A recent New York Times/Siena College poll, found that 76% of Republicans still think that Donald Trump merely “just exercised his right to contest the (2020) election.”
Trump lost the popular vote in 2020 by 7,052,770 votes and received 43% of the electoral votes.
But 76% of Republicans think it was just fine for him to engage in a criminal conspiracy to overthrow our government and destroy our democracy.
One reason is that a large segment of social media and some broadcasters that claim to offer “news” have supported Trump and his cronies in the Big Lie that the election was stolen from him. They also excuse or outright support his efforts to overturn it.
Fox News is the largest and most influential of these outlets. All through Trump’s presidency, their commentators like Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram and Tucker Carlson regularly parroted his lies. They still do.
Worse, the whole network chose not to fully cover the Jan. 6 committee hearings. In essence, telling their viewers that they weren’t worth their time, shielding them from the full content that would have enabled them to come to their own decisions about the overwhelming evidence of the criminality of Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6.
Instead, all they are offered is brief snippets, presented with the typical Fox spin. Fox News’ claim that to be “fair and balanced” is more of a joke than ever!
Steve Gehlert
West Newbury
