Once again, Tucker Carlson found a way to belittle the Parkland, Florida school shooting survivors who are advocating for stronger gun control – while feigning respect.
As was the case the night before, Carlson seemed to be trying to thread the needle between validating the attacks on the teenagers from the far right and what seemed like a genuine desire not to denigrate them. So, he chose the safe route and attacked the media for giving them too much credibility. And played the conservative victim.
And I’m sorry, Tucker, but that is just another way of insulting these kids, many of whom are or will soon be old enough to vote, join the military and, yes, buy an assault weapon. So, I think they are old enough to have legitimate opinions.
CARLSON: People become political activists all the time in response to tragedies. That’s their right. Nobody ought to attack them for it. We are certainly not attacking them. We never would. We assume they have the best motives. Most of us have the best motives. Almost everybody is against school shootings. The question is what do you do about them?
Now, if you watch a lot of cable news, you know that the answer is simple: You simply stop taking money from the NRA and you do something about guns. Not anything specific, just something. But first, you have to defeat the evil conservatives who love school massacres. Once you do that, the violence will go away like magic. That’s what the demagogues on the other channels are telling you. They use the traumatized children of Parkland as a human shield. Ask them what they are calling for, ask them to describe these policies that will supposedly fix everything, and these childless news anchors screech that you are attacking the children.
What does being childless have to do with it? Carlson seems to be suggesting that anyone who’s a parent would know not to listen to “the children.” Except that these so-called “children” are deemed mature enough, or are on the cusp thereof, to vote, serve, drive and kill.
Carlson moved on to some convenient conservative-victim whataboutism, in this case citing young people against abortions. “Like the kids from Parkland, they’re against killing,” Carlson said divisively. He did not point out that, unlike the kids from Parkland, the anti-abortionists had not just survived the unspeakable tragedy of a school shooting that cost their friends’ lives and threatened their own. But Carlson complained, “Do the media hold these kids up as the last word on the subject? Do they attack anyone who questions them? Please.”
That was the cover Carlson thought he needed to dismiss the Florida shooting survivors as well as their demands for gun control - and again pretend he wasn’t.
Watch it below, from the February 21, 2018 Tucker Carlson Tonight, via Media Matters. (I'll discuss his interview with Rep. Jim Himes that is also in the video in my next post)
No kidding, Captain Obvious. I’d have thought everybody was against school shootings – except, maybe, school shooters.