Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” host Bill O’Reilly used his opening “Talking Points Memo” segment to deride the media for its efforts to tie Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to the fascism of Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 1940s.
Transcript as follows:
O’REILLY: As predicted here, some in the media both left and right are portraying Mr. Trump as a 1930’s type fascist and his supporters as budding brown shirts, the Nazi party street army in Germany.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATT LAUER, NBC HOST OF “THE TODAY SHOW” PROGRAM: Mr. Trump, with some of the rhetoric you’ve used on the campaign trail over the last several months, targeting groups like Muslims and Mexicans, that that evokes images of Nazi, Germany and the scapegoating of Jews there back in the 1930s and 40s.
TRUMP: Well, I think that’s a big, big stretch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O’REILLY: It’s more than a big stretch. It’s a strategy with the intention of not only demeaning Trump but his supporters as well. The candidate aside, it’s not hard to understand why many Americans are voting for Donald Trump. For the past seven years the folks have been witness to the following:
Intense verbal attacks on police officers, labelling them racist who hunt down young black men. A porous southern border where narcotics and people smuggling continue unabated. A stagnant economy, where workers have little bargaining power. A growing jihadist terror threat, that the Democratic Party refuses to define not even using the words, “Islamic terrorism.
A democratic president, who after he announces the beheading of an American citizen by ISIS goes out to play golf. A culture that now demands political correctness even if it goes against sincerely held religious beliefs. A legal system that may actually harm a business owner if he or she does not want to participate in a gay marriage, or catholic nuns who don’t want to distribute birth control.
A press corps that generally embraces liberalism using its constitutional privilege to diminish non-liberals, who have the temerity to speak out. An educational system dominated by leftist teachers and administrators, who often impose their view on the world on defenceless children.
And, a grievance industry that is often promoted by the media, thus, allowing anti-American zealots to define this country as evil and oppressive, ie America is the real problem in the world. In the face of all of that, an avenger named Trump has risen, promising to stop the madness and giving blunt voice to millions of angry Americans.
The movement that Trump represents has nothing to do with fascism, everything to do with furious dissent. This memo is not a campaign ad for Trump. I know for a fact that some very bad people are trying to exploit his campaign to disguise racial and social hatred. They are doing that.
Donald Trump should loudly condemn those people and tone down some of his own inflammatory rhetoric. Just tell us what you want to do. No need to incite. Same thing is happening with the Bernie Sanders crew, where some haters are supporting Bernie in order to tear down marketplace freedoms and inflict pain on prosperous Americans.
The cold truth is, charges of racism and fascism are easy smears designed to stop freedom of expression and stifle debate. Here’s more truth. The U.S.A. turn for the worse long before Donald Trump ever entered the political arena. And, Germany has nothing to do with it.
And that’s the memo.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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