In promoting his Republican-trashing memoir, ex-Rep. Adam Kinzinger not only was awarded two PBS interviews, but two NPR interviews. First on NPR, he trashed Republicans as the "terrorist caucus." In an hourlong Halloween tongue-bath on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Kinzinger compared the GOP to ISIS, and he suggested Sean Hannity and Mark Levin fans have "brain rot." Your tax dollars at work.
Here's how it was summarized on NPR.org:
The former Illinois congressman reflects on confronting the "fanaticism of the hardcore" of his own party. Kinzinger served on the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.
Terry Gross wanted to underline the tale of how Kinzinger's own family disowned him because they listen to too much conservative talk radio:
KINZINGER: It's been life-changing in a number of ways. So, you know, my father's cousins, I guess, basically sent me a letter disowning me at one point, which was...
GROSS: Wait, wait, wait, she said you served in Satan's army when you joined the committee.
KINZINGER: Yep. That's it. That's it. I was a member of the devil's army. But it said things like, you serve in the devil's army, you've lost the trust of great men like Mark Levin and Sean Hannity. And it goes to show, to me, the brain rot - right? - the rot going on, the absolute abuse of people that put their trust in some of these - you know, these radio folks or these TV folks.
NPR fans believe that, deeply. Kinzinger is so angry at being called a RINO, he thinks it makes Republicans look like funadmentalist terrorists:
But look at the vitriol that's being said. I mean, if you have a Republican - you know, fundamentalists - 'cause you can take a fundamentalist in a religion, a fundamentalist in a political belief system - fundamentalists, more than they hate the other person, the other side of their argument or the other religion, they hate people within their movement or religion that claim to believe what they believe, but they consider apostates. You know, if you look at ISIS, for instance, ISIS's biggest targets weren't Christians and weren't Jews. ISIS's biggest target were other Muslims that they thought were apostates.
You see that in the Republican Party, where there is a whole culture that makes money in the media ecosystem, the echo chamber that exists, that makes money on making people angry about what so-called RINOs are doing. RINO stands for Republican In Name Only, and it's a pejorative meant to be, you're not really a Republican. And they make a ton of money on it. So the incentive structure is backwards to actually try to, you know, create a governing coalition. The incentive structure is to actually make people angrier and angrier and angrier.
What's amazing is the NPR interviewer seemed to have brain rot, asking Adam "Republicans Are Terrorists" Kinzinger um, shouldn't his enemies tone down their rhetoric?
GROSS: Did you ever confront them and say, look at the threats against my child, my 6-month-old child? Do you feel responsible for this? Do you feel like it's your responsibility to tone down the inflammatory language and encourage others to do the same?
KINZINGER: It's a great question because, yes, I did. And, you know, you'd get a couple of responses. You know, the people that - I don't know. I call them the true believers. They're not - they don't really believe it, but they're, like - let's say it's the Matt Gaetz type, right? They don't get - they just don't care. Like, to them, this is all a game. It's all fun. The only thing they want to be as famous. And, congratulations, you're famous. Everybody knows your name.
This, from the showboat who has been bathing in laudatory liberal interviews all over TV and radio and cashing in on a book deal.
