A year after it came out and shined a harsh light on hunger and poverty in our own backyard, Portland-focused documentary American Winter finally found itself caught in the basilisk-like gaze of Fox News commentator Sean Hannity.
Hannity often gets angry at things. But he was angry about thing in particular: Comments in the film from Commissioner Nick Fish, in which he pledged to use public resources to help people left behind by unchecked capitalism.
If capitalism is not regulated or checked, there’s a harsh logic. And it will always seek out the lowest costs, the highest return. Which is why we have historically viewed government as a check and a balance on that.
Over the last quarter century we have reduced regulations, degraded wages, cut back on health care. We’ve reduced taxes, and now people are more vulnerable.
My job is to communicate to people the absolute moral imperative during these times of using public resources to maintain the safety net until things turn around. And to make sure that we don’t throw some of our most vulnerable people, essentially, to the wolves.
For Hannity, them’s fighting words! And he kept going back to Fish’s remarks—”liberal talking points”—over and over and over.
Hannity has hunger and housing solutions, of course. It’s just that they’re also talking points.
“If government could get out of the way,” he says, “and allow drilling and fracking and coal mining.”
Funny how we currently have the biggest, most out of control leviathan government that has ever existed in human history … in the face of all these “reduced taxes and reduced regulations”.
Film makers: “Not everyone can move to North Dakota.”
Hannity: “Why not?”
How do you even address a shitty question like that?