You don’t need to watch much of Tucker Carlson’s “Patriot Purge” to know that he has just upped the ante in his Murdoch-funded war on America.

Media Matters shelled out for the multi-part special so I didn’t have to. It’s airing on the Fox Nation streaming service, though promoted on Fox News. From the clips I’ve seen, Media Matters accurately described it as “a menagerie of extremists and misinformers who are using the Murdoch media megaphone to advance conspiracy theories whitewashing the events of an attempted coup.”

Media Matters also points out:

Backlash to the special started when the trailer was released last week. Fox contributor Geraldo Rivera spoke out against Carlson’s lie that January 6 was a “false flag,” and Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said the “false narrative and wild conspiracy theories presented by Carlson will sow further division and has the potential to animate violence” and called on Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch to “reconsider airing this program.” 

Fox has made pathetically flimsy attempts to shirk responsibility for its own programming by pointing out you have to pay to watch Tucker Carlson Originals because it’s on Fox’s subscription streaming service Fox Nation, as if that somehow makes it less offensive. But “Patriot Purge” is also all over Fox News; the network aired the trailer and even brought Carlson on Fox & Friends to promote it

I’ll add that Fox’s attempt to distance itself from its propagandistic assault on democracy is disingenuous. Airing the special on Fox Nation is also a way of encouraging television viewers to become streaming subscribers. Don’t tell me the network didn’t think of that.

But let’s go to the videotape, as Warner Wolf used to say.

The show opened with a suggestion that Biden and/or Democrats and/or the group of people known as the federal government are looking to silence, jail or kill (or all three) those who question it.

As the screen shows the Capitol building, a voice says, “The domestic war on terror is here. It’s coming after…” Then we see an unidentified man say, “half of the country.”

That’s followed by what looks like a military helicopter assault on the Capitol, with a voice over of Biden Press Secretary saying that the January 6 insurrection “underscored what we have long known: the rise of domestic violent extremism is a serious and growing national security threat. The Biden administration will confront this threat with the necessary resources and resolve.”

In case anyone missed the point, we next saw a montage of a blood-spattered prison cell and 2004 photos of tortured prisoners from Abu Ghraib. Another unidentified man said, “America is not a place where you hold people for months in solitary without charges. This is what Guantanamo was set up for, for Al Qaeda terrorists who are not U.S. citizens.” I’m no proponent of solitary confinement but I’m pretty sure the prison conditions of the January 6th insurrectionists are a far cry from the literal torture at Abu Ghraib.

“You don’t do that, that’s not America! That’s a gulag,” a third unidentified man says, thus doubling down on the dishonest suggestions. And, not incidentally, further ginning up of hate against the U.S. government.

The “It’s coming after half of the country” guy returned with more: “If you thought the first war on terror was dysfunctional, unjust, counterproductive, wait until you get War on Terror 2.0,” he said. A dark figure with an assault rifle busted through an unidentified door, presumably representing some government thug, busting into the home of an unsuspecting and completely non-violent Trump supporter.

We even heard from the guy F***y Tucky Carlson drove out of Fox News, Shepard Smith, talking about “shock and awe” in Baghdad, nearly 20 years ago. As if that were just like the law enforcement response to the violent insurrectionists trying to overthrow our election on January 6.

Finally, we had a clip of F***y Tucky, himself, attacking one of his favorite targets in his war on America: the military (He also hates the FBI, journalists, and democracy, itself, to name a few. And, of course, people of color).

CARLSON: [Biden’s] Secretary of defense ordered the entire U.S. military to quote, stand down while investigators cleanse the ranks of political extremists.

You probably get the picture. Sensationalized and dishonest distortions: It's what Tucker Carlson is made for.

You can watch this piece of Carlson’s Murdoch-funded anti-American revisionist history below. I hope to have more on it in the near future.

(Carlson image via screen grab)

11/2/21 update: Image attribution added.