Is Tucker Carlson trying to make up for having caused fewer deaths from coronavirus than Sean Hannity?
Carlson said nothing about going out to rural America and mingling with the population at restaurants or movie theaters, himself, but he seems very eager for others to do so. His larger point was even more pernicious last night. In addition to downplaying the severity of the virus in rural areas, he suggested that New York, New Jersey and other urban areas have done something to cause their larger outbreaks.
CARLSON: So why is this happening or why, precisely, in so many places is it not happening? Why are the numbers so skewed toward the urban northeast? The answer is, nobody’s really sure but we should try and find out. If half of all Americans killed in Vietnam came from New York and New Jersey, we’d probably take a close look at how we were conducting the draft. There must be a reason the proportions are this distorted. We ought to figure out what it is and let’s hope we do.
Rather than make any attempt to find out by, say, talking to an infectious disease expert or doing some research, Carlson used his ignorance to spew his pro-death agenda of urging rural Americans to disregard the seriousness of the pandemic.
CARLSON: For now, what’s clear is that this virus is concentrated, not simply in a handful of states but in a small number of places, especially southern New York in and around New York City and northern New Jersey, particularly the counties from which people commute into New York City. Possibly because these are also the places where most of our national media figures live, the pandemic often seems like a nationwide disaster. It definitely is a disaster, no question about that … but as a factual matter, the virus itself hasn’t yet been a nationwide killer.
Actually, the virus is a nationwide killer. Its spread to rural areas has been slower but relentless. What’s worse is that rural areas are more vulnerable to the pandemic. From The New York Times:
The coronavirus has officially reached more than two-thirds of the country’s rural counties, with one in 10 reporting at least one death. Doctors and elected officials are warning that a late-arriving wave of illness could overwhelm rural communities that are older, poorer and sicker than much of the country, and already dangerously short on medical help.
Rural nurses and doctors, scarce in normal times, are already calling out sick and being quarantined. Clinics are scrambling to find couriers who can speed their coronavirus tests to labs hundreds of miles away. The loss of 120 rural hospitals over the past decade has left many towns defenseless, and more hospitals are closing even as the pandemic spreads.
Carlson didn’t mention the problem of health care in rural areas. No, he suggested that the real problem is stay-at-home orders:
CARLSON: The bad news is, many of these barely-affected states are still suffering under strict lockdown.
Carlson went on to attack Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, for issuing stay-at-home orders when “fewer than 50 people have died” a month after the shutdown order. Was Carlson glad of that? No he suggested she’d wrongly take credit and called her decision “a complete disaster.”
CARLSON: So maybe the lesson of all of this is not every place in America is the same. Not everywhere is New York or New Jersey. The threat to rural America from this virus is minuscule. So why are we punishing the people who live outside the cities? It seems mindless and cruel, which is to say it's perfectly consistent with this political moment.
So why aren’t you taking a trip to South Dakota, with your production crew, to show us all how staying at home is not necessary, Tucker?
I think we know why.
You can watch Carlson once again push his pro-death rhetoric for thee, not for me below, from the April 23, 2020 Tucker Carlson Tonight.
I mention this because like all Fox personalities he’s a liar. Liar of omission. Liar of exaggeration/spin. A liar hiding his own hypocrisy. Then just a plain liar on the facts.
Here we have him dividing America urban vs rural. He’s claiming urban dwellers (Dems) don’t care if the rural MAGA crowd die. Reason opioids. Bulls—t! Reason let’s just do nothing about COVID-19. Liberate America propaganda!
Tucker overlooks opioid addiction isn’t a communicable disease. COVID-19 has no legit medical purpose. So it’s not like prescription opioids. Nor does COVID-19 have a long, complex history like mutations – yet. The complex opioid crisis has ‘mutated’ over the years.
He ignores government and public efforts have tried to fight abuse for decades. Purdue, a big part of the prescription problem, is getting sued possibly out of business. As a result prescription opioid abuse leveled off or decreased as a result during the first wave of the crisis. However, then you have the second wave with cheap heroin abuse which, of course, is illegal and part of our failed War on Drugs. Next we have the third wave with the most popular synthetic opioid fentanyl. It has legit medical uses like for anesthesia but drug traffickers sneak it in from Mexico so add it to the illicit, War on Drugs category. So failed efforts yes. No efforts is a lie.
IMHO, comparing an infectious disease to drug addiction which America has been fighting unsuccessfully forever mostly through law enforcement is fundamentally dishonest. You can’t social distance heroine. There’s no chance of an opioid vaccine. Addiction won’t naturally die out over time like SARS. But Tucker, as always, boils complexity into simplistic black and white bulls—t ignoring all of the inconvenient facts shading reality gray.
Yes Tucker, especially if they ingest bleach or shove UV lights down their throats or up their rears.
