If you’re like most rational American television viewers, you don’t watch Fox News for the same reason you don’t eat out of the toilet.
And things are getting even more noxious and disturbing over at Fox, especially when it comes to the nightly ramblings and conspiracy theories of Tucker Carlson, who seems to be threatening that another insurrection much like the one that took place on January 6 at the U.S. Capitol is going to happen if Congress doesn’t agree to accept the results of the bogus “audits” taking place in states such as Arizona.
On his show, according to Media Matters, Carlson referenced what he dubbed “fraud” that had allegedly taken place in the counting of ballots in Fulton County, Georgia, telling viewers:
“We already know what happened. We’ve counted those same ballots four times. The election has been certified. Stop already,” Carlson said mockingly. “And that’s the argument that Fulton County has used in court to keep those ballots locked away in a warehouse. Except it’s not true. It now appears there actually was meaningful voter fraud in Fulton County, Georgia, last November. That is not a conspiracy theory; it’s true.”
No, it isn’t true. Not even a little bit.
Specifically, Carlson and other right-wing clowns have suggested that batches of ballots were double-scanned to increase the vote total for Democrats. But that lie has already been debunked on numerous occasions:
“Just as with prior conspiracy theories about the election in Georgia, this scrutiny on ballot scans in the initial count is conveniently ignoring a simple fact: There was already a manual hand recount of the 5 million paper ballots in the state, which corrected a few mistakes in local areas but did not significantly alter Biden’s victory in the state. As a result, the double-scanning of some small number of ballots in the initial count would no longer have an impact even in a very close race.”
According to Carlson, yet another audit is needed in Georgia. And if there isn’t one — if all the absurd demands of right-wing conspiracy theorists who cannot accept the results of the 2020 election are not met — there’s going to be another insurrection by crazies who refuse to accept certified facts:
“Without answers to legitimate questions like the one we just posed — and those are legitimate questions — democracy dies. People begin to understand that the system they’ve been told is on the level is in fact rigged, and when they believe that, God knows what they do next.”
That’s almost the same exact wording Carlson used to justify the Jan. 6 insurrection. He told viewers then:
“If people begin to believe that their democracy is fraudulent, if they conclude that voting is a charade, the system is rigged and it is run in secret by a small group of powerful, dishonest people who are acting in their own interests, then God knows what could happen.”
God knows why Tucker Carlson is allowed to remain on the airwaves and spew his dangerous, incendiary rhetoric. But as long as he is, none of us are safe.
