Breitbart Wants Its Followers to Get Vaxxed to Own the Libs
Will Sommer and Swin Suebsaeng discuss how right-wing media are approaching vaccinations with their stubborn audiences, and Rep. Ro Khanna is cornered about Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Getty
Fox News pundits are still pushing vaccine disinformation, but not all right-wing media organizations are created equal when it comes to messaging.
According to Will Sommer and Swin Suebsaeng—Daily Beast reporters and hosts of the Fever Dreams podcast, which covers all things right wing—at least one conservative digital outlet seems to have switched from being totally anti-vaccine and anti-mask to using inventive strategies to get followers vaccinated.
Specifically, Will and Swin tell Molly Jong-Fast on the latest episode of The New Abnormal that conservative outlet Breitbart pulled a “reverse psychology jujitsu” when one of its columnists recently told readers to get the vaccine “to own the libs.”
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“You do get the sense that whenever the more self-aware conservative politicians or columnists or pundits start saying, ‘OK, this is something where we kind of have to talk down to our readers and down to our audience to try to get them on board with something that they very clearly don’t want to get.’ They very clearly portray themselves as having less intellectual respect for their audience,” Swin offers.
Molly wonders, though, are these people actually pulling trickery or do they really believe liberals don’t want them to get vaccinated?
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Then, progressive Rep. Ro Khanna of California joins to discuss the state’s recall results and gets cornered by Molly about Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
She has just one question: Is DiFi going to resign?
Of course, it wouldn’t be a New Abnormal show without things that are, well, abnormal, and this episode’s last guest, Jeet Heer, tells Molly about the candidates from Monday’s Canadian election, including one Trumpy guy whose big issue was dairy control management.
Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
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