It’s a tough time for Fox News.
Republicans just got routed by Democrats in last month’s midterms.
President Donald Trump appears to be increasingly panicked about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election after recent developments regarding the president’s former colleagues.
So in these trying times, the conservative network has gone back to its basics: the supposed “War on Christmas.”
Fox News has made warning about the dangers of acknowledging December holidays other than Christmas an annual tradition.
However, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham cautioned of a new threat to Christmas during their programs on Wednesday.
The Fox News hosts — who didn’t seem too concerned about putting real humans in cages — are outraged that a Massachusetts church put a doll in a cage as part of its Christmas nativity scene in protest against Trump’s family separation policy.
After promoting the segment with a tweet warning “CHRISTMAS IS UNDER SIEGE,” Hannity cautioned viewers that “you probably don’t want your kids to watch this” before showing footage of the doll of baby Jesus — which again, we must emphasize was a doll and not an actual human being — behind bars.
In the following hour, Ingraham was even more outraged. After she criticized the Boston-area priest from the church in question for not wearing his clerical collar in an interview, Ingraham brought on Dan Bongino, the right-wing pundit who has admitted “owning the libs” is the only thing that provides meaning to his life.
In a span of three minutes, the conservative talking heads provided a striking example of how Fox News’ outrage machine operates, as they used this one church to whine about liberals being “a blowtorch on everything” and having “destroyed Halloween” because “every parent has to worry if it’s cultural appropriation” and “you couldn’t wear the Black Panther costume, apparently, if your kid wasn’t Black.”
“Friends don’t let friends mess with baby Jesus!” exclaimed Bongino at the end of the bizarre segment.
Hannity and Ingraham have already shown much more concern about a doll being put in a cage than the same treatment of actual people.
In June, Ingraham referred to the president’s policy — which medical professionals have called abusive — as “essentially summer camp.”
Though Hannity hasn’t reached that level of depravity regarding locking children in cages, he has defended Trump’s policy by falsely claiming Congress is really responsible for it.
.@seanhannity: "No one likes the idea of separating any child from any parent, but this issue has been in the hands of Congress. And right now, the whole issue can be fixed. Every law can be changed, and if they did their job, it would happen." #Hannity pic.twitter.com/fkXpwHmM2h
— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 19, 2018
Previous “highlights” of Fox News’ coverage of the “War on Christmas” include Bill O’Reilly blaming gay people for it, Megyn Kelly freaking out about a Black Santa Claus, outrage over Starbucks’ cups, outrage over upside-down Christmas trees, and an exclusive interview with Santa.