An OAN host by the name of
Pierson Sharp unleashed in what
honestly, can only be described as
a rant meant to incite violence
pertaining to
the results of the 2020 election.
I really have no other way of
describing this, and so all I can
really do is go to the video and
have you judge for yourselves.
Take a look.
>> How many people were involved in
these efforts to
undermine the election, hundreds,
thousands, tens of thousands?
How many people does it take to
carry out a coup against
the presidency?
And when all the dust settles from
the audit in Arizona and
the potential audits in Georgia,
Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and
Wisconsin, what happens to all
these people who are responsible
for overthrowing the election?
What are the consequences for
traitors who meddled with our
sacred democratic process, and
tried to steal power by taking away
the voices of the American people?
What happens to them?
Well, in the past, America had
a very good solution for dealing
with such traitors, execution.
>> He's calling for
executions in a situation in which
28% of Republicans already
think that they need to resort to
violence to take the country back.
This is according to new polling.
We already saw what happened in
the nation's Capitol.
Homicides and
gun violence are spiking throughout
the country, because so
many Americans purchased guns
during the coronavirus pandemic.
I mean, so, are there any limits to
what, I guess,
people can just incite, inciting
violence is not protected under
the First Amendment by the way.
You can't go around calling for
executions of
innocent people because you didn't
like the outcome of an election.
But you have OAN spewing this
garbage and
this insanely irresponsible
rhetoric on a regular basis.
That was the most extreme example
I've seen.
But, I don't know,
maybe I'm overreacting, Emma,
what do you think?
>> No, you're not overreacting.
I mean, that's on Cable News.
>> Yeah. >> I have Cable, I mean,
I scroll past OAN [LAUGH] a good
amount, and I marvel at it.
They are on television.
They are a part of the programming
that some multinational
telecommunications companies find
acceptable.
Do you find it acceptable
that a host on that network
is calling for executions of
people who they say are traitors?
People who just accept that the
democratically elected President
Joe Biden is the president.
And so much of that was projection
there too, right?
I mean, what do you do with
traitors who tried to interfere
with our electoral process, right?
That's what you guys did.
You were the ones who tried
to storm the Capitol and
stop the vote count from being
officially tallied,
as we see here in this footage.
You were the ones that were
chanting, hang Mike Pence,
because he was simply not going to
overturn the election results due
to Trump's whining.
One, it goes to show, to me,
just how effective the seeds of
someone like
Roger Stone's propaganda has been.
>> Mm-hm. >> He has been saying,
stop the steal for years now.
That was a part of his effort in
the Bush v Gore election.
That's what they were chanting as
conservatives banged down the doors
at the behest of Roger Stone in
Miami Dade County.
He continued that effort with
Donald Trump, who ate it up.
And his narcissism just spread that
kind of propaganda like a virus, so
that you have sycophantic news
stations like OAN, that they're
broadcast on Cable television,
which gives it the air
of legitimacy,
saying things like that.
That's incredibly dangerous.
And, as you say, in terms of
polling, one-third of Americans,
think some amount of election fraud
or interference is the reason
that Joe Biden is president, or
contributed to his victory.
So just take that amount of people
and then even a small percentage of
it, they're going to believe that,
and that's incredibly dangerous.
I mean, these cable companies that
have OAN, now have culpability.
If they want to have their own
website like Steve Bannon, or
Alex Jones, or whatever the case
may be, and broadcast it there,
do whatever you want.
But this should not be on
television platforms like this,
it's incredibly dangerous.
>> Absolutely, and there used to
be federal regulations in place
pertaining to news media, that was
called the Fairness Doctrine,
right?
So one of the best provisions of
the Fairness Doctrine, which, by
the way, I did a lengthy detailed
segment on for Jacobin, check that
out at youtube.com/ jacobinmag.
One of the most important
provisions, in my opinion,
of the Fairness Doctrine,
was the equal time provision.
Which indicated that if you were
going to do any type of coverage on
a political figure, or a public
figure, whoever, you needed to,
first, inform the individual that
you were going to do the coverage.
But offer equal time for
that person to provide his or
her perspective, or his or
her point of view.
And so that helped to keep
the coverage fair, and
also prevented the polarized,
one-sided approach to news that
we're seeing right now.
So when Ronald Reagan, essentially,
defanged the Fairness Doctrine,
he paved the way for Rush Limbaugh.
I mean, Rush Limbaugh's career
exploded after that.
And the situation in the right-wing
media, certainly, has now devolved
to the point where you have
programming on cable news calling
for executions, as a result of
an election result they don't like.
And, by the way,
he mentioned, he's pretending as
if these audits are going to change
the results of the election.
Homeboy, Georgia did two hand
counts.
And actually after doing the head
counts, they found out the Joe
Biden had more votes than they
previously thought, dozens more
votes than they previously thought.
So it didn't go in the direction he
was hoping for,
he's bringing up the Arizona audit
as if that's changing anything.
They lie about what transpired,
not only during the election, but
in the aftermath of the election.
And then they just plant the seed
of rage and
fear in the American people, and
essentially, give them a green
light in using violence.
I mean, it's just,
how is this okay?
It's not, we know it's not.
But the question is, why isn't
anything being done about it?
Look, I believe in free speech and
I believe in a free media,
obviously, but
inciting violence is not protected
under our Constitution.
And it's incredibly irresponsible
at a time when we're literally
swimming with guns.
We have people who have undiagnosed
mental health conditions, can't get
the treatment they need because of
our broken healthcare system.
I mean, it's just a recipe for
disaster.
And we've already had mass
shootings that were fueled by
the rhetoric we hear from the GOP.
In El Paso, Texas,
a gunman goes into a Walmart,
guns down dozens of people because
of Donald Trump's anti-immigrant
rhetoric and how it inspired him.
We've already lost innocent lives
as a result of this irresponsible,
disgusting, rhetoric from
the right-wing.
And it just continues on,
it keeps getting worse,
more extreme.
Anyway, I just wanted to also give
you this, meanwhile, as Sharp
contends, that other audits will
finally provide overwhelming proof
of widespread voter fraud.
A new report spearheaded by
Michigan Republicans
comprehensively debunks the array
of false election claims made by
Trump, his legal team, and
other right-wing figures.
The report even calls for
the State's Attorney General to
consider investigating those who
peddled false information about
vote counts, in the state,
to raise money or publicity for
their own ends.
And, look, the grift,
it just keeps on going.
We see it everywhere, we see it,
certainly, in the media.
We see people who were purportedly
leftist spewing the same disgusting
propaganda that we're seeing of
the openly right-wing.
And just, please guys,
question everything, question us,
I don't care.
I just want people to be more
skeptical of what they hear from
public figures, both online and
on Cable News.