Jared Yates Sexton: This is Going to Get Really Ugly, Really Soon [View all]
https://jaredyatessexton.substack.com/p/this-is-going-to-get-really-ugly?s=w
To watch Tucker Carlson Tonight is to punish yourself. Tucker Carlsons act is obnoxiously acidic. The sneering cruelty. The hateful screeds. It all comes together to form what The New York Times accurately called the most racist show in the history of cable news.
The content is predictable as the shows producers scavenge the ugliest corners of the Far Rights online presence for any emerging conspiracy theory that could be cleaned up, deloused, and presented to Carlsons millions of viewers who, outside of a very narrow sliver, have no idea where any of it originates or what it actually means. It is a platform for laundering QAnon narratives, trumpeting hypermasculine fascist fantasies, and spreading white supremacist paranoia that inspires mass shootings.
As this is the purpose, Carlsons program is intended to forward a political project. To be more specific, it presents an alternate reality meant to inspire fear in its viewers in order to bolster a reactionary agenda of national conservatism, traditionalism, and a return of total domination by wealthy, white, evangelical men. The means by which this is achieved are insidious.
Acyn
@Acyn
Tucker calls on Democrats to de-escalate the rhetoric
May 24th 2022
The segment above came on the heels of the tragic mass shooting in Buffalo, New York by a white supremacist who, by his own admission, was radicalized by White Replacement Theory and conservative conspiracy theories. That Carlsons program continually communicates this conspiracy theory by telling the audience Democratic politicians are intentionally replacing them with compliant immigrants presented a problem in the wake of the shooting. Carlson had to, once more, twist the story until it suited his goals.
This is, of course, the same Tucker Carlson who vehemently agreed with guest Jesse Kelly in 2021 when Kelly asserted the Right is going to pick a fascist as their leader in order to oppose Democrats and their progressive agenda.
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