The Carlson Firing Was A Victory For Democracy. A Cancer Has Been Excised

No, I’m keeping my word, at least for today. This article is not about Tucker Carlson. It’s about something much larger than that. Please indulge me.

You know, when big news breaks about any omnipresent personality, whether a political figure like Donald Trump, or a racist demagogue like Tucker Carlson, it’s all too easy to let ourselves get sucked into the personality vortex of the character, and in so doing lost track of the actual, on the ground importance of the event.

And I fell into that trap. All day long, as I’ve been typing, I’ve felt that there was something more to the sudden dismissal of Carlson, something more existential for the country and the world than just one more loudmouth racist getting the boot. And NBC News media reporter Ben Collins has my undying appreciation for making the point that got me back on track to the larger picture.

Right now the major source of salacious speculation in the national media is why did Tucker get the Denver boot. Was it because he got caught in those tranches of Dominion documents trashing FUX News management every chance he got? To me that’s unlikely, since FUX already had those documents. Was it because of the lawsuit filed by his former producer, alleging a hostile work environment, something FUX has historically struggled with. I don’t know, nor do I care. He’s gone, and that’s what is important.

Likewise, the other rampant speculation in the media is about where Tucker goes from here? And again, I neither know, nor care. Because Tucker Carlson is off the air at FUX News. And wherever he does or doesn’t go, it. won’t. be. FUX. News., the behemoth of far right conservatism in America .And anything else is puny spuds. As a corollary, that’s like a network star getting the boot from BBC.

Here’s why this is so goddamned important. FUX News is omnipresent. Let me give you an example. Teri and I lived in the same apartment in Vegas for 14 years. And every time I walked into the office to pay the rent, or to ask for an air filter, or to put in a work order or ask a question, FUX News was on the widescreen tv in the lobby on the wall. That’s what the manager watched.

Question. How many times have you gone into your doctors waiting room, or your mothers doctors waiting room, or a hospital emergency room lobby, and been greeted with FUX News on the wall. Or any other office that had a television set on the wall?

And here’s the gold ring. FUX News is, for whatever reason, almost the default network channel for the United States military. That’s not me, that’s fact. repeated reporting, both print as well as television shows that for whatever reason, FUX News is the darling of the US military as a default channel in public areas.

And for Carlson, that’s. All. Gone. Now. Never again will his ugly p[ug be seen in hundreds of hospital emergency room waiting rooms. And more importantly, never again will our soldiers sitting in the common room on a base, or in the canteen, or working out in the weight room be subjected to the toxic filth that Carlson spewed out on a nightly basis.

And that’s why I put in the title that A cancer has been excised. Because no matter where Tucker Carlson goes from here, or what he does, he will never again have the incredible reach that he had on FUX News to poison so many minds. And I can live with that.