Popular Fox News Host Rejects Elections, Endorses Civil War in Deranged Rant

Leaders of the American conservative movement—be they Republican politicians or media surrogates—are apparently incapable of sincere introspection.

You’d think after the Fox News network was forced, just a few months ago, to cut a bruising $787 million check to Dominion Voting Systems (after defaming them in the service of Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies), that the right wing propaganda network would be more careful with their words.

Instead, one of their most popular personalities, Greg Gutfeld, went on a deranged rant, decrying democracy and elections as useless, and openly endorsing civil war.

The discomfort of three of his four co-hosts was palpable: Jesse Watters tried to interrupt the rant with a lame joke; Martha McCallum gave Gutfeld the bombastic side eye and tried to change the subject, laughing nervously; and Harold Ford Jr. tried to reel Gutfeld in by gently extolling the civic virtue of voting. But none of this deterred Gutfeld, who seems to believe that America’s ills were triggered by the results of the 2020 and 2022 elections.

Though there is some genuine strangeness to see a prominent Fox News host (besides the departed Tucker Carlson) so nakedly endorse extremism, the truth is it shouldn’t be. Much more common and dangerous than left wing extremism, right wing extremism has blossomed under Trump. Numerous conservative pundits and Republican politicians have signaled support for political violence or civil war, with little pushback from those among their own side.

Given its pervasiveness and lack of deterring consequences, no one should be surprised that this rhetoric is making its way from the more radical Newsmax and OANN to the more mainstream Fox News.