Over the years, there’s been some absolutely moronic, absurd, and misleading shit said on right-wing media, most notably Fox News, which is infamous for trafficking in lies and conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact or grounding in reality.
But in today’s wide-open media bouillabaisse of anything goes inanity — fueled in part by the explosion of social media platforms and ubiquity of the internet everywhere you go — we have even more extreme mutant strains of nutbaggery such as Newsmax, where today’s batshit, head-shaking headline originated with a discussion of “critical race theory” which led to a guest warning that teaching about slavery and how whites have treated blacks in the United States over the centuries will result in “death camps” for white people.
Those words came from right-wing radio host Michael Savage, who told Newsmax hosts Steve Cortes and Jenn Pellegrino that there’s already violence against whites all over the country:
“And now they’re beating up white children in schoolrooms. And I’m not going to mince words. You can cut me off if you have to. I know you probably agree with me. I can’t take this anymore. And there’s only one solution to it—sue the goddamn schools if they do it to your child for child abuse, and you will win.”
Yeah, kids didn’t start beating each other up until racism became a topic of discussion, right, Michael? As for suing for child abuse, can we also sue parents who voted for Trump and believe his bullshit? Seems only fair, don’t you agree?
Rather than provide proof of his specious assertions, Savage went full douche and brought up Nazi Germany and the Holocaust:
“The same kind of thing started in Germany. The Jews were no good. The Jews did this. The Jews did that. The next thing you know they were being excluded from swimming pools. They didn’t put them in concentration camps overnight.
“I studied this intimately. I am Jewish. I know how this starts. Attacks on white people is exactly what was done to the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. Don’t fall for this garbage. This is the road to the death camps. Stand up to these bastards and sue them!”
Jewish Americans were once excluded from public swimming pools, clubs, and schools in this country, too. Did it lead to concentration camps? No. It led to reforms, change, and a growth in American consciousness that allowed this country to evolve and realize the ignorance of such discrimination.
We have to understand where we’ve been as a nation in order to make sure we don’t repeat the past endlessly and lose our souls. Learning from history — even the dark and controversial parts — is how we prevent repeating it.