After Wednesday’s attempted murder of Republican congressmen, their staffs, and a protective detail by a far-left activist, NBC’s Tom Brokaw went in the opposite direction, lecturing views on Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly about how America faces the “common threats” of conspiracy theorists like 9/11 truther Alex Jones.
Brokaw appeared near the end of Kelly’s program that featured her controversial interview with Jones (which was taped a few weeks ago). Kelly teed him up by noting how “there's been a lot of conversation about our toxic political culture, largely driven by the shooting of a congressman and others on a baseball field in Virginia.”
“Tom Brokaw joins us to share some of his thoughts about hate speech and the internet in these challenging times,” she concluded.
Despite having covered numerous acts of terrorism and shootings, Brokaw admitted (for some reason) that this commentary tacitly directed at Trump supporters was “not an easy assignment for a journalist, a father, a grandfather, a citizen to try to understand the deep, dark hate that's coercing through our country and the instruments that spread it with a keystroke.”
Brokaw spoke to pedestrian points that the rise of the internet has provided both benefits and negatives before transitioning to Kelly’s earlier interview subject (the disgusting Jones).
Following the lead of former right-leaning talk radio show host Charlie Sykes (who pathetically argued that Jones’s conspiracies are now “mainstream” in conservatism), Brokaw sought to legitimize Jones:
But the reach and the poisonous claims of Alex Jones and others like him and even establishment public figures would not be slowed. We cannot disrupt the irrational spread of hate by blindly blaming the other side or by looking away.
The former NBC Nightly News anchor acknowledged the pain Newtown families have suffered as a result of both the tragedy and the belief among Jones and his following that it was all staged. Fair enough and totally appropriate.
However, Brokaw’s two-minute-plus commentary wasn’t used to make a broader argument against far-left rhetoric that nearly did the same to Republican congressmen. No, no, no.
You see, he suggested the country we all hold near and dear is at stake because of Jones (and, by extension, Donald Trump):
We cannot allow the agents of hate to go unchallenged and become the imprint of our time. We'll always have differences, of course, but in our finest moments, we are a republic that thrives when it recognizes common threats and takes them on. That time is now again. This is the time of common threats requiring uncommon courage. It is a time to step up.
Brokaw's liberal lecture was brought to you by Cosentyx and Snuggle.
Here’s the transcript of the segment from NBC’s Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly on June 18:
NBC’s Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly
June 18, 2017
7:53 p.m. EasternMEGYN KELLY: This past week there's been a lot of conversation about our toxic political culture, largely driven by the shooting of a congressman and others on a baseball field in Virginia. Tom Brokaw joins us to share some of his thoughts about hate speech and the internet in these challenging times. Tom?
TOM BROKAW: Thank you, Megyn. This is not an easy assignment for a journalist, a father, a grandfather, a citizen to try to understand the deep, dark hate that's coercing through our country and the instruments that spread it with a keystroke. When the internet first arrived, like everyone else, I was bedazzled by its possibilities for good and those qualities have only become so much more effective and pervasive. But I was also quickly aware of the underside, the seizure on the net by hate groups of all kinds spreading their cancer of racism and violence. I did two documentaries at the turn of the century called The Web of Hate hoping to slow the trend. But the reach and the poisonous claims of Alex Jones and others like him and even establishment public figures would not be slowed. We cannot disrupt the irrational spread of hate by blindly blaming the other side or by looking away. The parents of Newtown, it is not enough to say I cannot imagine because unless we are the parents, we can never, ever share the unremitting pain, the lifelong loss and anger nor should they have to hear the cruel claim that it was a lie. No parent or grandparent in America today can escape the fear, the fear that it could happen again. We cannot allow the agents of hate to go unchallenged and become the imprint of our time. We'll always have differences, of course, but in our finest moments, we are a republic that thrives when it recognizes common threats and takes them on. That time is now again. This is the time of common threats requiring uncommon courage. It is a time to step up.
