Facing another set of calls from the anti-American, anti-free speech, and ruthless mob to be canceled, Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson doubled down Wednesday on the previously uncontroversial, classically liberal values of debate and ideological diversity. As part of that, he eviscerated CNN Tonight host Don Lemon for laughing about rising crime in major cities.
And as for how Carlson made the latter point, he cited none other than Lemon himself from 2013.
Carlson observed how “Lemon thinks it's hilarious that children are being killed” in the streets of major cities and therefore “doesn’t care” because “he is a highly-paid news anchor” and “not a concern over at CNN.”
“For him, the shootings and murders are the stuff he covers on television, not something that affects his life. In fact, the whole thing is kind of hilarious,” he added.
Before invoking Lemon, Carlson framed the dismissals of rising urban crime as elites “indulging the mob” by “attacking police officers, holding back law enforcement from normal people” while “[w]eak and vulnerable people of all races are paying the price.”
After the clip of Lemon and PrimeTime host Chris Cuomo that NewsBusters first flagged here, Carlson tied that together to Lemon’s lecturing of actor Terry Crews on Monday night and admitting that Black Lives Matter wasn’t about the empowerment and safety of black lives.
Alluding to CNN as a group-think network (run by Jeff Zucker), Carlson declared that “if you're running a channel like CNN, you want dumb people on TV because they are compliant,” “say what they’re told,” “tell the audience what the moment demands,” and “will never stray from the script.”
But what Carlson would show next encapsulated CNN’s tumble toward the farcical and incapable of viewpoints contrary to the liberal mob they help lead (click “expand”):
CARLSON: But just seven years ago, it was a different country and people were kind of a lot to say what they thought was true. And so, at the time, here's what Don Lemon was saying about black communities. Watch this.
LEMON [on CNN Newsroom with Don Lemon, 07/27/13]: More than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers and the studies show lack of a male role model is an express train right to prison and the cycle continues. So please, black folks, as I said, if this doesn't apply to you, I'm not talking to you. Pay attention to and think about what has been presented in recent history as acceptable behavior. Pay close attention to the hip-hop and rap culture that many of you embrace, a culture that glorifies everything I just mentioned, thug and reprehensible behavior. A culture that is making a lot of people rich, just not you, and it's not going to.
CARLSON: Wow. Can you imagine what would happen if Don Lemon or the -- his body-building buddy over there or any of these hair hats said something like that on CNN tonight or MSNBC? It would be their last live broadcast ever. They would be fired immediately. You can't express views like that and so they don't. It tells you a lot.
Rewinding to his opening monologue, Carlson denounced the tyrannical left for not only refusing to accept debate or that there can be more than one acceptable viewpoint, but instead “believ[ing] their own views are the only legitimate views” as “[w]hen you criticize them, they won't engage with” or “rebut your point.” Rather, he said, “they simply attack you.”
Carlson then implicitly alluded to the attempts to cancel him for daring to call out Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) after she suggested there be a “conversation” about wiping out George Washington from the public square.
But instead of making it about himself, Carlson made clear this fight to maintain free speech in America affects everyone (click “expand”):
Joe Biden himself attacked this show today, in fact. He didn't respond to the questions that we raised. He just called us names. And then his minions tried to pull us off the air. We survived because thank God we work here. But you should know that's how they plan to run the country. Biden will pick some running mate whose identity makes it impossible for anyone to criticize her, and then they’ll describe any criticism of their governance as a hate crime. We got a taste of that for eight years under Barack Obama. You know how it works. Of course they did again for years on college campuses and in corporate diversity seminars. Any place where they have total control. Now the entire American population is getting the very same treatment. Tonight, for example, close to 1,000 companies are boycotting Facebook's advertising platform. Why are they doing that? Because they’re demanding that Facebook censor the President and his voters. Ban conservative news outlets, allow only publications controlled by the left to decide what's news. Let's most anyway because there's only one mass media company left in America that consistently dissents from the left's view of things. You're watching it right now. What do you think they plan to do to Fox News if they take power? You can imagine. We are in their way. So these people aren't liberals. We call them that but they are not....These are totalitarians. They know exactly what they want. They don't wring their hands. They want power and they know how to get power....They do not rule by consent, as you’re supposed to in this country. They are in fact the true enemies of democracy. They don't care what you think. And just in case the rest of us missed the point, they're working hard to make self-defense against their mobs, their militia, a crime. You cannot resist us or we will prosecute you.
(....)
And day by day, liberalism evaporates and the left's troops who call themselves liberals, children of the Enlightenment, are falling in line behind what is clearly a power grab. Just today, the founder of Vox.com, Ezra Klein, someone regarded as an intellectual on the left, went on Twitter to explain why free-speech is actually very bad. “A lot of debates that sell themselves about being about free speech are actually about power. And there's *a lot* of power in being able to claim and hold the mantle of free-speech defender.” Oh, we see where you're going. Actually Ezra Klein is half right about this. Free-speech definitely is about power. Power for people who don't have any. People like Ezra Klein want less free-speech for others so they can have more power. When they can tell you what you can say, what they are really telling you is what you're allowed to believe. They’re not controlling your mouth. They’re controlling your mind and there is no deeper control than that. Any person who tell you that is someone you should be very afraid of.
