Bill Maher blames Fox News for white supremacy violence in Charlottesville

HBO "Real Time" host Bill Maher used his show Friday night to partially lay blame on Fox News for the violence seen in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend.

Racially charged violence, stoked by neo-Nazis and white supremacists, characterize last weekend in Charlottesville. The violence included clashes between the racists and counter-protesters, including members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter. The violence resulted in one death when an alleged neo-Nazi rammed a crowd of counter-protesters with his car.

Culpable Fox

Fox News, the leading cable news network that is the "home" for conservatives, Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump, is partially responsible for that violence and what led up to the violence because they "reanimated" Nazi DNA, Maher alleged.

"They are the Jurassic Park that took the DNA of the Nazis and reanimated it. I absolutely believe that. I believe that without Fox News for years giving the kind of poison they give over their airwaves, putting it into people’s heads," the violence wouldn't have happened, he explained.

The "perfect storm"

In addition to Fox News, the only network fair to conservatives, Maher said the internet and Trump have laid the ground work for a revival in white supremacist communities.

"And then the internet, I think, which you know, people say they get radicalized on the internet. Before if you were a neo-Nazi, unless you found somebody in your town at the coffee shop, now you can find someone on the internet — and then the president gave permission to them," Maher said.

The ardent liberal explained that a "perfect storm" may have returned white supremacy to the mainstream.

"So Fox News, the internet and Donald Trump. That's the perfect storm that has, you know, put something...I don't know how many people are out there like this," he added.

The easy way out

Through blaming Fox News, Maher has taken the easy way out. Instead of thinking critically about why white supremacy has returned to the mainstream or, more importantly, why people are unafraid to be seen in public as white supremacists, Maher does what liberals have done for years: blame reporters and political commentators at Fox for the actions of others.

Ultimately, to be racist, it's a problem in one's heart because they see their race as supreme over others, because they don't see all people created in God's image, because they harbor hate and don't love their neighbor as themselves. But continuing to lay blame on the right's one mainstream network for a problem that isn't theirs will continue to alienate a large segment of Americans who, by and large, are not racist at all.