Fox News smears 9/11 heroes by comparing them to slavery defenders

“Fox & Friends,” which is Trump’s favorite show at the conservative propaganda network masquerading as a news channel, was the site of the latest incident by the right in attempting to undermine the sense of unity and shared national tragedy experienced on 9/11.

Interviewing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about the 9/11 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, co-host Brian Kilmeade asked, “Do you worry that 100 years from now someone is going to take that memorial down like they are trying remake our memorials today?”

The unhinged question was in reference to the ongoing conservative defense of Confederate Civil War memorials, instigated by Trump after he described the statues — built to honor men who fought to preserve the right of states to own human beings — as “beautiful” monuments.

Zinke toed the Republican/Fox News line in his response as well, advocating “learning from our monuments,” as if history cannot be written in books and that structures built to honor men who fought for slavery are the only way history can be learned.

 

KILMEADE: Do you worry 100 years from now someone is going to try to take that memorial down like they are trying remake our memorials today?

ZINKE: Well, I’m one that believes that we should learn from history. And I think our monuments are a part of our country’s history. We can learn from it. Since we don’t put up statues of Jesus, everyone is going to fall morally short. And I think reflecting on our history both good and bad is a powerful statement and part of our DNA. I’m an advocate of, again, learning from our monuments. Understanding the period they were made, but also we live in a great country and monuments are not Republican, Democrat, independent. Monuments are a tribute to all of us.

The Flight 93 memorial honors the men and women who lost their lives on 9/11, some of them in the process of stopping the al Qaeda hijackers from using the plane as a weapon, possibly against the White House. Those heroes and victims are sterling examples of American unity, purpose, and pride.

In other words, they are the exact opposite of the Confederates being defended by the axis of Fox and Trump.

In the infamous “Cornerstone Speech” made in 1861 by Alexander Stephens, who described himself as the vice president of the treasonous movement, Stephens said the Confederacy “rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.”

Those are the ideals that the Confederacy was built on — the subjugation of one race to another — and it was what the Confederate Army illegally fought to defend and what statues and memorials to the Confederacy are fully invested in honoring.

To equate this vile and despicable belief system to the people who lost their lives on 9/11 is spitting in the face of their memories, and it’s all too common and frequent in the world of conservatism.

Fox News has positioned itself as the go-to conservative media outlet, an in-house amplifier for Republican beliefs. As part of that mission, Fox now seeks to throw 9/11 in the same pile as the slavery defenders they support. It is a despicable turn of events.