The gang on Fox News' The Five absolutely lost it when Mayor Bill de
Blasio said that the city is reviewing its contracts with Donald Trump…
Freedom – freedom of speech, freedom of religion – you know, those
things only
wingnuts have. Any level of hate and bigotry can be
excused by invoking freedom.
We have seen conservative countless boycotts against
various companies – Target and Angie’s List have been recent targets –
against movies and television shows, based on various objections, and
one wingnut cabal even
wanted to boycott Labor Day.
The progressive-hating gang on Fox News’ The Five
absolutely lost it when New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city
is now reviewing its contracts with Donald Trump because of his
“offensive and disgusting” comments about Mexican immigrants, that “When Mexico Sends Its People … They’re Bringing Drugs. They’re Bringing Crime. They’re Rapists.”
De Blasio’s actions – not Trump’s – left The Five
co-host Kimberly Guilfoyle asking, “should government really be in the
business of bullying over political correctness?”
Greg Gutfeld continued his over-the-top portrayal of
a irascible truth-teller, saying de Blasio “is such an ass, he’s 45
percent crack,” and called the mayor a “barnacle of capitalism” who can
only exist thanks to heroic figures like Donald Trump.
That’ when Bolling chimed in, complaining that,
“MoveOn.org is petitioning to boycott Donald Trump’s products. They are
economic terrorists.”
Freedom is not uni-directional. If Trump has freedom
of speech, so too do the recipients of that speech. If Trump says
bigoted things, people have a right to respond by calling him out for
it, or by refusing to buy his products, or by watching his shows.
If it is bad business to continue a professional
relationship with him, other companies have a right to refuse to do
business with him – like Univision, or NBC, or Macy’s, which ended their relationship with Trump on Wednesday – because it will hurt their bottom line.
These other corporations are, after all, in the
business of making profits. And Republicans – and Fox News in particular
– always defend corporations.
That is, unless corporations do something they don’t
like, as when they championed LGBT rights over Indiana’s
business-killing RFRA.
It asked if boycotts are economic terrorism, then
what is refusing to serve gays? That is a case of a store owner
boycotting the customer, rather than the customer boycotting the store.
Isn’t that then also a form of economic terrorism?
Guilfoyle asked, “Should government really be in the
business of bullying over political correctness?” but that question can
be expanded too, to ask if government should be in the business of
bullying over gender or sexual preferences? Fox News is fine if the
latter is the case.
In many ways, The Five is a worthy successor to
Glenn Beck, whose replacement it was when it first aired. It is
certainly designed to attract the same niche, that is, viewers who don’t
care about facts, who want bombast over content. Like Beck, it’s got
Roger Ailes’ hands all over it.
The Five’s gang of crack-heads are just
continuing what
Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, and Bill O’Reilly have begun by
leaping to The Donald’s defense. It is worth noting here that Bolling’s
name belongs right up there.
This is the guy
who said in 2011 that “I Don’t Remember Any Terrorist Attacks On American Soil” Between 2000 And 2008. This is the guy
who said
in February this year that there aren’t any examples of recent right
wing terrorism in this country, despite the fact that wingnut
terrorist attacks are pretty much the only kind of terrorist attack we
get in this country.
Just a couple of weeks ago (June 17) Bolling got
caught out by Dana Perino, who used to lie professionally for the shrub junta but has apparently found she still has an ethic or two,
and the triggering topic was Bolling’s bromance with Trump:
PERINO: And covering up
for him is actually wrong. And I understand that you have a deal that
you’re trying to work on with him. I saw the Twitter last night. I just
don’t see how that’s any different than how another journalist is
actually pandering when you said you’ve been trying to close the deal
for years for you to be on Celebrity Apprentice.
BOLLING: Oh, my dog. You actually think that I — I’ve been friendly with Donald Trump for 15 years.
PERINO: You’re the one that was shouting it from the rooftop yesterday.
BOLLING: Are you actually saying you’re going to
accuse me of saying that Donald Trump has some good ideas that are
resonating with America because I want to be on Celebrity Apprentice?
Please tell me that’s not the case.
PERINO: I am saying it.
She said it. But that should be the beginning of the dialogue, not its end.