On Saturday evening, we didn’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or laugh until we cried, when Fox News jumped the shark by posting the following ridiculous graphic:
See anything wrong with that?
As it turns out, Barack Obama inherited the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, so think of that graphic like this: there’s a horrible car accident on the interstate and when the paramedics arrive, the drivers involved in the wreck look at the EMTs and say “what’d you do?!”
Here’s the reality:
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the Fox tweet is what it says about how the network views its base.
Note that 2,404 people liked that tweet. That means at least 2,404 people didn’t understand how absurd it was. Fox, like the alt-Right blogosphere and like populism anno 2017 more generally, is exploiting ignorance for profit.
Well, in what can only be described as yet another example of a shark-jumping attempt to appeal to what the network knows is a gullible base, Fox actually brought on fucking Fabio to testify to the idea that “liberals” are destroying the state of California.
No, really….
Fabio: Releasing inmates early will lead to more crime. #Tucker pic.twitter.com/2PZeFb9Z3W
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2017
And then, as if that wasn’t stupid enough, they enshrined this “expert” guest appearance in another tweet that shows the aging romance book-cover model posing with an American flag:
Fabio: California Is a 'Mess' Because of Liberal Policies https://t.co/4ZR4y524W3 pic.twitter.com/MYGlBy4mCf
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2017
There are no words for this, but fortunately, Vanity Fair found some…
Tucker Carlson Snags Top Crime Expert
Just kidding! It’s Fabio.
In November, California voters approved Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 57, which, among other changes, creates more parole options for nonviolent offenders. (The bill was motivated, in part, by the condition of the state’s overcrowded and expensive prisons.) On Friday night, actor and romance book-cover model Fabio Lanzoni, who became a citizen of California last year and has lived there for fourteen years, told newly minted primetime Fox News host Tucker Carlson that this new policy is contributing to the “epidemic” of Los Angeles crime.
“California is a mess,” Lanzoni told Carlson. “Coming from Europe, I’ve already seen this movie before.”
“Instead of taking the side of the government, Governor Jerry Brown took the side of the criminal,” he continued, listing some categories of criminals he claimed would be released on account of the new proposition. “You know, the crème de la crème.”
“I’m telling you, it’s an epidemic,” Lanzoni continued. “Out of my friends, about fourteen people got burglarized or robbed. As people, we have to take the law’s side, we have to stand behind the police, not behind the criminal.”
On the one hand, it’s nice of Carlson to give Lanzoni–who spent New Year’s Eve at Mar-a-lago with then-president-elect Donald Trump–some airtime to show off his extensive expertise in criminology. On the other hand, was Steven Seagal unavailable?
Fabio’s main focus was on all the sex offenders being released from California prison. It left me wondering whether his house was burglarized, or was it sodomized?
We should take the law’s side unless it’s something really complicated like the 1st amendment.
that boy needs a haircut.