Red-State Dawn? Brian Stelter Imagines How Anti-CNN ‘Insults’ Lead To ‘Shooting’ In 2024

CNN’s Brian Stelter dedicated his Halloween monologue to predicting a dark, dystopian future in which insults from Fox News personalities and Republican politicians lead to “bombs in newsrooms” of honest news outlets, like CNN. The only thing that can prevent a full-blown civil war, Stelter said, is the power of genuine “news sources” like CNN.

His monologue contributed to the growing number of recent incidents in which the legacy media have treated conservatives, or all Trump voters, as potential domestic terrorists.

Stelter opened Sunday’s “Reliable Sources” by scoping out the allegedly violence-strewn path between now and the 2024 presidential election. “So much of what might happen in the next three years is sadly predictable,” he said.

He then broke up his monologue into three blocks, “Imagine It’s” 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Next year, “Right-wing media keeps pummeling President Biden, weakening him, calling him a tyrant one minute and senile the next,” Stelter said.

“Donald Trump is in complete control of the GOP” and “the agenda is revenge,” he said. “Establishment GOP figures have to play along in order to keep their jobs,” wary of “enforcers” like Sean Hannity, Stelter’s onetime friend.

“In the Right’s media echo chamber, growing ever more extreme, the words ‘Democrats’ and ‘criminals’ are conflated constantly, so the other side loses legitimacy bit, by bit, by bit,” he continued. “Fear propelled by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, who bring up things like caravans right at key moments during the election … in 2022 helps the GOP regain control of the House. Members of the January 6 sedition caucus are now in control of the body that completes the Electoral College process.”

“And most people, by the end of 2022, have a sinking feeling that more riots are ahead,” Stelter fretted.

He then took aim at the independence of social media. “New fan groups organize in private Facebook groups. They call themselves the Trumpets. They pledge to share only real news about the candidate to get around the CNNs of the world. Of course, their real news is largely misinformation,” Stelter said, reassuring his viewers.

“Columnists who point out that Trump is a wannabe autocrat are insulted by Fox stars, triggering hate campaigns against them,” Stelter said.

He did not specify why the American people should assume that former President Donald Trump is an aspiring dictator nor clarify how reporters should square that starting point with their obligation to provide unbiased news coverage.

“Reporters who try