‘World Nut Daily’ Set Stage for Cult 45

Right-wing propaganda outlets help conservatives deny reality

During eight years in office, President Barack Obama was dogged by the false rumors about his birthplace. Many of them were spread on World Net Daily, a right-wing conspiracy site. (NASA/Joe Kowsky from Flickr)

My brother worries about my mental health because I spend so much time looking at right-wing media. Viewing right-wing media is like staring at the sun. It can damage your organs. So, I do it through filters such as Right Wing Watch, Media Matters and Mediaite that aggregate this kind of information. But sometimes, you click on a link and get exposed to the full horror of right-wing propaganda.

That’s what I did a few days ago when I clicked on a link that took me to the World Net Daily website. World Net Daily (WND) is notorious for conspiracy-mongering. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, WND’s real goal is “serving up a daily dose of conspiracy theories, apocalyptic alerts and anti-gay rhetoric.”

WorldNetDaily

The birtherism business

During the Obama years, WND made a cottage industry out of birtherism. World Net Daily must have been sad when President Barack Obama left office because he was one of their main drivers of traffic. Conservatives loved thinly-veiled racist stories about Obama not being born in America. And WND gave them a steady diet of junk-food journalism and clickbait.

I believe Trump was the greatest president in the history of the United States. That’s right! His achievements in four years exceeded that of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. — Joseph Farah, founder of World Net Daily

Who cared if it was true? WND was partially responsible for creating what HBO host Bill Maher called the “zombie lie.” This is a lie that refuses to die no matter how many facts you throw at it. If many Republicans still refuse to believe Obama was born in America, even though he produced multiple birth records, WND played a role in it.