Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center usually just limns the truth to justify attacks on non-conservative journalists and media figures. It does outright lie on occasion, however, and it did so in a July 19 post by intern Emma Fantuzzo.
"MSNBC’s Chris Hayes: Trump Supporters Must Be ‘Confronted and Destroyed’" was the headline on Fantuzzo's post, and she claimed that Hayes was "denouncing all Republicans and Trump supporters, and calling for a revolution of sorts against the Trump administration. She went on to write:
According to Hayes, the conservative movement has been hiding some maniacal plan and it had nothing to do with their ideology: “They realize that no one actually cared about deficits or small government. That was never the fuel that fired the engine of Republican politics. It was always roiling rage against them that was on full display in the ‘Send her back’ chants last night.” For a movement that prides itself on being thinkers and valuing common sense over being guided by feelings, Hayes sentiments seem unlikely.
Nevertheless, Hayes continued to insist on the eminent danger posed by millions of peaceful Americans and implored: “It must be peacefully, nonviolently, politically destroyed with love, compassion and determination, but utterly confronted and destroyed. That is the only way to break the coalition apart.”
The existence of the word "it" instead of "they" before the "peacefully, nonviolently, politically destroyed" is abig clue to the fact that Hayes was not talking about individual Trump supporters. Indeed, the full quote from Hayes, which exists in the video clip that accompanies Fantuzzo's post, exposes that he was talking about the Trump-driven conservative ideology, as epitomized by the "send her back" chants at the Trump rally, and he's clearly referring to "that sentiment" rather than individual supporters (emphasis added):
Without that rage and that passion, that enthusiasm and fire in that room, this entire project falls apart. That sentiment at the core of the coalition cannot be pried loose and it cannot be negotiated with and it cannot be appeased. It must be peacefully, nonviolently, politically destroyed with love, compassion and determination, but utterly confronted and destroyed. That is the only way to break the coalition apart.
When Ryan Saavedra of the right-wing Daily Wire tweeted out the MRC's headline, Hayes called them out: "I said very clearly that Trumpism, the ideology must be destroyed. That the bigotry must be confronted and destroyed. Not his supporters. The headline is wrong. There's no way you will agree with the monologue but that's a garbage mischaracterization."
The fact that the false headline is still live on Fantuzzo's piece nearly two weeks later tells us how much the MRC really cares about truth and accuracy.
