Fake patriot and enemy of the people
Sean Hannity wants the world to know America is a corrupt banana republic rife with voting fraud and diabolical plots to depose a duly elected president.
The popular Fox News host, who has the visage of a failed college quarterback who now, in middle age, travels to gun shows with a pastrami sandwich in his breast pocket, was a real Debbie Downer on Wednesday as reality clogged his MAGA pipe dreams.
“I would argue tonight that every American should be angry, you should be outraged, you should be worried, you should be concerned at what has happened in the election,” Hannity told his already outraged viewers, his eyes glistening with the betrayed horror of a man who just tiptoed into his bedroom to find his wife with another man.
“We are now being failed by our most critical institutions,” Hannity continued. “And tonight, what we are really witnessing — and if we’re going to be honest and take a good, hard look at what’s happening — is an absolute disgrace that is unfolding right before our eyes.”
If you had just come-to from a coma as Fox News was buzzing in your hospital room — though that would probably catapult you back into the coma — you might’ve assumed the greatest democracy in human history was now under existential threat by dark forces.
Had terrorists bombed polling centres and kidnapped election officials? Did the treacherous Dems covertly hire Bill Gates to rewrite code on swing-state scanning machines, converting every vote for Donald Trump into six for Joe Biden?
Did Hillary Clinton pause her life’s work of murder, mayhem and child sex-trafficking to infiltrate key districts in Georgia and Pennsylvania, arriving under the cloak of darkness with Santa-sized duffel bags of counterfeit ballots as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez waited in the getaway car in a Versace gown?
What exactly was this absolute disgrace?
It’s still not clear. Hannity made cryptic allusions to “100,000” ballots and “garbage cans” and “dead people” and a “corrupt system” and “poll watchers” who may or may not have been detained by a secret police commanded by Hunter Biden. He wondered why results were “taking so long,” apparently unaware of the pandemic, historic turnout, unprecedented mail-in voting and the fact many states could not legally start counting until election day.
It was as if he hired a crew to build a condo and then freaked when it wasn’t done by noon.
Hannity did not provide one Cheerio of evidence to support his allegation that anything happening during this bonkers election is criminal or even suspect. That’s because there is no evidence. Instead, he parroted debunked conspiracy theories and the talking points of his flailing Mad King. In one of the most profoundly irresponsible rants I have ever witnessed — and I spent six years as the Star’s TV critic — Hannity threw America under the bus.
Forget the flag lapels and faux patriotism.
Sean Hannity is the real enemy of the people.
America has never been more divided. I swear to God, if you went door-to-door and played a ukulele, 50 per cent of the people would insist you were banging a bongo. Objective reality has given way to subjective fantasy. Partisans believe what they want to believe, especially if it demonizes the other side. But, with this election still up in the air as of Thursday afternoon, with the U.S. trapped inside a tinderbox of mutual disdain, you’d think Hannity would at least have the stones and decency to not light a match just because his guy is losing.
I get that he is crestfallen. To Hannity, the prospect of a Democratic president is more terrifying than a three-headed cobra. Hannity is not a journalist. He’s a circus freak swallowing flaming swords under the GOP big tent.
He shows up to Trump rallies. He speaks to the president before bedtime each night more than I talk to my wife. He might as well have a Trump Hotel named after him.
But, by amplifying the president’s insidious lies about a “stolen” election, by suggesting without evidence this vote is rigged, Hannity went from A-list cult cheerleader to greasy co-conspirator in the attempted assassination of American democracy.
All he cares about is party loyalty. His real “outrage” is not with the election — it’s with the grim realization that a majority of citizens rejected his four years of State TV propaganda.
Sean, psst, it’s not the “institutions” that are “corrupt” — it’s your buddy.
I’m trying to imagine how Hannity would respond if an incumbent Democratic president falsely declared victory, demanded votes not be counted and wrongly claimed fraud as his numbers went sideways. My guess — assuming his brain didn’t explode all over that pastrami sandwich — is that he would demand a firing squad.
Sean Hannity could’ve taken a stand for everything that has ever made America great.
Instead, he proved he doesn’t give a damn.