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In his most recent monologue, Tucker Carlson, host of Tucker Carlson Tonight dealt with the events on the Capitol where five people died and many more were injured.
Condemning the violence, Carlson reminded the country that the fundamental reason the United States has been a rich and successful country is because of a stable political system. “And the only reason that political system is stable is because it is a democracy. The system responds to voters. Democracy is our pressure release valve.”
As long as people sincerely believe they can change things by voting, they remain calm, the presenter argued. They don’t storm the Bastille. They don’t storm the House. They talk and organize and vote. But the opposite is also true, he contrasted. “If people begin to believe that their democracy is fraudulent, if they conclude that voting is a sham, that the system is manipulated and secretly administered by a small group of powerful and dishonest people acting in their own interest, then God knows what could happen.”
“In fact, we know what could happen. It’s happening right now,” Carlson noted. “It’s happened in many other countries for countless centuries, and the cycle is always the same because human nature never changes.”
What happened today, the Fox News anchor said, will be used by the people who take over power to justify stripping the citizen of the rights he/she was born with as an American. “His right to speak without being censored, his right to assemble, to not be spied upon, to make a living, to defend his family, the most critical thing. These are the most basic and ancient freedoms we have. That’s why we live here in the first place. That’s why we’re proud to be Americans. These are the things that make us different, and now they’re all in jeopardy.”
Carlson went deeper than the events on Capitol Hill, explaining that the political elites are do not hear the concerns of ordinary voters. “Listen to us,” the population shouts. “Shut up and do as you’re told,” their leaders respond. In the face of dissent, Carlson explains, the first instinct of an illegitimate leadership is to crack down on the population. But crackdowns never make it better, he said.
Instead, they always make the country more volatile and dangerous, he contrasted. “The people in charge rarely understand that.” They don’t care about learning or listening because this whole conversation is a referendum on them and their leadership, so they take drastic action. “Obey, I tell you, obey,” exclaimed the presenter, imitating this same critical leadership. “This is the Romanov program,” he continued. “It ends badly every time. But that doesn’t mean they won’t try again. Of course they will because it is their nature. That’s how we got here in the first place.”
“His right to speak without being censored, his right to assemble, not to be spied upon, to earn a living, to defend his family, most critically. These are the most basic and oldest freedoms we have. They are what make us different and now they are all in danger.”
Tucker Carlson
Millions of Americans sincerely believe that the last election was fraudulent. He insisted that “you can dismiss them as crazy, you can call them conspiracy theorists, you can kick them out of Twitter, but that won’t change their minds. Instead of trying to change their minds to convince them and assure them that the system is real, that democracy works as you would if you cared about the country or the people who live here, our new leaders will try to silence them.”
“You can be horrified by the violence and, as we said and will say again, we are horrified,” he concluded. “It’s wrong. But if you don’t bother to pause and learn one thing from this, from your citizens storming your Capitol building, then you’re a fool.”
Rafael Valera, Venezuelan, student of Political Science, political exile in São Paulo, Brazil since 2017 // Rafael Valera, venezolano, es estudiante de Ciencias Políticas y exiliado político en São Paulo, Brasil desde 2017