Fox News smears survivors of Parkland shooting
JUDD LEGUM at Think Progress
https://thinkprogress.org/fox-news-parkland-smear-5331b78ee3e4/
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The unifying principle of the right-wing smear campaign against the student survivors of the Parkland massacre is that they are puppets of larger, nefarious forces. The attacks first gained prominence on Monday on the pro-Trump blog Gateway Pundit which claimed, without any evidence, that student David Hogg was a pawn of the FBI and was “merely reciting a script” in media interviews. By Tuesday, as the initial attacks gained support from Donald Trump Jr. and a former congressman, Gateway Pundit escalated the attacks, suggesting Hogg and other students were crisis actors recruited from the school’s theater department by far-left groups controlled by George Soros. Similar outlandish claims went viral on Facebook.
“[M]any of these other students are being used as marionettes by the far left and deep state because they were able to run out of a building. There is no credibility there and it’s disgusting to watch,” Lucian Wintrich, who authored the pieces for Gateway Pundit, told The Wrap.
A more polite version of the same smear quietly made its way to Fox News.
On Fox News’ The Five, Greg Gutfeld dipped his toe in by offering some “advice” to the students. “You’ve got to beware of when other groups co-opt your protest,” Gutfeld warned. Then, mirroring the argument of Gateway Pundit, Gutfeld decried the involvement of “far left” groups in a rally the students are organizing in Washington next month. “If you are a protester, you have to maintain an independence,” Gutfeld said, objecting to the participation of Women’s March organizers. Joining forces with like-minded groups, of course, is a fundamental tactic of political organizing. But in an effort to discredit the students’ activism, it has turned into something nefarious.
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