For the last six months or so, the geniuses at Fox News and on talk radio have been selling their followers the paranoid fantasy that President Barack Obama will impose martial law and become a dictator before his second term expires. No sober observer of Obama’s character sees him as any more likely to do this than any of the first 43 presidents were. What is richly ironic, however, is that the Republican Party is now on the verge of nominating Donald Trump, a man who shows all the actual inclinations of a third-world dictator.
The Republican establishment is suddenly appalled and horrified at this prospect, but the simple truth of the matter is, they created the Trump phenomenon themselves, by years and years of selling snake oil to the American public. A few examples will suffice
For openers, Fox News has been selling the narrative that rich people are rich because they are morally superior (harder working, smarter, etc.), while poor people are poor because they are morally inferior (drug addicted, lazy, stupid, etc.) In fact, this is a staple of conservative philosophy, though few were stupid enough to say it out loud until Fox came along.
