A permission structure for ignorance

“Search for Bill Bennett’s name on this site [Twitter], and you’ll see ‘Fox & Friends’ viewers cheering him on. And that’s the real problem. This show provides a permission structure for ignorance.”

CNN Chief Media Correspondent Brian Stelter (@brianstelter), 13 April 2020

Stelter was reacting to dismissive statements on Fox & Friends by William Bennet, former Secretary of Education in the Reagan administration, about the severity of the Coronavirus.

Bennett smugly stated,

And now they say 61,000 people will die…I’m going to tell you I think it’s going to be less.“…We’re going to have fewer fatalities from this than from the flu. For this we scared the hell out of the American people…closed down the schools…closed the churches… This was not and is not a pandemic…Look at the facts.

At the time William Bennett made those statements — April 13, 2020 — 22,000 Americans had already died of COVID-19.