Live By the Mouth, Die By the Mouth
Fox News cut Tucker Carlson loose, sending his loud, non-rigorous, propagandistic and truth-stretching opinion machine off to the off-the-air darkness.
Of course, it was interesting was that Fox would fire its most popular host – who knows, he may try to fight it — because we Americans make idols of celebrities and their fates. But the instant popping of internet Champagne corks felt as if it was a public celebration of the End of Disinformation.
To hear pundits discuss the firing and the sudden availability of Tucker Carlson for rival networks or even a new career running for president of the United States was to feel at sea in a flood of speculative and weird anti-hero worship. They may hate him, but a certain jealousy was also evident. By contrast, release of host Don Lemon by CNN for a series of on-air mis-steps was a relative news snooze.
Success on television telling lies, the talking heads were telling us, is enough to justify thinking that the next step is serving as our national autocrat of the sort that Carlson seems to admire.
Call me cynical, but it seems way overstated to think that Fox has seen some kind of democratic light.
Rather, it is much more believable that Fox News dumped Carlson because the television host’s gravitation to conspiracy theories is costing Fox big money settlements, as we saw in last week’s Dominion Voter Systems whopping $787.5 million settlement. Undoubtedly, Carlson will have a non-compete clause that will block him from joining a rival anytime soon.
There are more lawsuits ahead, also seemingly threatening big adverse legal judgments. And despite the harmful disclosures from Carlson’s emails and messages confirming that he knew he was airing serial untruths about election rigging and lots of other public conspiracies, there has been no change in the Tucker Carlson flow since the settlement.
But he can write books, speak and continue to spread his personalized pro-Russia, anti-democratic, supremacist-supporting and unsupported crap. And, unless he is forced to return it, he also may be holding onto 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 video that can be used for harm.
Indeed, the question that the Carlson firing raised was whether there will be other dismissals ahead among the other commentators heading the network’s partisan presentations.
Tucker Carlson brought about his own demise, for exactly the same reasons he had found success at Fox. Lies sell. Partisanship sells. Propaganda sells. Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox, told us so in those court depositions.
Fox lost its legal challenge because it was acting badly. Someone had to pay to staunch the financial damage. So, they threw their would-be hero under the bus.
No tears here.