Friday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson expressed his frustration with Republicans for not being more proactive in their approach to responding to the civil unrest and mob rule plaguing the country.
Carlson laid out a scenario that began with a feckless Democratic Party throughout the Trump presidency but came “roaring” back in little time to control everything. He suggested the lack of response from elected Republicans could lead one to believe voting was the most effective way to bring change.
“[R]epublicans refused even to defend the principle of equality under the law — the foundation of this country, the most important thing we have, not defended,” he said. “Really, in the end, the only people who gave anything in the revolution were the ones waging it. Our leaders, very much including Republican leaders, shamefully, were focused on meeting their demands. So what should we conclude from what we just saw? The message, unfortunately, could not be clearer: Voting is for fools. You vote. You put these people into office with their votes, and in return, they patronize you, and when it matters, they abandon you. They have contempt for you. You know they do. You can smell it. It’s obvious. Voting doesn’t work. But when you riot and you burn things, and you hurt people, you get a very different response. When you do those things, they snap to attention.”
Carlson proposed a scenario with which former President Barack Obama were still in office and asked what the response might be by his administration. He argued he would not have shied away from exercising his authority.
“You’ve got to wonder how all of this would have played out if Barack Obama was still president,” Carlson said. “Let’s say it was the summer of 2011, right before Obama’s re-election campaign started in earnest. Imagine if, at that politically critical moment, violent mobs of Mitt Romney supporters began burning and looting major American cities, screaming racist slogans as they did it. It’s hard to imagine but try. Imagine then if the Romney mod defaced and tore down statues of Martin Luther King in public parks. Imagine if every street sign in America identifying a Martin Luther King Blvd. was ripped to the ground and suddenly defaced with graffiti. Most Americans would find that appalling and disgusting. We certainly would. But let’s say the mob kept doing it because nobody stopped them. Imagine the people who planned to vote for Barack Obama in the fall couldn’t admit that in public, if citizens wearing Obama hats were physically assaulted, punched in the face, thrown to the sidewalk and kicked. Imagine if anyone who spoke out against the mobs or showed support for Obama’s campaign was censored or de-platformed, like tech companies that operated at the pleasure of federal regulators. Imagine if those same monopolies censored President Obama himself.
“Ask yourself, sincerely, if all of that played out, how do you think Barack Obama would have responded?” Carlson asked. “By tweeting angry things? By effectively apologizing to the mob, meeting their demands for, quote, ‘reform,’ and then declaring a new national holiday at their request? No, probably not. It’s hard to imagine Barack Obama doing that. It’s hard to imagine him complaining that as President of the United States, he didn’t have the power to stop political violence or preserve the integrity of an election or protect free speech or public art or the nation’s history itself. No, that would not happen. Instead, within about 10 minutes, you would see the Obama Justice Department indict every single person involved on federal conspiracy and civil rights charges.”
Carlson speculated you would see whatever it took from Obama to stop the chaos.
“That revolution would not last long,” he added. “Say what you will about Barack Obama, and we do, but he never doubted he had the constitutional authority to act, and he did act. Obama knew a threat when he saw one. Our Republican leaders don’t believe they have the authority. They don’t believe they’re legitimate. They don’t see the threat. They don’t want to see the threat because they know they can’t face the mob. They know they’re too weak, and so they offer trinkets and hope the mob will go away. But it won’t, mobs can’t be sated. We thought Republicans understood that, and that’s why we supported them, but the crisis has revealed the truth. Now we know who they are. It could not be clearer, and now it’s time to find new leaders.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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