ABSTRACT
Rising neofascistic politics has been driven for years by the mainstreaming of hate, paranoia, and conspiratorial messaging from “conservative” media. Mainstream scholarship maintains that conservative media can be neatly separated from “alt-right” and reactionary media, with the latter indulging in extremist discourse and the former in more moderate positions. I document how these “conservative” pundits have smuggled neofascistic rhetoric into their commentary, prior to and during Trump’s presidency. Through an analysis of rightwing talk radio, Fox News, and other media, I expose the threat of creeping neofascistic politics. This includes rising contempt for science and evidence-based reasoning, reactionary and conspiratorial content regarding Covid-19, the 2020 election, and other political issues, the rise of eliminationist rhetoric depicting the Democratic Party as a fundamental threat to society, the rise of not-so-veiled racist, xenophobic, and white supremacist messages, the glorification of violence against critics of the right, and the rising commitment to Orwellian propaganda that subverts basic notions of truth. I document how the smuggling of neofascistic values into rightwing media results in the blurring of conservative and reactionary politics, with consumption of “mainstream-conservative” media like Fox News and talk radio serving as a strong predictor of support for “alt-right” neofascism.
