Yeah, what’s wrong with calling Mexican immigrants “rapists”?

The remarks were more than just a lifeline from a cable news stalwart to a Republican newcomer in the midst of a cutthroat primary campaign. They were about immigration, the ideological cement that bound the Fox News think tank — guys like Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson — to Trump. It was a partnership so solid that hosts like Dobbs would indulge in whatever viral fantasies served Trump’s interests. Until the network shared the far-reaching allegations that two under-the-radar voting technology companies had colluded in schemes to switch votes from Trump to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

That minor blunder cost Fox $787.5 million in a settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, which had filed a defamation lawsuit against the network. Twelve of the 20 depositions at the center of the lawsuit were Dobbs’s work. That’s how vast an archive he leaves behind.

Perhaps no other figure better captures the trend toward bitter partisanship in American politics and its reflection in the media. Dobbs was working at a Seattle television station when he answered a recruiting call to join Ted Turner’s Cable News Network (CNN) when it launched in June 1980. He became the personification of the network’s business reporting, holding the title of chief economics correspondent and host of the nightly show “Moneyline.” He later added managerial work to his reporting and hosting duties, which he handled with little difficulty. Throughout his career, Dobbs was a comfortable and gracious presence in his studio chair, prodding guests on the topics of the day, exchanging pleasantries and flashing a commanding smile.

In 1999, he clashed with his CNN superiors when he ordered his crew to interrupt a speech by President Bill Clinton in Littleton, Colorado, following the Columbine school shooting. After his superiors overruled him, Dobbs declared on the radio, “CNN President Rick Kaplan wants us to return to Littleton.” He left the network that year, but returned in 2001 for a period during which he expounded on his anti-immigration views, referring to an “invasion of illegal aliens” — a term he turned into a rhetorical crutch — and actually peddling shaky attacks on immigrants, as noted in a 2019 Post profile by Manuel Roig-Franzia and Robert Costa. On a radio show, Dobbs espoused the false “birther” theory that Barack Obama was not an American citizen, predicting that he would later embrace other conspiracy theories. He left the network for good in 2009.

Dobbs’ entry into cable news’ free agency came not long after MSNBC host Tucker Carlson saw his own show canceled. Fox News chief Roger Ailes hired them both to roles at the network, with Dobbs overseeing “Lou Dobbs Tonight” and Carlson serving in other capacities until moving to primetime in 2016. They gave Fox a one-two punch for hating immigrants, a stance fueled in part by the belief that they were hurting the job and wage prospects of middle-class Americans.

Dobbs, however, distinguished himself with his unbridled flattery of Trump: In 2020, for example, he posted a poll on Twitter asking whether the president’s leadership on COVID-19 was “superb,” ​​”great” or just “very good.”

Yet the full extent of Dobbs’s diehardism only came to light after Trump lost the 2020 election. Two days after that contest, Dobbs interviewed Trump insider Richard Grenell and peppered him with questions about why he didn’t do more to challenge the election results. “This is Thursday. You filed a lawsuit today against these fraudulent votes,” Dobbs said. “They filed it? Because you’re complaining about the press instead of telling us what you’re actually doing.”

If only Dobbs had limited himself to berating fellow Trump supporters. Instead, he indulged the preposterous theory that the election was stolen from Trump and whitewashed outrageous speculation that Dominion and Smartmatic, makers of electronic voting machines, were involved in the wrongdoing. “Our presidential election was hit by a massive cyberattack orchestrated with the help of Dominion, Smartmatic, and foreign adversaries,” Dobbs tweeted in December 2020.

The subsequent unmasking did little to disabuse Dobbs of his talking points. In a March 2023 ruling in Dominion’s defamation case, Delaware Judge Eric M. Davis wrote, “Mr. Dobbs continues to believe the election was stolen.” A separate defamation case from Smartmatic is still ongoing; Dobbs is named as a defendant and his name is mentioned 336 times. It was after that lawsuit was filed that Fox canceled Dobbs’ show.

His latest stop in a wide-ranging media career was a podcast — “The Great America Show” — on iHeartRadio, a venue from which he railed against the crimes of alleged “Marxists” and, in a May episode, the supposed vulnerabilities of electronic voting machines. The episode’s title? “IS IT ALL RIGGED? ALL OF IT.” Dobbs had been exposed as a peddler of falsehoods, implicated as a major player in false and damaging reporting, and otherwise devalued as an analyst of contemporary politics. And yet here he was, demonstrating that in 21st-century America, any old, discredited propagandist can find a platform for himself.