In addition to claiming a perverse policy victory from emergency travel restrictions, right-wing media are also using the pandemic to warn against “resettling refugees in your neighborhood” and “dropping outsiders, foreign nationals into their communities.”

As awful as this is, it’s not going to stop without outside pressure. Bigotry is what binds the Trump coalition together, and anyone who has a problem with it jumped ship a long time ago. The ones that are left -- particularly on Fox News, right up to Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch themselves -- know that bigotry is always the go-to play, even when there’s a body count.

We’re already seeing anti-Asian violence on the rise. And like an iceberg, the worst impacts of bigotry from right-wing media are below the surface.

At the same time, as The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer points out, what conservative media figures want most of all is to distract from the colossal failings of the Trump administration and to make the national conversation about accusations of racism and a supposed backlash to political correctness.