A veteran counterterrorism officer warned the Republican Party has been radicalized in a way that destabilizes democracy, and he gave a chilling example of how Fox News amplifies extremism into the mainstream.
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior intelligence service officer at the CIA, followed up on his recent column outlining a strategy for GOP deradicalization on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” where he revealed how the conservative network twisted his words and launched a torrent of violent threats.
“There’s a demonization of political opponents and it’s particularly prevalent on the Republican side,” Polymeropoulos said. “You know, there’s a normalization of violence and violent rhetoric, and that has to change. You know, Michael [Steele] and I have talked about this on some previous programs that the only change, you know, the change has to come from within the Republican Party, and you know, in my career at CIA, I saw countries that have problems with radicalization, and the change always came from within, and that’s really important. You know, we can sit here and talk about this all we want, but until the Republican Party admits there’s a problem, you know, nothing will change, and look what happened last night with Donald Trump calling Nancy Pelosi an animal. I mean, I was horrified.”
“I wrote the piece for NBC, and 24 hours after that I was subject to all of this kind of crazy right-wing hate mail and rhetoric,” Polymeropoulos added. “You know, a different cable network wrote a piece that I was actually advocating for CIA terrorism measures to be used on conservatives.”
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Host Joe Scarborough interrupted and asked for more details.
“Hold on a second,” Scarborough said. “What cable news network did that?”
“It was Fox, Fox came out with a piece that said I was advocating counterterrorism techniques to be used on conservatives,” Polymeropoulos said. “That’s not what I said at all. It was on Fox digital, and my phone blew up with hate mail which again, goes to show, affirms my point that the Republican Party is not ready to admit there’s a problem. It’s okay to admit that because violence is as you said before, against the foundation and principles we grow up with. They’re not ready, and the last 24 hours have shown it, certainly Donald Trump’s comments last night.”
Watch the video below or at this link.