'Get in there and disrupt!' Critic orders Dems to take fight directly to Fox News

New Republic Columnist Greg Sargent says Republicans are showing a “dark endgame” on Fox News and other right-wing outlets, but Democrats have an opening to fight it--and they’d better.

Democrats are leery of appearing on a hostile network and giving a “sheen of legitimacy” to what they consider propaganda but Sargent says not going on lets fringe outlets drag Republican news consumers and GOP-leaning independents even further to the fringe without the benefit of “contrary facts and complicating nuances.”

Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz) showed Democrats how to do it, he says, by sticking to her guns before Fox News host Laura Ingraham.

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The trick, he says: don’t get distracted with accusations and deflection.

Ingraham got angry at Ansari’s attempt to visit deported and incarcerated legal resident Abrego Garcia in El Salvador this week. Since Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) had already visited Garcia, Ingraham called any follow-up visits “a political stunt."

Ansari responded that the real issue is whether Abrego Garcia will get due process under U.S. law. “If this could happen to someone without due process, tomorrow it could happen to a U.S. citizen,” Ansari said. “We are turning into an authoritarian country.”

Ansari also ducked repeated attempts by Ingraham to frame her as an ally of gang-bangers and hang the deaths of U.S. citizens at the hands of violent criminals around her neck.

“Do your constituents care about those victims?” Ingraham demanded.

“I’m appalled by any violence that takes place in this country,” Ansari said. “That’s why this case is so important. That’s why I believe in the rule of law.”

Sargent’s argument is that U.S. law demands due process for people like Garcia “precisely because it will settle who is guilty of violent or murderous crimes like those and who is not guilty of them.”

Ansari kept the question of the rule of law central to her debate.

“What process do you think is still due an individual who two courts found had [reason] to believe he had an affiliation with MS-13?” Ingraham asked.

“That needs to happen in court,” Ansari replied.

“How often does that happen on Fox News?” Sargent asked. “Approximately never.”

Read the full New Republic story here.