(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Carlson Isn't Going Away and Neither Is the Hate He Expounds [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-04-24 False victories can be a lot of fun, at least for a while. They can make us feel good. They can give us a false sense of hope, or a distorted view of reality. They can do that because they’re based on fact but can be extrapolated to fiction. And I’m afraid that could be the case with Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News. You’d be hard-pressed to find two more different people than Carlson and Don Lemon of CNN, yet both lost their jobs with their respective networks on the same day. You have Lemon, a gay black man and a credible journalist, and Carlson, a white racist who’s built his career on fearmongering and lying. Both men will have future opportunities if they want them, not only on television but in things like podcasts, writing books, newsletters, blogs, speaking engagements, and other forms of communication that give media folks options far beyond just working for a cable news network. That’s bad news in the case of Carlson, a man seemingly determined to rip our country as far apart as possible. Whose societal value is less than that of the garbage you put out at your curb once a week. But no matter what happens with this piece of shit, his message will still be going strong in places where stupid people devoid of critical thinking skills gather with those filled with similar fears and hate. (See Carlson’s pushing of the Replacement Theory) And there’ll be no shortage of messengers eager to take his place. A free press is an indispensable part of the foundation of our democracy, even if too few people today understand that. Fox News – a devoted mouthpiece for Republican lies and corruption – with people like Carlson and those of similar ilk, presents one of the greatest threats to that foundation and the rule of law. But as vile as Carlson and a number of his fellow Fox Newsies are, they couldn’t survive without a willing audience. Like former President Donald Trump, they didn’t create the MAGA base. They conned it, encouraged it, legitimized it, and unleashed it. That’s why I’m concerned that the big news is going to be about Carlson losing his job. Yes, it’s a big story, but it’s like cutting out just a small part of the cancer and declaring the operation a success. The threat to our country is far beyond Carlson. And it’s more than just Fox News. It’s an entire Right-wing information bubble. An ecosystem developed to envelop its followers in an alternative universe, and to keep them there so they can inundate them with lie after lie after lie. This is a world where some of the news stories we hear from legitimate sources are never reported, and others are spun into almost unrecognizable form. This is what we’re up against. This is what we’re going to be up against for a long time. The truth can’t rest. The pressure on companies that sponsor this network of liars can’t stop. We can celebrate Carlson’s demise for maybe a day, then we must realize that nothing has really changed. We can hope that this will start a purge of Fox’s lineup of liars, but don’t count on it. That would be wishful thinking, and when they stakes are this high that’s one of the worst things we can do. There’s some dispute as to whether author George Orwell actually said, “The further society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” But, it’s still true. I can’t think of a better reason to be hated than for telling the truth. That challenge doesn’t go away just because a scumbag like Carlson is shown the door. He’ll be back. Until then, it’ll be like he never left. *** Thank you for reading my post. You can see more of my writing on my blog: Musings of a Nobody. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/24/2165684/-Carlson-Isn-t-Going-Away-and-Neither-Is-the-Hate-He-Expounds Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/