Sen. Ron Johnson goes on CNN, makes wild election claims, then struggles to provide proof

Sen. Ron Johnson went on CNN Monday evening to talk about the Republican Party’s continued attempts to tie providing aid for Ukraine with conservative bogeyman border policies. At the end of the interview, host Kaitlan Collins mentioned recent news about Wisconsin’s 10 fake Donald Trump electors cutting a deal in their civil case. Collins wanted the senator to weigh in on calls for one of the fake electors, Robert Spindell Jr., to resign his position on the state elections commission.

Johnson is nothing if not duplicitous and he stayed on brand, citing “all kinds of irregularities in Wisconsin in the 2020 election” and saying that having “an alternate slate of electors” was some kind of common practice, “just like Democrats have done repeatedly in all kinds of different states.” Collins reminded Johnson that these fake electors have admitted that what they did was at the very least “improper,” and Johnson responded by saying all the civil cases against them were “a travesty of justice.” That led to this exchange:

Collins: You think it's fine that someone who tried to overturn a legitimate election is still on a board that helps certify [elections]--

Johnson: –Democrat electors have done that repeatedly. Democrats have done the same thing.

Collins: Which one? In Wisconsin—fake slates of electors?

Johnson: No, it's, it's happened in different states …

Collins: Which ones, sir?

Johnson: I didn’t come prepared to give you the exact states but it’s happened repeatedly. It has happened repeatedly, just go check the books.

Collins: Which books?

Johnson: There have been alternate slates of electors by Democrat electors in our history. Again, you didn't—this wasn't what this interview is going to be about. I'll come and I'll provide you that information.

Not long after Johnson’s pathetic appearance, the senator went to his X (formerly Twitter) account to post his “examples,” which included Democratic reps objecting to the election results in 2017 and did not involve fake electors. Surprisingly, this also didn’t include creating a revolt at the Capitol building, and Donald Trump was certified without anyone being killed or injured.

His other example is the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Nixon had lost the election, but Hawaii was initially called for Nixon by 140 votes. Three Democratic electors chose to sign a slate saying Kennedy won. Of course, at that time there was a recount underway that would eventually reveal Kennedy got more votes.

Johnson’s part in the attempted coup on Jan. 6 has been the subject of much speculation, as the things he’s said in public and his alibi do not square with the evidence. Johnson has been secretly recorded admitting that there was no election fraud, and definitely not the kind of Big Lie-mythologized fraud that might have actually reversed the outcome in Wisconsin.

Since the failed coup, Johnson has consistently tried to downplay the severity of what happened at the Capitol and across the country after the 2020 election.

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Watch AOC perfectly get to the point in sham impeachment hearing

Republicans’ baseless impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden began on Thursday. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin leveled the room with his opening statement as he pointed out the circus Republicans were conducting. He was followed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who blew apart the lies and exposed the witnesses for their complete evidentiary irrelevance.

Ocasio-Cortez started her five minutes by asking the three witnesses whether their testimonies included “any firsthand witness account of crimes committed” by President Joe Biden. All three answered that they had no such accounts. In contrast, there were two witnesses with firsthand accounts being blocked by the Republican majority, Ocasio-Cortez said. “And I want to explain why this is important,” she continued. “Members of Congress, all of us in this hearing, are not under oath, as we are presently covered by the speech and debate clause.”

Having explained that it wasn’t illegal for Republicans on the panel to lie or mislead during these hearings, Ocasio-Cortez went on to show how misleading some of the “evidence” Republicans on the committee were presenting was. “Earlier today, one of our colleagues, a gentleman from Florida, presented up on this screen, something that looked—appeared—to be a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation,” Ocasio-Cortez continued. “That screenshot of what appeared to be a text message was a fabricated image. It was a fabricated image. I don't know where it came from. I don't know if it was the staff of the committee, but it was not the actual direct screenshot from that phone.” She went on to remind the public and those at the hearing that the image presented “excluded critical context that changed the underlying meaning and allegation that was presented up on that screen by this committee and by members of this committee.”

Now that’s evidence of chicanery of the highest order.

RELATED STORY: Live coverage: Republican impeachment inquiry

There is a very good reason the Republicans may have decided not to include witnesses with firsthand knowledge of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s relationship to Burisma, like Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer, who they interviewed behind closed doors. Archer not only contradicted the claims that Joe Biden had anything to do with his son’s business dealings, he also contradicted the theory that the U.S. policy to get rid of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor helped Biden’s son’s business.

Denounce the baseless impeachment inquiry against President Biden.

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Joe Biden reminds Fox News’ Peter Doocy that he’s a lousy reporter

On Thursday morning, “Fox & Friends,” a show featuring a handful of people you would be shamefaced to call your “friends,” ran with a video of an exchange between President Joe Biden and Fox News’ nepo-baby reporter Peter Doocy. In the video, Doocy asks the president, “There’s this testimony now, where one of your former business associates is claiming that you were on speaker phone a lot with them, talking business? Is that … wha–” at which point Biden cuts him off, saying, “I never talked business with anybody, and I knew you’d have a lousy question.”

Doocy feigns surprise at being called full of shit, but frankly, Biden was being nice. It was a lot worse than a “lousy” question. Doocy asks why it is a “lousy” question, and Biden rightfully answers, “Because it’s not true.”

RELATED STORY: Republicans' star witness contradicts Republican claims

Doocy is manipulating the well publicized and fully available testimony of Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer. He’s posing a question that asserts a falsehood. Archer very specifically testified that Biden never under any circumstances—even tangentially—discussed business with his son Hunter, or with Hunter’s associates.

But if you are stuck in the moral spitoon that is the right-wing media world, you’d think that Doocy’s question and its pathological false premise are somehow fact-based. Doocy and his conservative uniform are used as some kind of proof that this lie has been researched. It is the reason Republicans wanted Archer’s testimony done away from the cameras: It’s easier to lie about what someone said when your audience is unwilling to read.

There’s one response that I think sums Doocy up. Mr. President, would you do the honors?

Forever and always: pic.twitter.com/DPcXg3cQAb

— Lucille Bluth’s Martini (@justdrew404) August 10, 2023

Sign if you agree: Fox News is a waste of your brain cells.

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Investigation into Hunter Biden may have lost all air after much-hyped witness is a bust

Jen Psaki, sick and tired of transphobic BS, stumps Doocy with a question of her own

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Trump Ally Sean Reyes Is Preparing To Primary Mitt Romney For Utah Senate Seat

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes, an ally of former President Donald Trump, is reportedly planning to primary Mitt Romney for his Utah Senate seat in 2024.

Politico revealed that Reyes is discussing a potential run with political players in state politics and supporters and allies associated with Trump.

A source for the outlet who is close to Reyes said he is “very seriously considering running” regardless of what Romney decides to do in 2024.

“He’s confident that regardless of what Senator Romney wants to do, he’s going to pursue this,” they told Politico.

RELATED: Tulsi Gabbard Demands Mitt Romney Resign After He Accuses Her Of ‘Treason’

Sean Reyes May Challenge Mitt Romney in 2024

Romney has a couple of options in the 2024 election cycle.

A national poll last month shows that Senator Romney runs even with fellow Republican Senator Ted Cruz at 4% of those voters making a choice for the Republican presidential primary.

That number ranks well below the 53% Trump received in the same poll, but would land him some votes.

Another poll one month earlier shows 64% of Republicans in Utah disapprove of Romney’s job performance, including half who strongly disapprove.

Last spring, the Senator had boos and catcalls cascaded down upon him from well over 2,000 Republican delegates at the Utah Republican State Convention.

The Republican Party in Weber County, Utah, issued a formal censure of Romney for his multiple votes to convict Trump during his impeachment trials.

Trump issued a statement around that time calling the Utah senator “a stone-cold loser!”

RELATED: Mitt Romney Blames ‘America First,’ Jabs Trump, Obama In Statement On Russia Invasion Of Ukraine

Romney’s Odd Behavior

Politico describes Sean Reyes as “a Trump loyalist” and reports that he’s met with the former President on two occasions “and each time Trump encouraged him to run against Romney.”

“When he meets with Trump, the only thing that comes up is ‘Will you run against Romney? I need you to run against Romney. Get that guy out,’” their source is quoted as saying.

Reyes backed Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.

Asked about the prospect of running against Reyes, a confident Romney welcomed the challenge.

“Were I to decide to run again, the best news I could get would be that Sean Reyes was my opponent,” he said laughing and walking away.

Romney, often touted as center-right, moderate, or simply the voice of reason in the Republican Party, has been engaged in some extreme commentary and behavior of late.

He blamed the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the Trump-touted concept of ‘America First.’

“Putin’s impunity predictably follows our tepid response to his previous horrors in Georgia and Crimea, our naive efforts at a one-sided ‘reset,’ and the shortsightedness of ‘America First,’” said Romney.

This week, Romney joined Democrats as the only Republican to vote against repealing the transportation mask mandate.

Even eight Democrats had more courage than Romney and voted to end the yearlong mask charade.

He also engaged in truly extreme rhetoric, the likes of which you’d expect to hear “The View” or CNN, rather than a supposedly level-headed member of Congress, when he accused decorated Iraq War veteran and former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of being a Russian asset and spreading “treasonous lies.”

And, lest we forget, Senator Romney took part in a Black Lives Matter march to the White House in 2020.

Romney was filmed marching with protesters while explaining that he was walking “to make sure that people understand that Black Lives Matter.”

“We need a voice against racism … we need many voices against racism and against brutality,” he said. “And we need to stand up and say black lives matter.”

The post Trump Ally Sean Reyes Is Preparing To Primary Mitt Romney For Utah Senate Seat appeared first on The Political Insider.

CNN’s Don Lemon Tells Trump Supporters They Can’t Support Trump And Demand Respect For Police

On Tuesday, anti-Trump CNN host Don Lemon said that those who stand with former President Donald Trump have no right to tell others to respect the police.

Lemon made his comments on his CNN program “Tonight.”

Lemon Attacks Police-Supporting Trump Voters

After showing the video that was presented on Tuesday of the Capitol Hill attack by the House impeachment managers, Lemon said, “Blue Lives Matter, huh?”

The video showed some of the mob action as the protests turned violent. Police officers who tried to hold protesters back were injured as protesters tried to break police lines and access outer doors to the Capitol.

Seeming to talk to Trump supporters, Lemon continued, “Law and order, law and order, respect the flags, respect law enforcement. Why don’t you just comply?”

“Don’t you dare even say that again if you can stand by after that video and give Donald Trump, of all people, Donald Trump… and his mob a pass,” Lemon said.

RELATED: PBS’ Yamiche Alcindor Defends Democrat Double Standard On Impeachment – ‘Wasn’t Storming Of The Capitol’ After Maxine Waters’ Speech

The CNN host then implied anyone who supports Trump has no right to defend “law and order” and the police again.

“If you can do that, I don’t ever want to hear that again,” Lemon said. “I don’t want to hear that from you.”

“I don’t want to hear family values from you,” he went on. “I don’t want to hear respect police officers from you. I don’t want to hear it.”

Lemon: ‘No Moral High Ground To Stand On’

Lemon insisted that Trump backers lacked any moral standing to demand moral behavior of others.

“No moral high ground to stand on,” Lemon said. “Look who is on your side there. There have been a lot of lies.”

“We’ve been warning you about all the lies,” Lemon finished.

The “lies.”

Isn’t Don Lemon a personality on a cable outlet that spent years promoting the Russian collusion hoax?

CNN Spent Years Promoting Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory

Journalist Glenn Greenwald reported in 2017, “Three prominent journalists resigned Monday night after the network was forced to retract and apologize for a story linking Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci to a Russian investment fund under congressional investigation.”

“That article — like so much Russia reporting from the U.S. media — was based on a single anonymous source, and now, the network cannot vouch for the accuracy of its central claims,” Greenwald noted.

RELATED: Lindsey Graham Rips Impeachment – ‘We’re Doing A Lot Of Damage To The Country Because People Hate Trump’

Don Lemon was part of the Trump-Russia conspiracy chorus for a very long time.

Greenwald observed of the 2017 CNN story, “Embarrassments of this sort are literally too numerous to count when it comes to hyped, viral U.S. media stories over the last year about the Russia Threat.”

Additionally, CNN was the subject of a massive lawsuit over their false reporting of Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann.

Sandmann and his fellow students were blasted by the media for wearing MAGA hats at the 2019 March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., where they were confronted by counterprotesters. 

CNN personalities Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo blamed the students.

Lemon stated, “The MAGA hat carries a certain connotation that provokes a conditioned reaction from many people, especially from marginalized people… Their chaperones should be keenly aware of that. Those kids should know that. And let’s say that the kids didn’t because they are kids, their chaperones should be responsible enough to educate them.” 

Sandmann would subsequently sue CNN for $275 million dollars, and the network later settled for an undisclosed amount.

Don Lemon has no right or moral standing to correct other about “lies” or most anything else.

The post CNN’s Don Lemon Tells Trump Supporters They Can’t Support Trump And Demand Respect For Police appeared first on The Political Insider.

Make that 20,000 lies on Trump’s unending bender of an effort to rewrite reality

It's fair to say at this point that Donald Trump isn't living in the real world. His mind is so overrun with conspiracy theories, half-baked truths, and utter B.S. that he has now spewed 20,000 verifiable lies, according to The Washington Post.

Like anything, practice makes perfect, and Trump's rate of lying is nearly double what it was in the first couple years of his presidency. The Post's calculations show that while Trump was lying an average of 12 times a day in the first 827 days of his presidency, he has averaged closer to 23 lies a day in the last 14 months. 

Trump lie spree has partially been fueled by cataclysmic events such as his impeachment by the House of Representatives, the coronavirus crisis, and the aftermath of the senseless killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. In just several months, the pandemic has accounted for some 1,000 of Trump's lies, while the impeachment loosed some 1,200 lies from Trump's cakehole. 

But let's not overlook the possibility that Trump's loose relationship with reality has simply become more fraught over time.

Whatever way one slices it, Trump's the lyingest liar of a president America has ever seen. 

Trump’s new press secretary on Feb. 25: ‘We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here’

On Tuesday the White House announced that scam artist phantom Stephanie Grisham was out as press secretary. Vapid right-wing talking head Kayleigh McEnany was announced as the new White House lying machine. While Grisham decided to be mysteriously invisible during her time as the White House’s main liaison to the media, McEnany has a more boisterous personality with a more storied history of spewing lies and wrongheaded predictions. For example, here she is on Fox News with now-fired Trish Regan on Feb. 25 of this year. What’s she predicting? That Trump will stop the spread of COVID-19 by way of a travel ban on China? Yes. Let’s hear about it, Kayleigh!

KAYLEIGH MCENANY: This president will always put America first. He will always protect American citizens. We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here. We will not see terrorism come here, and isn't it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama.

You can even watch her saying it!

On the same day Larry Kudlow said coronavirus was �contained� on Feb. 25th, Trump�s campaign spox made an even more bold claim. �We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here..and isn't it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama." pic.twitter.com/O0DDH3Rvkw

— andrew kaczynskiðÂ�¤Â� (@KFILE) April 4, 2020

McEnany has been auditioning for this part for some time now, as has virtually everyone who appears regularly on state misinformation channel Fox News. She’s checked all of requisite boxes of fealty, like saying impeachment proceedings—and in fact any criticism of Donald Trump—amounted to participating in a coup d’etat of our government

McEnany began her right-wing career speaking on CNN as a talking head, but quickly found that running into even the most modest of pushback on her talking points led to her stressing out and blinking strangely, as can be seen in this clip from a couple of years ago.

McEnany has done all the things one expects. She’s called the Mueller report an “exoneration” of Donald Trump; she’s done the softball interviews of truly awful Trump cabinet members like Betsy DeVos; and she’s tweeted out real through-the-looking-glass misinformation, like this:

BIG NEWS from President @realDonaldTrump�s Chinese Virus task force briefing! Dr. Birx shared that 40% of the country now have "EXTRAORDINARY LOW NUMBERS" of cases�� 19 of 50 states have less than 200 cases!

— Kayleigh McEnany (@kayleighmcenany) March 26, 2020

But what may have finally gotten Kayleigh the job is her loud, fact-free, and enthusiastic delivery of conservative talking points with seemingly no shame whatsoever. But let’s never forget McEnany’s humble, racist, beginnings.

The new White House press secretary, ladies and gentlemen pic.twitter.com/y3m9YAPtAr

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) April 7, 2020

Tuesday, Apr 7, 2020 · 7:44:15 PM +00:00 · Walter Einenkel

This quote from Grisham, given to Axios before she was officially replaced, is worth adding here: “Sounds like more palace intrigue to me, but I’ve also been in quarantine. If true, how ironic that the press secretary would hear about being replaced in the press.”

By making the pandemic a battle of ‘us vs. them,’ the pro-Trump media set their audience up to die

Long after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed and the bodies have been buried or cremated, historians will try to understand how a country that made up only 4.25% of the world’s population somehow managed have 22% of the worldwide number of people infected with the virus.

They’ll puzzle over statistics showing huge numbers of deaths in the rural American South and Midwest, far away from the most populated areas. They’ll consult physicians and epidemiologists for a rational explanation, but will find none. They’ll look at per capita income and marvel at the fact that this country harbored the wealthiest people on the planet, with even its middle class enjoying a (relatively) prosperous standard of living compared to other nations caught up in the pandemic.

Why then, they’ll ask, did so many people die? Why were so many infected in the first place?

As reported by Jeremy Peters in The New York Times, the media had something to do with it.

A review of hundreds of hours of programming and social media traffic from Jan. 1 through mid-March — when the White House started urging people to stay home and limit their exposure to others — shows that doubt, cynicism and misinformation about the virus took root among many of Mr. Trump’s boosters in the right-wing media as the number of confirmed cases in the United States grew.

It was during this lull — before the human and economic toll became undeniable — when the story of the coronavirus among the president’s most stalwart defenders evolved into the kind of us-versus-them clash that Mr. Trump has waged for much of his life.

The Times carefully traces back the response by the right wing in this country to what is rapidly emerging as the greatest public health threat in U.S. history. That response was striking in its knee-jerk, reactionary cynicism. From Candace Owens' sarcastic tweeting in late February, laughing about the dire warnings of medical professionals as a “Doomsday cult of the ‘Left’” (she actually doubled down just this week, advising her audience to consider the number of deaths with “a little perspective”), to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, who in February called the virus “a new pathway for hitting President Trump,” to the sudden about-face of Sean Hannity—in exact tandem with Trump’s vacillating messages about the seriousness of the pandemic.

The blaming by the right continues to this day, as media figures continue to try to concoct new distractions for Americans from Trump’s abysmal negligence and disregard, even as the horror unfolds in Americans’ living rooms, broadcast from hospital floors in living color on the nightly news. As Peters notes, this blame game is also nothing new.

The pervasiveness of the denial among many of Mr. Trump’s followers from early in the outbreak, and their sharp pivot to finding fault with an old foe once the crisis deepened, is a pattern that one expert in the spread of misinformation said resembled a textbook propaganda campaign.

A “propaganda campaign” it was, and continues to be. Modern conservatism and what we understand as the “right,” with its torch-bearer, the Republican Party, does not thrive in this country based on its inherent ideas or philosophy. The absolute dearth of legislation passed by the Republican-dominated Congress during the first two years of the Trump administration (beyond a singularly skewed tax cut for corporate America) is the best evidence of that. Republicanism and conservatism do not exist because of their “ideas,” because, frankly, their ideas are largely repugnant to most Americans. That is why they rely on inflaming division and prejudices in their base while seeking to suppress the votes of as many non-Republicans as possible. Their “ideas,” to the extent they have any, are toxic and unpopular.

So the right wing always needs an enemy to blame, someone "conspiring" against them, and they need a media apparatus to stoke fear of that enemy in their supporters. The enemy can be African American, Latinx, Muslim, or a member of the LGBTQ community; the villains can be teachers, government employees, or even college professors. More generically, that enemy can be the “media,” “liberals,” or “Democrats.” And even more broadly, “financial elites”—which, roughly translated, usually means “Jews.” It really doesn’t matter.

Tobin Smith, a former Fox News contributor and anchor, explained last year in an op-ed for The New York Times how the network deliberately creates enemies for its viewers, to bind them to the network by providing them a sense of grievance, of someone conspiring against their interests. He explains the psychology as activating the Fox viewer’s “fight or flight juices,” making the viewer feel as if he is being attacked. He compares it to the administration of a highly addictive drug, prompting the viewer to come back again and again for another “conspiracy fix.”

Believing in conspiracy theories is a psychological construct for people to take back some semblance of control in their lives. It inflates their sense of importance. It makes them feel they have access to “special knowledge” that the rest of the world is “too blind,” “too dumb” or “too corrupt” to understand.

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered the right a litany of enemies on whom to place blame. The Times identified a systemic pattern among right-wing media’s response to the coronavirus—so systemic that the Times was able to categorize four stages of blame-shifting at various times by the right, as they continued to deny, deflect, and above all, defend Donald Trump. The stages were, in the order they were rolled out: 1) Blaming China; 2) minimizing the risk (and in some instances, ridiculing it); 3) sharing “survivor” stories to further minimize the risk; and 4) blaming the left (or “Democrats”).

The Times amply documents all of these tactics, as evidenced by Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, and the entire right-wing apparatus. China-blaming started early on, with Fox News as the “launching pad” for halting all travel from China, the promotion of the phrase “Chinese virus,” and the conspiracy theories of Republican politicians such as Tom Cotton, who suggested that the virus had been concocted in a Chinese bioweapons lab. This China-bashing continues to this day, with administration officials peddling the “Wuhan virus” designation to inflame their base’s sense of xenophobia and anger.

As the Times reports, minimizing or ridiculing the risk was a staple of right-wing propaganda from January onward, with recent Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh exclaiming: “Flight attendant working L.A.X. tests positive. Oh, my God, 58 cases! Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” and Sean Hannity gleefully feigning fear: “The apocalypse is imminent and you’re going to all die, all of you in the next 48 hours. And it’s all President Trump’s fault,” the Fox News star said, adding, “or at least that’s what the media mob and the Democratic extreme radical socialist party would like you to think.” Limbaugh claimed that the coronavirus “appear[ed] less deadly than the flu,” but warned that the media kept “promoting panic.” The Times notes that a Breitbart news editor named Joel Pollak merrily published supposedly “scientific” articles minimizing the threat and emphasizing the “best possible outcomes.”

Just one day after Pollak urged Americans to “chill out” about the pandemic, the first American died.

Their audience smiled and nodded, sure that this was all a liberal plot. While thousands around the world were becoming sick and dying from the virus, the “tone of the coverage from Fox, talk radio and the commentators who make up the president’s zealous online army remained dismissive.” This is probably what will be most remembered by those future historians, perplexed at the startling body counts in places like Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, because governors in all these states took their cues directly from such dismissiveness from people in power, and people with a platform.

The idea that this was all a “liberal hoax” was not only articulated by Trump himself, but amplified a thousand times over by Fox News and its ilk. That this cynical gamesmanship was occurring not in reference to a political campaign but a dire public health threat seemed not to matter to any of these people. They were collecting their fat paychecks, and that was apparently all that mattered to them.

After the deadly effects of COVID-19 became impossible to ignore, Fox & Friends ran a segment happily celebrating how its impact would really be quite minimal. “Survivor stories” such as Jerri Jorgensen’s were highlighted, suggesting to viewers that the virus was not a “big deal.” Limbaugh picked that one up, joking to his 15 million listeners that callers expressing concern about potential exposure weren’t phoning him from “beyond the grave.”

Finally, as the pandemic became more and more prevalent and could not be disregarded, came what Peters characterizes as the “Blame the Left” phase.

By the middle of March, the story of the virus on the right was one of how Mr. Trump’s enemies had weaponized “the flu” and preyed on the insecurities of an emasculated America.

Mr. Limbaugh blamed “wimp politics — which is liberalism.” Mr. Pollak, whose tone grew more serious, said the virus had spread while Democrats stretched out the president’s impeachment. “We now know the cost of impeachment,” he wrote.

Frank Luntz, the veteran political strategist who advises Republican leaders, said many on the right were applying the scornful, “own the libs” mentality of social media to a deadly and frightening health crisis.

We’re still at the tail end of that phase now, with conservatives and rightwing trolls attacking coronavirus task force expert Dr. Anthony Fauci with death threats, and others who have successfully punctured the right’s toxic bubble blaming January’s impeachment proceedings for Trump’s gross negligence and inaction, and, once again, blaming the Chinese. It’s not clear who the right will blame next for Trump’s colossal failure. But by the time they get around to it, many of their followers will already be dead.

Because all of this had an impact—in our politically polarized nation, how could it not? It caused millions of Americans who trusted such sources—who trusted Donald Trump—to let down their guard, to throw caution to the wind. It caused Republican governors to ignore the harrowing warnings of established science and advise their constituents to carry on as if the threat did not exist. It led those citizens to genuinely believe everything was going to be all right.

But we’re not going to be all right. Thanks to these monstrously amoral and unconcerned purveyors of Republican propaganda, many, many people are going to die who could have and should have lived. Families that should have remained intact are going to suffer the loss of people they love. And people who did actually understand the gravity of this pandemic are going to be infected by those who were lulled into complacency by that propaganda.

The full horror of what the right-wing media has done is just now becoming apparent, but in the coming weeks it will be impossible to ignore.