Tucker Carlson publicly threw his support behind the January 6 insurrectionists last night, with inflammatory suggestions that they should continue to wage war against the U.S. government. And we know that Fox News went along because it was part of Carlson’s scripted, i.e. pre-approved, commentary.
Carlson couched his sedition in sarcasm, but his message was clear
CARLSON: Today is the three month anniversary of January 6th. For those of you who aren't good at dates or don't have calendars, this is the day that we pause to remember the white supremacist QAnon insurrection, that came so very close to toppling our government and ending this democracy forever.
You saw what happened. It was carried live on television, every gruesome moment. A mob of older people from unfashionable zip codes somehow made it all the way to Washington, D.C., probably by bus.
They wandered freely through the Capitol, like it was their building or something. They didn't have guns, but a lot of them had extremely dangerous ideas. They talked about the Constitution, and something called their rights. Some of them made openly seditious claims. They insisted, for example, that the last election wasn't entirely fair. The whole thing was terrifying, and then, as you've been told so very often, they committed unspeakable acts of violence.
Carlson falsely claims only January 6 'casualty' was MAGA rioter Ashli Babbit
Carlson continues to claim to be the “sworn enemy of lying” yet he continues to lie:
CARLSON: By the time thousands of soldiers arrived to restore order, an unarmed woman, an Air Force veteran lay dead. To this day, that woman is the one completely verified casualty of the insurrection, the only person whose death we can say definitively was caused by specific events on January 6th. We know how she died. The funny thing is, you almost never hear that woman's name. Possibly that's because she was not a Democratic member of congress or even a Joe Biden voter. She was a protester, her name was Ashli Babbitt. She was 35.
Merriam-Webster defines “casualty” as, among other things, “a person or thing injured, lost, or destroyed: victim.” While Babbitt is the only person whose cause of death at the insurrection we know, she is far from the only one injured.
In fact, Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick is a verified casualty from the insurrection, too, though the exact cause of his death remains unknown. From The New York Times:
One Capitol Police officer, Brian D. Sicknick, was killed, and investigators are increasingly focused on whether chemical irritants were a factor in his death, according to a senior law enforcement official. The Capitol Police said in a statement that Officer Sicknick died from injuries sustained “while physically engaging with protesters.”
In all, The Times notes, “At least 138 officers — 73 from the Capitol Police and 65 from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington — were injured, the departments have said. They ranged from bruises and lacerations to more serious damage such as concussions, rib fractures, burns and even a mild heart attack.”
Some more of the officers' injuries Carlson conveniently overlooked in his zeal to paint QAnon as the peaceful victims and heroes of the insurrection:
One officer lost the tip of his right index finger. Others were smashed in the head with baseball bats, flag poles and pipes. Another lost consciousness after rioters used a metal barrier to push her into stairs as they tried to reach the Capitol steps during the assault on Jan. 6.
There are also two officers who subsequently committed suicide, which their families attribute to the trauma and toll of the attack.
Carlson claims to love law enforcers so much he championed Kyle Rittenhouse, accused murderer of two Black Lives Matter demonstrators. But here, he didn’t even mention the wounded, suffering and dead at the hands of the far more violent January 6 rioters.
Carlson now loves QAnon!
Carlson has gone from suggesting QAnon doesn’t exist beyond the minds of evil liberals and non-conservative news outlets to embracing the cult of conspiracy theorists as gentle patriots, law-abiding and under threat for exercising their constitutional rights. Even though they actively urged followers to commit violence on January 6.
CARLSON: We still don't know who shot Ashli Babbitt or why -- no one will tell us.
But then, when you're fighting insurrectionists, you don't have to explain yourself. You just hyperventilate about QAnon and then you do whatever you want.
When a group of sad, disenfranchised people who have been left out of the modern economy show up at your office, you don't have to listen to their complaints. Not for a second. Why would you? You thought listening to people's complaints was democracy? No, these people threaten democracy.
You could even shoot one of them if you want, and get away with it. Killing people without explaining yourself is an established part of counterinsurgency.
Carlson suggests the U.S. is waging war on QAnon
Carlson ratcheted up his rhetoric to suggest that the U.S. government is a dangerous enemy of "patriotic" QAnon supporters.
CARLSON: January 6th was Pearl Harbor, says Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer has never really gotten appropriate credit for the grandeur of that statement considering the very next day after Pearl Harbor, we entered the Second World War. That war went on for four years, more than 400,000 Americans died, but that was the cost of stopping fascism.
We don't yet know the cost of stopping white supremacist QAnon insurrection, but you can be certain that Chuck Schumer is prepared to have you pay whatever it costs.
Joe Biden's Justice Department is on the front lines of this new war, until late last month, a man called Michael Sherwin who worked for the Biden administration as a prosecutor in Washington.
Sherwin bragged that his office had rounded up about 400 people who are in or near the Capitol on January 6th. You may be wondering, did 400 people really commit serious crimes that day?
Well, that depends how you define crime. Listen to Michael Sherwin's definition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL SHERWIN, INTERIM UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: After the sixth, we had an inauguration on the 20th. So I wanted to ensure, and our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe that we could charge as many people as possible before the 20th, and it worked, because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they're like, if we go there, we're going to get charged.
We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Carlson lies about U.S. prosecutions of insurrectionists
CARLSON: Oh, so now it's clear. It wasn't that 400 people broke actual laws. No, their crime says the Federal prosecutor was, quote, "thumbing their noses at the public," meaning the Democratic Party.
So it wasn't really an insurrection. The problem was they showed disrespect to Joe Biden and his enforcers like Michael Sherwin and that can't happen anymore.
And that's why Michael Sherwin decided to use shock and awe to teach them a very nasty lesson, a permanent lesson about expressing their political opinions in public.
That’s a mischaracterization of what Sherwin said. Obviously, he meant that the rioters were thumbing their noses “for what they did.”
Carlson went on to complain that the FBI “has stopped investigating” serious crimes in order to prosecute his beloved seditionists.
CARLSON: Oh, so in order to stop people who might express unacceptable political ideas in Washington, D.C., we're not going after people who sell fentanyl for example, killed over a hundred thousand Americans or child pornographers. They won't be punished.
Carlson continued ignoring the horrific violence against police officers as he cited one case of a guy who supposedly peacefully entered the Capitol “where he meandered through the hallways and took a few photos.”
CARLSON: "He meandered through the hallways," if you can imagine. And for that act of terrorism, Anthony Griffith faces seven years in prison.
[…]
CARLSON: Yes, "meandering is sedition," says Michael Sherwin.
Carlson may have had a legitimate argument that the government should make more distinctions between the violent insurrectionists and non-violent insurrectionists, even if everyone's mission was to overturn a democratic election - a mission whose purpose Carlson carefully ignored.
Instead, he performatively used the issue for his malicious purpose of inciting more division and even sedition.
It wouldn’t be Tucker Carlson without race baiting
Naturally, Carlson could not get through a 14-minute commentary without doing his best to ratchet up more racial hatred. After suggesting that “a number of people arrested on January 6th are still rotting in the D.C. jail,” “a truly repulsive and mismanaged place” and have been beaten badly “not surprisingly, by guards,” Carlson turned them into racial victims compared to overly-privileged Blacks.
CARLSON: How many Antifa rioters or BLM vandals can say that? Do they lose their eyesight from being beaten in jail? Well, as a group, they didn't spend much time in jail actually. Most were sprung on bail immediately when politicians like Kamala Harris helped them pay to get out.
[…]
This kind of thing: unequal treatment under the law is on stark display across the country right now. We could spend an hour giving you examples.
Carlson provided several inflammatory examples before reiterating his suggestion that more violent sedition is warranted and maybe even necessary:
CARLSON: If you're an autocrat, the biggest threat isn't people who commit actual violence, you can use them as your shock troops and people who run our country certainly have.
The biggest threat to you if you're an autocrat is people who mock you and don't take you seriously and sneer at you. You want them in prison and they're putting them up prison.
You can watch #TraitorCarlson below, from the April 6, 2021 Tucker Carlson Tonight.