In the spirit of knowing thy enemy, I tune into the Ingraham Angle on Fox News at 10 pm the night former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is found guilty of murdering George Floyd.
There is something sinister, conspiratorial, even bawdy about Laura Ingraham. Her eyes blaze with grievance, her glistening mouth curls in disdain. Her face is painted to smooth perfection. Tonight, she wears a dress with color blocks of white, red, and black, reminiscent of the color scheme of the Nazi flag.
Anxiety spreads its tentacles in me as she spews her version of what she calls the big lie about America. No, not the one that the election was stolen (that’s no lie!); the one that our country is systemically racist.
She makes her case that the concept of systemic racism in our country is an overwrought, fabricated, devious, America-undermining, white-person-hating lie propagated by activists, liberals, and even President Biden who all make law enforcement out to be a racist killing machine.
The fact is, according to Laura, our valiant police officers face dangers every day from Black men. They are doing their duty to protect us. Also: the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial may have been wrong. Justice may not have been served. Did you know George Floyd was on drugs? Did you know he had heart problems?
Her face says: Are you with me on this? Are you with me? I get a sense she is close to losing control as she vomits fury and vitriol at a breakneck pace, checking off all the right-wing talking points, shifting topics on the fly as elegantly as a point guard pivots and drives the basket.
I’m not shocked. Her words, her manufactured passion, her fake righteousness—I expected them all. Still, I cringe and squirm. Until I don’t.
Her harangue is so outlandish I begin to tune her out six minutes into her show. By ten minutes I turn the television off and return to the book I was reading, also fiction, but fiction with heart and soul, fiction that helps us understand human nature and look hard and deep at ourselves, unlike Laura’s half-truths and twisted lies that stink like shallow graves.
Every night, more than three million viewers tune in for their daily dose of indoctrination. Oh, Laura, you are a marvel at one you do.
