Lately, some U.S. media have voiced criticism of the term “alt right” and have shown a little interest in exposing the extent of “fake news” going around.
On the first, I am happy to see people condemning the term “alt right” because it makes those crusaders for un-freedom sound as if they were a tendency within the Republican Party, which they were not before Trump captured the party; their form of reaction goes far beyond even the Tea Party wing of the Republicans. The criticism is that the term sounds makes the alt-right sound respectable, as if comparable to some new break-away form in music.
The undisputed essence of the “alt right” readily supplies a name for it: white supremacism. Its members unashamedly parrot and accept the backing of the Ku Klux Klan and other militant racist groups—anti-Black, anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant, groups that the “mainstream media” had treated as disgraceful remnants of U.S. history for the past 50 years. Now, courtesy of Trump, these groups are treated by many as legitimate players on the political field.
The mainstream media also just discovered the extent of “fake news” that appears on the internet, on TV and in newspapers. This should have long been obvious to everyone who is not so committed to right-wing propaganda that they believe the fake news, and call the real news fake. Unfortunately, many people believe the most absurd nonsense, in spite of recent admissions from Russian web posters that they were paid by their government to create fake websites and stories for the U.S. market, the more outrageous the stories, the better.
The problem of fake news received some attention today because a man with a rifle was apprehended shooting up a pizzeria in Washington, D.C. He claimed he had come to free children who were hidden in the basement for the purpose of being sexually abused by Hillary Clinton. He had read about it on the internet.
The store doesn’t even have a basement, and the owner has no idea why he was targeted. He’s just glad he’s still alive.
–Anne Jaclard
Be the first to comment