In the aftermath of two horrific mass shootings—one of which occurred in his home state—Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took to Fox News to whip up its viewers. Patrick, who has a habit of repeating neo-Nazi conspiracy theories about “illegal immigration” “replacing” whites in America (language mirrored in the El Paso shooter’s online “manifesto”), went on to lie some more.

Patrick blamed the weekend’s casualties on left-wing violence, the right-wing misdirection unicorn “Antifa,” and the absence of prayer in schools. He then went on to cite violent video games—which exist in every high-income democracy but don’t seem to provoke runaway gun violence elsewhere. GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy joined Patrick, also going on Fox News and assuredly telling Fox’s audience that, yes, it was the video games that did it.



This all made perfect sense, mind you. While most still think of the National Rifle Association (NRA) as the chief culprit in blocking any reform of the nation’s ludicrously lax gun laws, a key change has occurred over the past few years. The NRA is an organization in free-fall. Replete with Russian spies and comically corrupt chieftains, and in the midst of a civil war, the NRA isn’t close to the main problem anymore. Sure, it still has an email list to spam, a yearly convention, and various publications that toe the pro-gun line, but there is a place now on the airwaves that provides a more powerful daily diet of demonization and demagoguery. This outlet enforces GOP orthodoxy on guns while covering tragedies like Sandy Hook as sparingly as possible. It makes sure that politicians who break with this insanity are smeared and primaried. It helps create and excite gun-fetishizing, right-wing movements like The Tea Party, and it mainstreams the hate speech of white supremacists. And, oh yeah, it is the network the president of the United States watches constantly, the one where he gets all of his information in simple sentences, complete with colorful graphics even he can understand.

It’s Fox News, friends.



Let’s do a simple thought experiment: Imagine Fox News and its online properties suddenly came out, full force, for universal background checks and an assault weapons ban. Imagine Sean Hannity telling his audience that, without background checks, “American ISIS” would get weaponry to initiate large-scale attacks. Imagine Laura Ingraham’s sharing that to be pro-America you had to be in favor of an assault-weapons ban.

