Tucker Carlson Just Provided the Lowest Point of Rupert Murdoch's Wretched Career in American Media
It’s no secret that I took a Rupert Murdoch paycheck from 1983 until 1989. I was a sportswriter and columnist for his Boston Herald. I never felt slimy doing so. In fact, I was partly imbued with the underdog spirit of being part of the second newspaper in a two-paper town, and of being slightly renegade because of how loud and brassy we were. This is something common to many Murdoch publications. He’s a pirate, so you are, too.
In the years since, I’ve watched everything people warned us about with respect to Murdoch come gruesomely true. He has twisted our politics and poisoned the national mind. He has turned out to be a carrier of one of the most virulent strains of the prion disease that has destroyed the higher functions of the Republican Party and made it a danger to the public health. He and his media operations have gotten worse by the years, as have their effects. But this may be the low point of his entire tenure in the American media universe. From Mediaite:
Called “Patriot Purge,” Carlson explained, “The U.S. government has in fact launched a new war on terror, but it’s not against al Qaeda, it’s against American citizens. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of our country. This is an attack on core civil liberties and it’s essential that you know what’s happening and that you resist it.” Carlson has more than flirted with the idea that the January 6 Capitol riot was incited, if not perpetrated by the federal government. In September, he downplayed the riot and said, “We still don’t know how many federal agents were involved in the event that day on January 6. But we have very good reason to believe from court documents that it’s a significant number.”
This is not crying, “Fire!” in a crowded theater. This is taking a flamethrower to the concession stand. It is so appallingly irresponsible that calling it “appallingly irresponsible” sounds like inexcusable soft-pedaling. It is a demonstrable threat to public safety. It is one of those tests of free speech that makes one long for whiskey and a decontamination shower.
Carlson himself appears and says, “The helicopters have left Afghanistan, and now they’re here at home.”
“The left is hunting the right,” alleges another voice. “Sticking them in Guantanamo Bay, for American citizens, leaving them there to rot.” Yet another voice chimes in as the trailer shows a man at a shooting range, “We are dealing with an insurgency in the United States.” A clip of President Joe Biden denouncing White supremacy and calling it a “lethal threat” as footage of the 1926 Ku Klux Klan march on Washington rolled. “False flags have happened in this country,” says another voice. “One of which may have been January 6th.” The trailer ends with a brief audio of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Through the vehicle of the Republican Party, American conservatism has allied itself with violent elements of the political right, and now it’s begun to advertise the alliance, profit from it, and boast about the relationship to its adherents. Let them entertain you.
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