Dana Loesch

[[File:Dana Loesch by Gage Skidmore 2.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Loesch speaking at the 2017 CPAC in Maryland.]]
{{pundits}}

'''Dana Lynn Loesch''' (née Eaton; pronounced like "lash") {{lived|1978}} is an [[United States|American]] [[right-wing]] political commentator, activist, [[gun nut]], and [[pundit]] who served as the spokeswoman of the [[National Rifle Association]]. She had formerly been an editor for [[Breitbart]] and had also been the host of her own eponymous program, ''Dana'', on ''[[TheBlaze]]''. She also co-founded the St. Louis branch of the [[Tea Party]] in 2009.<ref>https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2011/12/06/dana-loesch-departs-st-louis-tea-party</ref>

Loesch was, from 2017 to 2019, easily the NRA's most visible mouthpiece. Her [[propaganda]]-style rants in the NRA's television (NRATV) and social media [[ad]]s plus her numerous appearances on cable television (she's made appearances on almost every network you can think of, from [[Fox News]] to [[CNN]]) showcase just how [[cult]]-like the NRA has sadly become.

==Beginnings==
Loesch actually used to be a [[Democrat]], working on [[Bill Clinton]]'s re-election campaign in 1996.<ref>https://www.bustle.com/p/dana-loeschs-political-views-show-the-nra-spokesperson-wasnt-always-a-conservative-8326200</ref> However, she became disillusioned with the Democratic Party following the Monica Lewinsky scandal and [[9/11]] and became a [[Republican]].

==Becoming a crank==
{{main|Crank}}
Loesch [[Zeal of the convert|very quickly immersed herself]] in [[Conservatism|conservative politics]] in the 2000s, starting as a simple columnist for ''St. Louis Magazine''. However, she would quite quickly graduate to the world of [[conservative talk radio]], getting her own nationally syndicated radio show (called ''The Dana Show: The Conservative Alternative'') on Radio America in 2008.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Loesch#cite_note-14</ref> She caught the eye of [[Andrew Breitbart]] in 2010 and was appointed editor-in-chief of his website, Big Journalism.

Loesch was hired by CNN in February 2011 to serve as a political analyst for the 2012 presidential election.<ref>http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/10/cnn-looks-ahead-to-2012-election-season/</ref>

Loesch joined ''TheBlaze'' in January 2014 to host her own show, ''Dana''. She remained with ''TheBlaze'' until November 2017.<ref>https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/dana-loesch-ends-show-on-glenn-becks-the-blaze/article/2639862</ref>

She initially supported [[Ted Cruz]] during the 2016 presidential election, but following [[Donald Trump]]'s election victory, she became a vociferous defender of the Trump administration.<ref>https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/conservatism-is-what-conservatives-think-say-and-do/548738/</ref>

==Everyone's favorite gun girl==
Loesch became a high-ranking official and spokeswoman for the NRA in 2017. Officially, she is recognized as "Special Assistant to the Executive Vice President for Public Communication."<ref>https://m.sfgate.com/realestate/article/NRA-Spokeswoman-Dana-Loesch-Buys-Gated-Estate-in-12720748.php?forceWeb=1#item-85307-tbla-44</ref>

===Propagandist-in-chief===
Loesch has perfected the unique brand of NRA [[Fear, uncertainty, and doubt|fearmongering]] that her boss [[Wayne LaPierre]] pioneered in the late 1990s and early 2000s. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g0dnxLGW8M One particular video] that first came out in June 2017 has her saying the following:
{{QuoteBox2
|text=[[Liberals|They]] use their media to assassinate real news. They use their [[Public education|schools]] to teach children that their president is another [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]. They use their movie stars and singers and comedy shows and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their [[Barack Obama|ex-president]] to endorse the resistance — all to make them march, make them protest, make them scream "[[Racism]]" and "[[Sexism]]" and "[[Xenophobia]]" and "[[Homophobia]]", to smash windows and burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law-abiding, until the only option left is for the [[police]] to do their jobs and stop the madness. And when ''that'' happens, they'll use it as an excuse for their outrage. The only way we stop this, the ''only'' way we save ''our'' country and ''our'' freedom is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth. 
|source= Dana Loesch, NRATV
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Well, ''that'' is damn terrifying, and borders on [[fascism]]. Multiple sources, including [[Black Lives Matter]], former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (not the Iron Man director), and U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, condemned the video, claiming that it was promoting violence against [[liberals]]<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/29/us/nra-ad-trump-protests.html</ref><ref>http://www.businessinsider.com/national-rifle-association-ad-call-to-violence-2017-6</ref>, and a petition was started to have it removed from [[Facebook]]. Even some fellow Republicans were offended.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/06/29/the-nra-recruitment-video-that-is-even-upsetting-gun-owners/</ref> Loesch has, of course, defended herself, claiming that she was condemning violence, not condoning it, and that she was [[Bullshit|not at all promoting violence against anyone]].

She rendered her arguments null and void when she appeared in a [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNtZqdT_MY second video]:
{{QuoteBox2
|text=Recently, the [[New York Times]] in its bid to remain relevant and influential, tried to disrupt the narrative on [[fake news]] by promoting itself as truth. Who are you fooling, New York Times? NRATV responded to that garbage immediately with a video of their own, and in response to that dose of truth, Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the New York Times, said — and I quote — 'Our commitment to the truth isn't new. It dates back 166 years. And each and every story in the NRA's video, from [[Benghazi]] to crime in [[Chicago]], was covered in deep and rich detail by Times reporters.' Oh, New York Times? Because on September 11, 2012, you ran with the fake news that the terror attack in Benghazi was caused by a [[Innocence of Muslims|14-minute movie trailer]] on [[YouTube]]! You published that while men like Chris Paronto, John Teegan, and Mark Geist — contractors who were actually on the ground in Benghazi — set you straight that this was a terror attack. In fact, New York Times — [[Liberal bias|you ever dutiful shill for the Left]] — you get brownie points for continuing [[Hillary Clinton]]'s debunked blame game even after e-mails produced showed her admitted to her own daughter that this was ''not'' the result of a video, but rather a terror attack! Please, tell me all about how you covered this story in 'rich, deep detail'! Well, you're embarrassing your profession by continuing a narrative that your boss lady has given up already! One more example on your 'deep, rich detail', New York Times: you always blame the gun when publishing stories on the Chicago crime rate, and refuse to acknowledge the fall of the prosecution rate for felony crimes. You refuse to acknowledge when the Chicago Police Superintendent excoriated judges for making cops' jobs harder by releasing violent offenders over and over again. Story after story, to say nothing of your inability to delve into that 'deep, rich detail' when using the term "[[Assault rifle|assault rifle]]" as your undefinable, go-to scary buzzword for all guns. We the people have had it! We've had it with your narratives, your propaganda, your fake news… we've had it with your constant protection of your Democrat overlords. Your refusal to acknowledge any truth that upsets the fragile construct that ''you'' believe is real life. And we've had it with your pretentious tone-deaf assertion that you are, in any way, truth or fact-based journalism! Consider ''this'' the shot across your proverbial bow: we're going to fisk{{sic}} the New York Times and find out just what 'deep, rich' means to this old gray hag, this dishonest, untrustworthy rag that has subsisted on the welfare of mediocrity for one, two, three more decades? We're going to laser-focus on your so-called honest pursuit of truth. In short - we're coming for you.
|source= Dana Loesch, NRA News
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So, first, she totally doesn't advocate violence against liberals, and now, in a rant that is chock-full of half-truths and straight-up bullshit, she ''totally isn't'' making actual violent threats against free press.

The NRA shut down its "NRATV" arm in June 2019, with the organization dismissing her as spokeswoman. However, she continues to spew out her wingnuttery on her daily radio show, which in 2021 expanded its coverage as many stations picked it up as a replacement for [[Rush Limbaugh]]. She also bitches on Twitter about how wingnuts like her are being "silenced" and says "God bless" to anyone who criticizes her views, then (usually) blocks them. She is married to Chris Loesch, who is just of a gun nut and wingnut as her, also sending their Twitter brigade after anyone who calls them out.

==Additional wingnuttery==
{{main|Wingnut}}
*In the aftermath of the [[school shooting]] at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in February 2018, while speaking at that year's CPAC, she accused the news media of "loving" school shootings for the sake of getting ratings.<ref>https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/politics/dana-loesch-cpac-media/index.html</ref> Not long after this, she appeared on CNN in an interview with Alisyn Camerota, who harshly denounced Loesch's statements, with Loesch immediately turning around and attacking Camerota for her comments, claiming that [[Persecution complex|she was attacking her and the NRA]].<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IDpQPW-l44</ref>
*She once claimed that [[Martin Luther King]] might still be alive if he'd had a gun with him. Seriously.<ref>https://bossip.com/1633039/really-nra-advocate-dana-loesch-on-mlk-hed-be-alive-today-if-he-had-a-gun/</ref>
*She is absolutely convinced that [[gun control]] is [[racist]], [[sexist]] and discriminatory. 
*She constantly rants about the supposed [[liberal bias]] in the [[mainstream media]].
*She had made negative comments about [[feminism]] in the past, once declaring that feminism was "dead" and that the goal of modern feminism was to "subjugate men."<ref>http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2017/10/16/loesch-declares-feminism-dead/</ref>
*While still on ''TheBlaze'', she accused the "godless Left" of defending [[Jihad|Jihadism]] in the wake of the terror attack in San Bernardino, calling them "tragedy dry-humping whores."<ref>http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/dana-loesch-melts-down-the-tragedy-dry-humping-whores-on-the-godless-left-have-blood-on-their-hands/</ref>
*She once claimed that if [[religious liberty]] wasn't protected, it could be possible for [[gays]] to be "stoned in the streets."<ref>http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/loesch-failure-to-protect-religious-liberty-could-lead-to-gays-being-stoned-in-the-streets/</ref> On the topic of religious liberty, she also once claimed that marriage was a religious civil liberty that shouldn't be granted by [[government]].<ref>https://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/gay-marriage-conservative-pundits-split-89382_Page2.html</ref>
*She once called [[Elizabeth Warren]] a "racist [[hypocrite]]" for attacking [[Jeff Sessions]]… and also called her a "basic skinwalker" (which can be considered a [[Native American]] [[Racial slur|slur]] in this context.{{efn|Loesch has claimed to be part-Cherokee.<ref>''Flyover Nation'' by Dana Loesch (2016) Penguin Books. p. 176. ISBN 9780399563898.</ref>}})<ref>https://www.facebook.com/NRATV/videos/10154383497072898/</ref>
*She once claimed that the police were justified in their murder of {{wpl|Philando Castile}} because he "smelled like [[marijuana]]."<ref>https://www.thedailybeast.com/dear-dana-loesch-how-do-you-sleep-at-night</ref> In fact, she is arguably pro-murder: one could call her a murderer and she would not care.<ref>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dana-loesch-radio-right-wing-influencer/2021/08/29/d95692c0-fc4c-11eb-8a67-f14cd1d28e47_story.html Former NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, a rising right-wing radio star, doesn’t care if you call her a murderer] by Manuel Roig-Franzia (August 30, 2021) ''The Washington Post''.</ref>

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==See also==
*[[Wayne LaPierre]]
*[[National Rifle Association]]
*[[Gun nut]]
*[[Propaganda]]

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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Categories: Antifeminism, Christians, Conspiracy theorists, Gun nuts, Homophobes, Islamophobes, Internalized discrimination, Internet kooks, Journalists, Leftists who turned right with age, Living people, Political pundits, Propagandists, Racists, Sexism, Radio, Right-wing activists, Tea Party