Like many in the Fox News lineup, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs has treated his audience to ever-more-dubious rantings and conspiracy theories over the last few years. His routine has gotten meaner, his dedication to hoax-peddling more urgent, and his incessant demonization of liberals, immigrants, government officials, and anyone else that Dear Leader has designated for abuse on any given day has become a regular feature of his “business”-themed show.
Now the Fox host is trivializing and conspiracy-peddling about a pipe bomb sent to a host of Trump’s named enemies, including a rival news network.
Let us pause for a moment to take these in, and to observe that “business” host Lou Dobbs is indisputably Off His Goddamn Rocker. Between the casual conspiracy-peddling, the inclusion of another conspiracy (Left-Wing driven Caravans), the use of the “Dimms” pejorative used abso-tutely only by lunatics and morons, and (wide sweeping arm gesture) all the rest of it, from top to hashtags, this is a genuine Grandpa Crazypants routine. At one point it was Fox News viewers who were subjecting the internets to these off-kilter rants; now the hosts are indistinguishable from their most addled fans.
Show Republicans there will be a price for peddling Trump’s hatred: Click here to volunteer this week near your town to elect Democrats.
Both tweets were later deleted. A third, promising a televised segment tonight exploring "why the FBI and ATF hasn't informed the public about contents of 'suspicious packages,'” in these first 24 hours of the FBI investigation. "[W]hether hoax or bombs, they were clearly designed to influence election."
This is at least a little curious in that Lou Dobbs, as one of the most shameless Trump-fluffers on television, appears to share the broad conservative opinion that the FBI must absolutely not mention anything about the investigation into Russian election hacking, lest it "influence" the midterm elections, but on the contrary is hinting that the FBI not sharing with him the evidence gathered in the first day of a domestic terrorism investigation is, at the same time, also possibly an FBI plot to influence the same election.
But that's probably overthinking things, because if there's one thing we know it's that Lou Dobbs is dishonest, a propagandist, and deeply, deeply stupid.
To reiterate the point, sending pipe bombs to a list of the sitting "president's" perceived enemies is an act of domestic terrorism, whether or not the bombs go off or whether anyone is physically injured. That Dobbs and others so quickly moved to dismiss that act as itself a "hoax" by their movement's enemies, a false act of violence that does not count because they suppose it does not, is still more evidence of the movement's descent into open fascism.
Violent language peddled by Trump against his enemies is considered bold and useful, as with his praise of a mentally unstable House candidate who physically attacked a reporter or his incessant mewings in rallies about what his supporters should or should not do to protesting enemies; actual violence is dismissed, and the victims openly denigrated and mocked.
Lou Dobbs, like Fox personalities Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, the megaphone through which Trump rallies hatred for his enemies and peddles overtly false conspiracy theories about non-whites, non-Christians, and individual named opponents who have, in criticizing him, earned their ire. They follow the path of Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly in stoking and justifying violent acts against named enemies of conservatism, whether it be a single named abortion-providing doctor or a non-conservative foundation that not one of their viewers had even heard of before they, in conspiracy-laced tirades, singled them out for retribution.
Lou Dobbs is a large part of the reason bombs are being sent to Trump's enemies. Lou Dobbs does not care; Lou Dobbs instead seeks to use the act of violence to justify further hatred and conspiracy-mongering against the same targets. We could demand his resignation, but the Murdoch-owned network has long coddled and encouraged those that would promote terrorist acts. It has been, for years, an ideologically useful tool.