Tucker Carlson in 2024?

In order to be a valid Trumpy presidential candidates if the real thing doesn’t run in 2024, both Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin have to produce results in their official capacity—a dangerous risk. Fox network’s Tucker Carlson has no other responsibility than to spew hatred, a skill he has been honing for five years on the show with his name. His rants, escalating to keep his top rating after Deposed Donald Trump (DDT) produces less shocking news since his move to Mar-a-Lago, puts him into the lead to Ground Zero Hell for the U.S.

Some samples:

Vaccinations:  Although Fox network mandates either COVID vaccinations or weekly tests for all employees, Carlson repeatedly damns vaccines with “innocent” questions, comparing mandates to medical experiments undertaken by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. He also hosts disinformation spreaders. He compares mandatory vaccinations to “Jim Crow” racial segregation laws and refuses to talk about the Fox vaccination policy.

Last spring, Carlson called mask-wearing as “repulsive—don’t do it around other people.” He said children wearing masks outdoors, as CDC recommended during the worst of the pandemic, a form of child abuse. “Call the police immediately. Contact child protective services,” Carlson ordered. He claimed that only “zealots and neurotics” or those who have to wear masks—like those wearing Kim Il-sung pins in Pyongyang.

Russia: Republicans continually call Democrats “communists,” but Carlson supports Communist Russia in its possible takeover of Ukraine, saying Russian president Vladimir Putin “just wants to keep his western borders secure.” Russia crossed Ukraine’s borders to invade and seize Ukrainian territory, but Carlson calls people who disagree with him about Russia a “moron,” neocon buffoon,” and “ignorant.” Like Russia and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Carlson opposes Ukraine joining NATO. 

Putin has already taken over Crimea; now he wants Eastern Ukraine to continue moving west in his imperialist goals.  Calling Ukraine “irrelevant” to the U.S., Carlson follows the white supremacist love for Russia. His viewers are calling lawmakers to demand that President Joe Biden support Russia in its “reasonable” takeover of Ukraine. Some in Russian media publicly question whether Carlson took “advanced training courses at the Russian Foreign Ministry.”

January 6 Insurrection: Carlson frequently hosted an Oath Keeper facing sedition conspiracy charges and describes him as a “disabled veteran.” Known as “Commander Tom,” the man was stationed outside the Capitol, ready to distribute weapons to other Oath Keepers and plotted getaway plans to Virginia for more weapons. Carlson also defended violent insurrectionists because they called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office asking for the return of items they had left behind. He falsely called Democrats the violent ones, not the right-wingers who stayed “peaceful” despite their violent attacks and made Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grovel and apologize for calling the events on January 6 terrorism.

Critical Race Theory: Carlson made up his own definition of CRT, that it is teaching white children to be shamed, but said he’d “never figured out what critical race theory is”—even “after a year of talking about it.”

Kyle Rittenhouse: Fox and Carlson deny any direct payment to Kyle Rittenhouse to make a documentary about his exoneration for stalking and killing two men and wounding another, but the network and its show host seem to be behind the teenager’s expensive legal defense that exonerated him. Carlson had over 5 million watchers for his interview with Rittenhouse. At 18, Rittenhouse has been lionized by the far right, including Carlson, because he killed people with an illegally-obtained AR-15 semi-automatic rifle that he took across state lines when he was too young to own a gun.  

Personal Attacks: Carlson’s wanted to strip GOP strategist Frank Luntz of any role in the party “because his views don’t align with average Republican voters.” Luntz had developed effective talking points for Republicans, beginning with Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” to make Republicans the effective lying machine they are.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg is the focus of Carson’s hostility toward LGBTQ people. In a 12-minute rant against the gay father of two adopted babies, Carlson repeated his hatred for Buttigieg by calling him an unqualified “kid” who “breastfeeds.” The “kid” is a Harvard grad and Rhodes scholar who served in the Navy for eight years, including as a lieutenant in a counterterrorism unit and was twice elected the mayor of South Bend (IN). The multi-millionaire Carlson ridiculed Buttigieg’s goal to support “the safety of our children and our families” and complained about potholes in South Bend streets.

Carlson worked so hard to destroy Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, that he spent hours on-air smearing him, especially after a possibly mythical discovery of Hunter’s laptop computer abandoned in a New York repair shop. No one ever saw the contents, but Carlson talked about the salacious contents with no evidence. Evidence proves that Carlson used an earlier friendship with Hunter to get his son into Georgetown, Hunter’s alma mater. The son Buckley graduated in 2019, and Carlson never commented on his closeness with Hunter during his rants against him.

Carlson is eclectic in his attacks:

• He warned people not to go to Baltimore, “one of the worst places in the western hemisphere…, a bit of Haiti in the mid-Atlantic.”
• After Meghan Markle and Prince Harry criticized Joe Rogan for his COVID misinformation on Spotify, Tucker called them “that annoying fake duchess from LA and her brain-dead husband”—“grifters.”
• The U.S. will lose to the “masculine” military of China, according to Carlson, because Biden wants the U.S. military to “become more feminine” with pregnant troops and female four-star general. (Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both her legs in combat, fired back at Carlson for that one.) 
• Tucker agreed with Rep. Marjorie Greene (R-GA) that most lawmakers “sound like losers” and “not qualified to be there.” (He gave Greene’s campaign $250 in a raffle for a $10,000 Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle.)
• Even the lowly M&Ms are not beyond Carlson’s notice. He said the rotund figures are “deeply unappealing” and no longer “sexy” because they now wear sneakers. Especially the green one!
• And then there’s Tucker Carlson’s worship of the Hungarian authoritarianism. But that’s a story for another day.

Carlson’s followers, like all Fox afficiandos, suffer from ignorance about the news either through falsehoods or omissions. In an interview with CNN anchor Jim Costa, Gretchen Carlson (no relation to Tucker) talking about Fox hosts spreading disinformation and lies, for example, January 6 when Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham frantically texted DDT’s chief of staff to get DDT to stop the violence. In between their texting, they defended the Capitol insurrectionists while they were on air. Gretchen Carlson commented that some Fox employees think she still works there although she quit in 2016 when she sued Roger Ailes for sexual harassment and received a settlement. Fox never covered these stories.  

Support for Russia against Ukraine is becoming a DDT litmus test like the claim that Joe Biden isn’t the legitimately elected president, yet some of Carlson’s more rational supporters are drifting away because of his rabid positions. For example, many GOP legislators are upset with him because of his support for Russia against the U.S., leaving him with only a few such as Hawley and a few GOP representatives who share his opinions. 

Carlson may acquire DDT’s base, but paid Fox contributors are jumping the network ship. Last fall, conservative writers Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg departed after Carlson glorified the “patriots” who threatened the lives of congressional members on January 6 in his three-part revisionist series on January 6, “Patriot Purge.” Hayes protested Carlson’s propaganda presentation of prosecuting insurrectionists as a “domestic war on terror” against the right. The tipping point for Hayes came when a man at a pro-DDT rally asked, “When do we get to use the guns?”

Chris Wallace, top anchor at Fox for nearly two decades, and Bret Baier, Fox’s chief political correspondent, complained about Carlson to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott and its president of news Jay Wallace. Wallace has left Fox since then. 

HuffPost senior reporter Christopher Mathias stated “Patriot Purge” is “the most nakedly fascist piece of propaganda Carlson has ever produced.” Politifact’s article about the series gives an idea of what the United States will be like if the far-right takes control of the nation. Michael Jenson, senior researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said:

“It is political propaganda that is meant to rally a support base that has shown a willingness to mobilize on the basis of disinformation and lies. That’s how we got Jan. 6 in the first place.”

Goldberg said he left Fox because he could no longer “be complicit in so many lies.” With Hayes, he wrote, “The voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.” Goldberg continued:

“I know that a huge share of the people you saw on TV praising Trump were being dishonest. I don’t merely suspect it, I know it, because they would say one thing to my face or in my presence and another thing when the cameras and microphones were flipped on.”

Acosta called Carlson along with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Madison Cawthorn (R-SC) the American Taliban for the use of intimidation and violence to get what they want.

Hate pays: Carlson was #1 in number of views for cable news programs on January 27. And Carlson is better at hate than DDT. Much better.

GOP Retreat Sets Year’s Agenda

This weekend the GOP members of the House will attend their annual retreat, this time at an upscale gated resort in Williamsburg (VA) to map out the coming year’s agenda.  Speakers are Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind man to climb Everest, and motivational speaker Andy Andrews.

They have even more intense issues than the loss of last fall’s election as the country worries about whether their party will destroy the economy during the coming month by taking the United States hostage in the debt ceiling decision.

Currently, GOP has taken the position, as voiced by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), that it’s “possible that we would shut the government to make sure President Obama understands we’re serious.” An alternative if they want to stall is the typical GOP “kick the can” option to raise the debt limit for just a few months. The last time they played this game, they lost the country its credit rating and cost the taypayers $18.9 billion over the next decade just in borrowing costs. This doesn’t consider the massive costs from the economy’s slowdown after Congress almost forced the United States to default 18 months ago.

The debt ceiling needs to be raised by February 15. President Obama has outlined some of the consequences If Congress doesn’t act by then:

“If congressional Republicans refuse to pay America’s bills on time, Social Security checks and veterans’ benefits will be delayed. We might not be able to pay our troops, or honor our contracts with small business owners. Food inspectors, air traffic controllers, specialists who track down loose nuclear material wouldn’t get their paychecks. Investors around the world will ask if the United States of America is, in fact, a safe bet. Markets could go haywire. Interest rates would spike for anybody who borrows money — every homeowner with a mortgage, every student with a college loan, every small business owner who wants to grow and hire.”

Although some people think that not raising the debt ceiling will save money, there is no relationship between this action and future expenditures. Raising the debt ceiling allows the president to pay the existing bills, spending already authorized by Congress. The 14^th Amendment demands that these debts be paid: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

After Congress gave massive tax cuts and put two wars on their charge account, the nation, according to the Constitution, must now pay the bills. As the president said, the American people cannot eat all they want at a restaurant and then leave without paying the check. “We are not a nation of deadbeats,” he said.

In the past, the GOP has listened to the words of their political consultant, pollster, and strategist Frank Luntz in developing their campaigns. He was linguist who told them to use such words as “job creators” instead of wealthy to communicate their need for tax cuts for the “wealthy.” The Republicans may not be as happy about his advice this year. He told Gretchen Carlson on Fox & Friends that voters “don’t care about what the size of government is” and described that message as a loser. “The American people … do care what kinds of services government gives and, quite frankly, how much government takes.”

If the GOP follows Luntz’s advice, you’ll no longer hear the words “tax reform.” Instead watch for terms  like “simpler, flatter and fairer.” He also wants to replace “capping” with “controlling” because “capping” implies that the measures will be temporary while “controlling” suggests a permanent end to spendthrift government. Another Luntz twist is to describe entitlement reforms as “saving and strengthening” entitlement programs rather than controlling or limiting the growth of those programs. The intent is to keep people from understanding that they are losing money.

If the GOP is to regain its power, it will have to change course, wrote Luntz, an approach that will make him unpopular with the more conservative members. Republicans have done almost nothing to combat the common belief that the party cares more about chief executives than struggling workers. Luntz wrote that conservatism cannot succeed without optimism: “Speak to voters’ aspirations, not just their pocketbooks, and emphasize how GOP solutions help the want-to-haves, not just the already-haves.” And when Republicans sneer at the people creating a “food stamp nation,” it makes voters think they are callous. Luntz wants to take back from the president his line about the American Dream: “If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to get ahead.”

Other Luntz recommendations are to listen, to be empathetic, reframe the question to fit Republicans, and humanize the issues. He is abandoning his “job creator” approach: “Instead of being the party of small businesses and job creators, House Republicans should become the party of hardworking taxpayers. … If the choice is between the party that fights for hardworking taxpayers and the party that fights for the middle class, Republicans win.”

Other Luntzisms:

Immigration: The consensus among Americans is for “tall fences and wide gates”–a greater effort to prevent illegal immigration while welcoming those who come here for the right reasons and in the right way.

Gun Control: The Second Amendment deserves defending, but do Republicans truly believe that anyone should be able to buy any gun, anywhere, at any time? If yes, they’re on the side of less than 10 percent of America. If not, they need to say so.

Except for the gun-control issue, none of Luntz’s suggestions make any change in policy; it’s just a shift in verbiage. DCCC spokesman Jesse Ferguson has outlined many of the GOP positions through a tongue-in-cheek suggested agenda for the GOP retreat.

Suggested House Republican Retreat Agenda Items

• Have breakfast paid for by lobbyists
• How to stop talking about “legitimate rape” and insulting women
• Science 101
• Creating tax breaks and tax shelters for millionaire campaign donors
• Math course on counting to 218 votes
• A primer on the stock market crash of 1929 and how you could be responsible for the next one.
• Coup d’etat prevention and planning
• Trust falls
• Big-picture thinking
• Practice interacting with women and minority voters
• How to increase our approval ratings: What root canals, traffic jams, cockroaches and head lice are doing right
• Remedial hurricane recovery
• Your inner Tea Party and you
• Have dinner paid for by lobbyists

The Democrats will meet next month for a retreat at the Lansdowne Resort in Virginia. The major difference is that lobbyists are paying for the GOP, and taxpayers are picking up the tab, perhaps $150,000, for the Dems. Politicians are beholden to those who pay for them. The GOP will owe the corporations who hire the lobbyists; I’d rather the Dems owe me.

 

Luntz Teach Republicans Governors ‘Language’

At the Republican Governor’s Association conference in Florida this past week, featured pollster Frank Luntz gave a session about how they could control the public by their “communication.” Yahoo! News’ Chris Moody passed along a few of Luntz’s tips to manage the problems that Occupy Wall Street has brought to the party. Sort of a Control OWS for Dummies to keep them voting to send money to the wealthy.

Luntz began by explaining that he’s “scared of this anti-Wall Street effort.” He said, ” I’m frightened to death” because this movement is “having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

–        Don’t Mention Capitalism: “The public…still prefers capitalism to socialism, but they think capitalism is immoral. And if we’re seen as defenders of quote, Wall Street, end quote, we’ve got a problem.”

–        Empathize with the 99 Percent Protesters: Conservatives should tell protesters that they “get it”: “First off, here are three words for you all: ‘I get it.’ … ‘I get that you’re. I get that you’ve seen inequality. I get that you want to fix the system.” [Cantor started that months ago just before he explained to them that they could get more money if they just worked harder.]

–        Don’t Say Bonus: Republicans should re-frame the concept of the bonus payment–which bailed-out Wall Street doles out to its employees during holidays–as “pay for performance” instead. “If you give out a bonus at a time of financial hardship, you’re going to make people angry,” Luntz said.

–        Don’t Mention the Middle Class Because Americans Don’t Trust Republicans to Defend It: “They cannot win if the fight is on hardworking taxpayers,” Luntz told his audience. “We can say we defend the ‘middle class’ and the public will say, I’m not sure about that. But defending ‘hardworking taxpayers’ and Republicans have the advantage.”

–        Don’t Talk about Taxing the Rich: People in theUnited States want to tax the rich, so Republicans should say that the government “takes from the rich.”

Luntz also suggests using the term “careers” for “jobs” because it makes “work” look less onerous to young people. With corporations downgrading positions from professional careers and more toward “positions” requiring minimal ability accompanied by minimal pay and benefits, Republicans know that “careers” are become less and less of a possibility. But they don’t care.

In warning his audience not to use the term “sacrifice,” Luntz knows that people are tired of austerity. Again his suggestion about “talking about how ‘we’re all in this together’; we either succeed together or we fail together” is not true. Republicans know that the bottom 99 percent is not equal to the top 1 percent. Again they don’t are.

Frank Luntz is considered to be one of the top political communications experts in the world, providing consulting to many of the world’s top corporations, politicians, and special interest groups. If Luntz—and the Republicans—are concerned, the Occupy Movement is making a difference.

Rather than being sincere, however, Luntz is using Republicans to make money. When he says he is “scared to death,” he knows the Republicans who hire him are scared to death and will pay him to offer them language to fight against the Occupiers. He knows that Republicans define “democracy” as the freedom to seek one’s self-interest and ignore what is good for other Americans and others in the world. That perspective is important to support the greed of Wall Street in opposition to a market for all that would maximize the well-being of most people.

In the Republican hierarchical view of society, success is always deserved and lack of success is a moral failure of people who won’t work. Thus Luntz warned the Republicans to avoid the fact that the 99 percent are the hard workers, and the top 1 percent are the managers.

Some hints for Democrats. Avoid the word tax; use “revenue” instead. Tax means taking from hardworking people; revenue means money needed for any institution to function and flourish. Keep pointing out that corporations govern people’s lives far more than any government does and for their personal profit.  Luntz—and Republicans—want to avoid discussion of corporate and military waste, which is huge. Any discussion of outsourcing and minimizing pay for work, which leads corporations to eliminate or downgrade jobs and hence keep wages low when profits are high is damaging to Republicans.

Progressives need to use Luntz’s lessons and express a view of a moral Democracy. This would include a robust Public necessary for private success and health, a Market for All, regulation as protection, corporations that keep wages low when profits are high, the manner in which most of the rich earn much of their money without making anything or serving anyone, corporations governing lives for their profit, corporate and military waste, the moral and social role of unions, and global warming causing the increasingly monstrous effects of weather disasters. And much much more. No more bashing—present the dream.

Luntz told the Republican governors to tell the protesters: “You shouldn’t be occupying Wall Street, you should be occupying Washington. You should occupy the White House because it’s the policies over the past few years that have created this problem.” Fortunately, the Occupiers are savvy: they’re doing both.