In Serpico (1973) audiences were led to cheer on the lonely and dangerous efforts of incorruptible Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) to combat widespread payoffs within the NYPD.

And even though a wounded Serpico is forced to resign from the NYPD, he leaves behind the Knapp Commission to investigate widespread police corruption.

The audience was not led to root for the men who dedicated their lives to deceit and corruption.

But for Right-wingers, the opposite is the case. Supporting those who peddle lies for profit is considered a patriotic duty. And so is attacking those who dare to stand up against lies and corruption. 

Case #1:

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza, a mentally unstable, 20-year-old gunman, slaughtered 20 school children aged six and seven and six adult staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut.

Enter Right-wing broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who hosts The Alex Jones Show from Austin, Texas. 

On his program in January, 2015, he said: “Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors.”

On August 1, 2018, families of four students and two educators who died in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre filed a defamation lawsuit against Jones.

Alex Jones

Michael Zimmermann [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D

According to the complaint: 

“The Jones defendants concoct elaborate and false paranoia-tinged conspiracy theories because it moves product and they make money. Not because they truly believe what they are saying, but rather because it increases profits.” 

Typically, Jones responded to the lawsuit with more lies:  

“This is all out of context….And it’s not even what I said or my intent. I’m not going to get into the real defects of this, I’m going to wait until it’s thrown out with prejudice.”

Case #2:

On September 23, 2019, 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg indicted world leaders at the United Nations for failing to act on climate change:

“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

Greta Thunberg

“She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” President Donald Trump tweeted sarcastically above a link to Thunberg’s speech. 

CNN’s Chris Cillizza immediately recognized the sarcasm: “Unfortunately, it’s not at all surprising that Trump saw fit to make fun of Thunberg’s passion and emotion. This is who he is — a schoolyard bully who doesn’t differentiate between a 16-year-old girl and Joe Biden. Or a Gold Star family. Or a prisoner of war. Or white nationalists and those protesting their ideology of hate.” 

Fox News host Laura Ingraham juxtaposed Thunberg’s speech with a clip from the 1984 horror film Children of the Corn, joking, “I can’t wait for Stephen King’s sequel, Children of the Climate.”

Ingraham’s brother, Curtis, wrote: “I can no longer apologize for a sibling who I no longer recognize.”

Many American commentators attacking Thunberg are tied to the Heartland Institute, funded by Big Oil, and which promotes climate science denial.

Other critics of Greta owe their allegiance to the Koch family, owners of the U.S.’s largest private energy company.

Case #3:   

Dr. Anthony Fauci has served under six Republican and Democratic Presidents as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.

Since COVID-19 struck the United States in January, he has dared to speak the hard truth about the pandemic—and the Federal Government’s failure to combat it.

Anthony Fauci

in doing so, he has occasionally contradicted President Trump’s statements filled with ignorance or outright lies. For example: Trump has been loudly touting hydroxychloroquine, used for treating malaria, as a miracle cure for COVID-19.

Yet Fauci has pointed out there have been no scientific trials of the drug for its effectiveness against Coronavirus. Given the medical condition of some patients, it could even prove fatal. 

Trump resents that his own popularity is steadily falling as COVID cases and deaths rise—and he offers only rosy predictions that “one day it will be gone.”

Trump’s supporters are equally furious.

On July 21, Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) the House Republican Conference Chair—and the only female member of the House GOP leadership—was attacked by members of her own party.

Her “crime”? Supporting Fauci. 

Representative Chip Roy (Texas) complained that Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, has retweeted some of Cheney’s tweets supporting Fauci. 

Like Holocaust deniers, Right-wing shills like Alex Jones, Laura Ingraham and Chip Roy can’t afford to admit the corruption of the causes they support.

By demanding “Prove it!” and then attacking all evidence put forward, Rightists hope to keep their critics on the defensive. 

Thus, the best course to take when a Right-winger makes a claim: Assume it’s a lie—because it is.