lost, and though the victims will never be forgotten, we rebuilt.

But unlike 9-11, when the motto was “Never forget,” the MAGAs approach to January 6th is “We forget? What happened again? It was a protest? People were angry and you would be too if you believed something so stupid that…” But mostly, Fox wants you to forget. THAT very fact, that alone, does make the situation more dangerous, it makes the MAGAs more dangerous than 9-11.

In response to 9-11, the United States increased security so that it wouldn’t happen again. In response to January 6th, the Republicans decreased security. They left democracy and our Constitution that much more exposed to a group of terrorists that seek to overthrow the United States.

Bardella was right and is right, and that is why Fox feels the need to make it sound “ridiculous.” It is not, it might be understated. Fox wasn’t cheering on Al-Qaeda after 9-11. Of course, Al-Qaeda wasn’t made up primarily of white men upset that the MAGA-man-god lost.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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