Fox News host Tucker Carlson has a fairly recognizable modus operandi: The agent—“journalist” was an exaggeration before and an almost laughable description now—employs the “just ask questions” trick and simple declarative statements to weave threads about various political themes, all in service to cement an often wildly misleading image in the minds of its viewers.
This works more or less in part because it talks about esoteric warfare culture like M&M attire or broad and complex concepts like immigration and American identity. The conceit falls apart a bit when you try a widely viewed, filmed and photographed historical event that has been exhaustively detailed in news coverage and litigation, and which shaped our national character.
That is, of course, the January 6 insurrection, which despite being broadcast live on Fox as it happened, Carlson embarrassingly tried to spin with selective presentation and editing of the CCTV footage that the House Speaker Representatives and the MAGA puppet, Kevin, made it exclusively available to him. McCarthy, who sold the remaining integrity of him in the search for the gavel. McCarthy actually promotes “transparency.”
This is exactly as we and others predicted, a situation made even more pathetic by revelations in the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit that Carlson was among Fox News personalities who privately expressed dismay at the election lies that would become the main motivator of the insurgents. It’s not at all surprising, however, that the TV showman hasn’t developed any embarrassment in the interim, which is precisely why the footage needs to be provided to the many royal journalists who have been clamoring for it.
Perhaps Carlson has finally overreached, given immediate condemnation from everyone from the White House to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who lined up with US Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger assessing that the Carlson report drew “offensive and misleading conclusions.” Let’s hope these criticisms at least somewhat mitigate the impact of Carlson’s propaganda on the viewers he’s openly pandering to, but we’re not holding our breath.
