CNN’s Stelter: FNC’s Hannity’s ‘Dark, Dire Language Is Fundamentally Authoritarian’

CNN host Brian Stelter said Sunday on his show “Reliable Sources” that Fox News host Sean Hannity is spouting “authoritarian” rhetoric on his nightly program.

Stelter said, “To understand why so many Republicans have abandoned democracy, to see why so many believe the big lie, to get why so many are trying to rewrite voting rules, you have to hear the poisonous propaganda that the GOP’s activist base is listening to. You have to really hear it. It’s coming more from Sean Hannity than from Trump right now.”

He continued, “On Hannity’s show, President Biden is president sippy cup. Biden is a weak, frail, cognitive mess, Hannity says. Yet, the Democratic Party is portrayed as an existential threat. Hannity calls it the Green New Deal Socialist Party, and he labels some Dems extremists. He calls American cities hell-holes. He sometimes calls them Democratic-run hell holes. He says the media is a mob and stalkers.”

Stelter said, “Don’t get numb to this abusive language because it is through these insults. It is through these attacks that Hannity yields power. This dark, dire language is fundamentally authoritarian. It softens the ground for movements like Stop the Steal, Trump’s ploy it actually steals the election. It portrays anyone who disagrees as not legitimate, as not American.”

He added, “Hannity is spouting poison, denouncing democratic norms like a free press. That’s poison. Corrosion of public discourse is poisonous. The Murdochs let it happen every day, and it radicalizes people. People like Hannity’s colleague Tucker Carlson who is out there calling the Joint Chief Chairman a stupid pig. God Bless the USA that that’s allowed, that’s normal, and yet there is nothing healthy and constructive about it. It’s destructive.”

Stelter concluded, “You listening to enough of this filth and you live in fear and disgust, and you might stop at nothing to save America. That’s what the signs at Trump’s rallies say, Save America but do they even know what they’re trying to save anymore? Do they even know the real America?”

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