Next week is the one year anniversary of the November 3, 2020 election and Fox News is celebrating it in style. Tucker Carlson is starting up a series on Fox Nation, “Patriot Purge” pushing the narrative that the January 6 insurrection was a false flag operation staged by Deep State government operatives and that the current government is waging a war on American citizens.
“The U.S. government has in fact launched a new war on terror, but it’s not against al Qaeda, it’s against American citizens,” Carlson asserted before airing a teaser on Wednesday night. “Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of our country. This is an attack on core civil liberties and it’s essential that you know what’s happening and that you resist it.”
November 1 pic.twitter.com/5yCRlkZlzM
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) October 28, 2021
It triggered exactly the kind of response you would expect. Washington Post:
That outrage came from Republicans as well as from Democrats, and even included a member of the Fox News family. “’False flags!?’ Bull—-,” wrote Geraldo Rivera, a 20-year veteran of the network who serves as a roaming correspondent at large.
Two prominent Republican members of Congress called out the clip on Thursday morning. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) both serve on the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the United States Capitol.
“It appears that @FoxNews is giving @TuckerCarlson a platform to spread the same type of lies that provoked violence on January 6,” Cheney wrote on Twitter. “As @FoxNews knows, the election wasn’t stolen and January 6 was not a ‘false flag’ operation.” She tagged four company heavyweights in her post, including Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, Fox News C.E.O. Suzanne Scott, Fox News president Jay Wallace and former House speaker Paul D. Ryan, who serves on the board of network parent company Fox Corp.
“Anyone working for @FoxNews must speak out,” Kinzinger wrote. “This is disgusting. It appears @foxnews isn’t even pretending anymore.” He also thanked Rivera for his post.
Asked about the criticisms from Cheney, Kinzinger and Rivera, Fox News representatives did not respond. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed that Carlson’s tweet containing the trailer did not violate the platform’s civic integrity policy.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who also serves on the Jan. 6 committee, condemned the series in a statement to The Post. “There is no lie too big or conspiracy theory too dangerous for Tucker Carlson to propagate,” he said. “His latest salvo is nothing less than an invitation to violence. By airing it, Fox News demonstrates yet again a willingness to profit from tearing the country down.”
“It is irresponsible and dangerous for Fox News to promote lies and conspiracy theories,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) also told The Post.
Nichole Wallace reached out to Fox News for explanation of the documentary, for all the good that will do.
Fox News does not respond to Nicolle Wallace and #DeadlineWH request for evidence of Tucker Carlson's claim that the 1/6 attack was a false flag operation. pic.twitter.com/9NSi5TRsfn
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) October 28, 2021
Now here is all you need to know, from the Washington Post article linked to above. Fox Nation is not subject to advertising boycotts so it’s pure propaganda, paid for by subscribers who love this sort of thing. Fox Nation is a streaming service, which launched in November 2018 as a digital add-on for Fox News superfans and costs $5.99 per month to subscribe.
Unlike the network’s television programming, the Fox Nation service is not reliant on corporate advertisers, which insulates it from the boycotts that have targeted the sponsors of shows such as “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and Laura Ingraham’s “The Ingraham Angle” in the past. John Finley, a Fox News executive who oversaw the launch of the streaming service, acknowledged as much during a 2018 interview.
“There are going to be a lot of voices on Fox Nation,” he said. “And that helps balance some of the discussion. But we don’t have to worry about ad boycotts on Fox Nation, at least for the time being.”
Fox News is a domestic terrorist propaganda organization. I believe that’s an accurate statement. It’s appalling that it has to be said, but they have made it clear that their goal is to lie and no lie is too big.
Tucker Carlson is the Right's most influential media figure. And this is poisonous stuff. Years ago I told my editor "When there's no bottom, there's bottom." We're seeing what that looks like. There's no place they won't go, no line they won't cross.https://t.co/DMAiLIv2p2
— Peter Wehner (@Peter_Wehner) October 28, 2021
There is no low they won’t go. And this is not going in a good direction. Treating each other with utter contempt is not a good thing and utter contempt for the truth is deadly. This will provoke more violence. QAnon and the right-wingers are all set for some kind of miracle wherein Trump is restored to office by the end of this year. When that does not happen, what will?
You know the answer to that last question, Ursula…a final, impotent last stand that accomplishes a grand total of nothing. Timing and details are TBD but not the outcome. I look for a sort of inverted Kent State to happen at the tail end. After that, the smarter ones will fall back into their poisonous bubbles while the rest will die mostly unmourned.
There is resistance towards domestic terrorists but alas it’s not war. But we SHOULD go to war using every legal means to find, arrest, prosecute and incarcerate every single goddamned domestic citizen who aids or engages in seditious, traitorous actions against our democracy.
When the laws are made by the rich for the rich, I’m afraid Hunter S. Thompson summed it up concerning Richard, “I’m not a criminal”, Nixon, “if there was any true justice in the world, Nixon would be in the belly of a hammerhead shark, headed south of Easter island”. Keep ur expectations low.
Agreed 100%, Denis!
“Unlike the network’s television programming, the Fox Nation service is not reliant on corporate advertisers, which insulates it from the boycotts . . . .”
Well, that may be but Fox News *IS* reliant on corporate advertisers and *IS* subject to boycotts. If corporate sponsors decide to hit Fox News by completely removing ALL ads from the network as a response to this little “end-run” around responsibility, then you might see the “Fox Nation” getting a little more choosy in the kind of crap that it decides to run. You can damn well be sure that Carlson would NEVER have produced this garbage if the higher-ups at Fox News didn’t give him the green light. (“Sorry, Tucker, we won’t be able to run this on the main network or we’ll get hit with a shit storm of boycotts but we’re happy to let you run it on Fox Nation.”)
Well Liar Tuck, when certain of our citizens become terrorists, SHOULDN’T WE go after their a*ses? I don’t recall anyone speaking up for McVeigh’s right to protest, etc. after he blew up the federal building in OK which was, as I remember, his stab at starting the revolution to overthrow our country.
I wonder if Liar Tuck is in the third stage of syphilis? He gets more insane every day. Now, l’m not saying he has syphilis mind you. Just asking a question. lol
When do they pass out the armbands at faux news with the swastikas?
That’s how Tucker starts his lying vitriol, Spike! He just puts something out there and it’s taken as gospel by the sheeple. Maybe your syphilis rumor will go viral?
“Fox News is a domestic terrorist propaganda organization. I believe that’s an accurate statement. It’s appalling that it has to be said, but they have made it clear that their goal is to lie and no lie is too big.”
This is spot on, Ursula! It’s amazing to me that anybody would even believe that nonsense. But we are dealing with people whose “Reality IQ” is in the minus column.like Fox Mulder famously said, “The truth is out there.” But how do we turn almost half the country away from the lies and back to the truth?
I wonder when tucker ‘nazi’ Carlson will start to worry that some armed folks start hunting him & his family, since he has already gotten people killed???? I wonder about Murdock & the board, given folks can track where they live & meet. The nazis at Nuremberg didn’t seem too concerned in 1933 at those 40,000 goose stepping rallies. They got REAL CONCERNED at Normandy. They got REAL CONCERNED in Berlin when the Russians were shelling the city in 1945. Where did they get the idea they are untouchable???? As Michael responded to Tom Hayden in the Godfather, when Tom said they couldn’t kill a police captain, he said, Tom, If we’ve learned anything from history, ANYONE CAN BE KILLED. If I were them I would find a bunker since they are promoting a race war. Some people say. Oh, & don’t bother scolding me for asking a reasonable question. I don’t believe in violence. I don’t own a weapon although I’ve handled plenty. The endless boys, not women, who’s gravestones stand at Arlington bought YOU & I this privilege with THEIR BLOOD. As my grandma used to say, be careful what u ask for…u just might get it. Some people still say.