In Which Ben Shapiro Blatantly Twists Obama’s Words (Again)
Shapiro of the CornRight wingers do this ridiculous word-twisting game all the time, distorting absolutely anything President Obama says to make it look like he’s an evil tyrant who hates America. But this one is especially egregious and flat stupid, and it comes from Breitbart clown Ben Shapiro, published at something called “The Daily Wire,” another in the endless series of right wing cookie-cutter websites: Obama: Americans Love ‘Cheap Jingoism’ and Xenophobia.
Oh really? Obama said Americans “love cheap jingoism and xenophobia?” Sounds pretty awful!
But of course, you realize this absurd spin is completely unrelated to what he really said, right? Yup. Here’s the context Shapiro tries to elide, from the Hollywood Reporter: Obama Makes Plea for Gun Control at Hollywood Fundraisers.
“There’s almost no measure by which we’re not better off now than when I came into office,” he said.
But problems remain, most prominently the failure of wages and income to grow for ordinary Americans, making people feel anxious about their finances, he said.
“And when people are anxious economically, the politics of fear oftentimes can override the politics of hope,” he said.
That anxiety can express itself in anti-immigration rhetoric and “in cheap jingoism and militarism and nationalism that’s not grounded in our national security interests. And it’s a dangerous path.”
That’s pretty far from saying Americans “love” jingoism and xenophobia. He was making a very different point, obviously: that anxiety can lead people into negative thinking. This isn’t expressing “scorn for the American people,” to quote Shapiro; it’s actually expressing understanding and sympathy for the negative emotions anxiety and worry can lead to. In other words, exactly the opposite of how Shapiro tries to picture it. (And he didn’t even use the word “xenophobia” at all.)
Just another day for an utterly dishonest propagandist — a guy who actually does emit a daily deluge of cheap jingoism and xenophobia. How does Shapiro look at himself in the mirror?
