We have become all too accustomed to discovering that pundits who claim to support Trump in public detest him privately. It’s not too long ago that we were shocked to learn that FOX hosts Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham did not believe the lies that they passionately peddled on the air.
And that like so many others, they secretly hated the man who has done more to destroy this country than any other contentious political figure.
In the days and weeks after the 2020 elections, while Fox News Channel repeatedly broadcast false claims that then-President Donald Trump had been cheated of victory, in private, off the air, the network’s stars, producers and executives expressed contempt for those same conspiracies, calling them “mind-blowingly nuts,” “totally off the rails” and “completely b—s—“. Carlson wrote to his producer Alex Pfeiffer, “I really think many on ‘our side’ are being reckless demagogues right now.”
The emails that came to light during the trial of the Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, showed that some of the network’s hosts and producers were aware of the lack of evidence for the false claims that the company’s voting machines were rigged in favor of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Tucker Carlson, one of Trump’s most rabid supporters, a virtual attack dog against any Trump critics, privately wrote: “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait,” he texted an unidentified person, adding, “I hate him passionately. … I can’t handle much more of this,” he added. “There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”
FOX owner Rupert Murdoch, felt much the same about Trump, writing that, “Trump insisting on the election being stolen and convincing 25 percent of Americans was a huge disservice to the country. Pretty much a crime. Inevitable it blew up Jan. 6th. Best we don’t mention his name unless essential and certainly don’t support him.”
A similarly discordant situation happened last week, reportedly just days before Matt Gaetz created chaos in the House of Representatives by pushing for– and eventually succeeding– to oust Kevin McCarthy as Majority Speaker.
While publicly clamoring for the impeachment of President Biden, privately he was questioning the ethics and efficacy of such a baseless attempt, and along with Rep. Matt Rosendale, a fellow Freedom Caucus member, denounced the impeachment attempt as a political stunt; this is according to a video obtained by NBC News.
At an invitation-only fundraiser held over Zoom last week, Gaetz, R-Fla., and Rosendale, who is said to be plotting another Senate run next year, heaped skepticism on the probe.
“I don’t believe that we are endeavoring upon a legitimate impeachment of Joe Biden,” Gaetz told Steve Bannon, now podcaster and onetime political adviser to former President Donald Trump, who was moderating the discussion.
“They’re trying to engage in a, like, ‘forever war’ of impeachment,” Gaetz said. “And like many of our forever wars, it will drag on forever and end in a bloody draw,” he added.
Further undermining his fellow Republicans’ attempt, he impugned their purported motive, saying, “I just don’t get the sense that it’s for the sake of impeachment. I think it’s for the sake of having another bad thing to say about Joe Biden.”
In view of such rampant and self-serving double-dealing, the question that voters must ask themselves is: How can we continue to believe in politicians who have no moral compass and no respect for the truth and who brazenly and cynically continue to widen the gulf between what they believe and what they say they believe?
In all these bitter feuds and unwillingness to do any bipartisan work, there is more personal animosity than concern for the health of our democracy or the welfare of the American people.
American politics has truly jumped the shark.
