On his Fox News show last Wednesday, Tucker Carlson announced to his viewers the release of a new documentary about January 6th entitled ‘Patriot Purge’. This announcement sent media personalities on CNN, MSNBC, and elsewhere into a tizzy, denouncing the project as full of lies and bound to incite violence despite having seen only a short trailer.
Management at CNN must have been especially incensed as several of the network’s on-air personalities did their best to assure the public that Carlson’s film was riddled with disinformation, conspiracy theories, and harmful material.
Jim Acosta led the charge railing against Carlson during a seven minute segment devoted to the topic. He began, “It might be Tucker Carlson’s most dangerous moment yet. Fox News’s right-wing host is taking his assault on democracy to terrifying new heights.” Acosta went on, “Tucker is peddling some deeply dangerous propaganda.” He concluded the segment referring to Carlson as Fox’s “primetime pyromaniac” and saying that Carlson and the Murdoch’s “appear to be hell-bent on dragging this country into a Civil War” for which “Jefferson Davis would be proud.”
Acosta’s fellow sanctimonious colleague at CNN, Don Lemon, accused Carlson of “hitting a new low,” stating, “What Tucker Carlson is doing is going against the American people.”
Other CNN personalities including John Berman, Brianna Keilar, Poppy Harlow, Alysin Camerota, and Brian Stelter also spoke on the topic. They uniformly reacted in a negative manner to Carlson’s yet to be released film.
Perhaps the most vile comment made in response to ‘Patriot Purge’ came from Dr. Rashad Richey of TYT. When referencing the film, Richey said, “Tucker Carlson has created a terrorist recruitment video.”
During an appearance on MSNBC’s ‘The ReidOut,’ Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) gave commentary in the same vein as Richey with Swalwell claiming that Carlson’s film was “a tribute video for the terrorists.”
Of course Joy Reid provided color commentary of her own saying that the documentary contained “shameless lying and conspiracy mongering.”
A pair of former Republican members of Congress also took shots at Carlson and ‘Patriot Purge.’ Former Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R.-Fla) said, “What Carlson is doing is unforgivable and really just horrible. I want to say criminal, but technically that is not true, although maybe it should be.”
Another former Republican Congressman, Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), declared that, “Tucker Carlson is inciting violence.”
Of course none of these individuals had seen ‘Patriot Purge’ in its entirety when they made their disparaging remarks. Even still, there is little to no chance that any of them are open to considering new facts and opposing viewpoints with regards to either Tucker Carlson or the events surrounding January 6th. These media personalities and politicians are desperate to denounce what they see as disinformation and dangerous propaganda, yet they are unable to recognize when they are the ones spreading just that. Their partisan blinders do not allow them to see clearly or report objectively, which in an ironic way, makes them exactly what they claim to fight most ardently against.