Tucker Carlson: The latest 'national crisis' and the coming crackdown

Last week's deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol was not an act of racism, nor was it an insurrection. It was not an armed invasion by a brigade of dangerous White supremacists. Those are lies. Why are they demanding that you believe those lies?

When your doctor claims that your broken arm is stage IV pancreatic cancer, you need a second opinion. When he demands that you get chemotherapy, you need to run away, because something very dark is going on. Indeed, something dark is going on right now.

What happened last week was not new or unusual. The riot was the perfect illustration of why we should oppose all mob action. Left uncontrolled, mobs boil over, violence erupts, and people get killed. That has happened many times through human history. That's the way mobs are. Wise leaders know that, and it's why they don't encourage mobs. 

We had hoped that everyone in Washington had learned that lesson, but of course, they haven't. Instead, they're trying to use this moment to increase their own power, so they're lying about what you saw. They're calling it a precisely orchestrated coup attempt. They're telling you the Chewbacca guy you saw on video, the guy with the painted face and the Viking hat, was actually the leader of some super secret commando unit here to overthrow our government. 

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It's absurd and insulting, yet it's working. What happened last week is being used to justify the most sweeping crackdown on civil liberties and free speech in the history of this country. You shouldn't be surprised, however. We lived through something similar that showed the template for what they'll do and what they plan to do.

Over Memorial Day weekend, George Floyd died in Minneapolis police custody. The usual frauds and demagogues leveraged that moment to change this country forever. They used hysteria to subdue the population and crush anyone who dared to ask questions about what they were doing. They tried hard to pull "Tucker Carlson Tonight" off the air, for example. To this day, they maintain strict ideological orthodoxy through threats and fear rather than argument and reason. 

Here's an actual recent headline from the sports blog Deadspin: "Fans rip Phillies over trade for Black Lives Matter hater/batting practice pitcher Sam Coonrod"

Here's what Sam Coonrod actually said about Black Lives Matter: "I just can't get on board with a couple things I've read about Black Lives Matter, how they lean towards Marxism, and ... they said some negative things about the nuclear family."

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Sam Coonrod isn't for Marxism and likes the nuclear family, so we'd better crush him.

Meanwhile, and this was the point all along, a small number of genuinely radical haters and nihilists have stepped into the void where our national conversation used to be and taken total control of the floor. They say things that virtually no one in this country actually agrees with, but since no one else is allowed to talk, they have a monopoly on what we do next.

We were told the death of George Floyd was a national crisis, and in any national crisis, you've got to make some sacrifices. Well, guess what? Every one of your sacrifices is going to make vacuous little totalitarian morons like Sandy Cortez more powerful. That's how national crises work. Something bad has happened, therefore, you've got to hand the worst people in the world the keys to your life. 

If you needed more evidence that it's all about what's good for Sandy Cortez and her friends and not about what's good for you, here's her revised position on defunding the police:

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REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y.: Many of us narrowly escaped death. There were members of Capitol Police who were quite heroic. You know, we have many officers and, you know, there were also Black and brown officers that were confronting White supremacists and putting themselves, not just to protect members, but they put themselves in harm's way. 

So Sandy's heart is still beating fast, but she likes the cops now, despite the fact they're White supremacists. What a difference a day makes. She's not alone. Rep Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., has also, for the moment, changed her view of violent civil unrest:

PRESSLEY: It was a harrowing experience. They were terrorizing members of Congress and all who work in the Capitol, our staff ... Feeling unsafe is not new and certainly being a Black woman and feeling unsafe is not new. 

No, feeling unsafe is not new for Ayanna Pressley, particularly when she attended the single most expensive private school in Chicago growing up. And it was even scarier when she arrived, like her friend Sandy Cortez, on the mean streets of Boston University. Ayanna Pressley knows well what it's like to be persecuted and oppressed.

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And that, friends, is why you should no longer be allowed to speak in public or read the websites you like or watch this show. The New York Times has published a column by Nick Kristof that made this entirely sensible point: 

"I'd like to see pressure on advertisers to withdraw from Fox News so long as it functions as an extremist madrasa, and cable providers should be asked why they distribute channels that peddle lies."

You won't be surprised to learn that the rest of the media, our competitors, strongly agree with that sentiment: The government needs to shut down Fox News. People who watch Fox News, meanwhile -- that would be you -- need to be "deprogrammed", presumably in some kind of residential facility. Reeducation camps, if you will. We can't say specifically what the plan is. Honestly, we haven't thought a lot about it. MSNBC, though, has thought a lot about it. 

EUGENE ROBINSON: There are millions of Americans, almost all White, almost all Republicans, who somehow need to be deprogrammed. It's as if they are members of a cult, that Trumpist cult, and have to be deprogrammed. Do you have any idea how we will start that process? 

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It turns out that many Democrats do, in fact, have some ideas on how to start the process. Sandy Cortez, by the way, has been thinking about this since sociology class at BU and she has concluded that we need a government commission to shut down media outlets that might criticize her.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: There's absolutely a commission that's being discussed ... Several members of Congress, and some of my discussions, have brought up media literacy because that is a part of what happened here ... We're going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can't just spew disinformation and misinformation.

"You can't just spew disinformation like criticizing Sandy Cortez! It's not like this is a free country with the First Amendment!" Well, not anymore.

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This is all moving pretty fast, but then it always does move pretty fast. But don't you worry, it's for your safety. You see how that works, right? You're protected when you can't speak.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey knows that. He looks like a pothead, but he's pretty clever and he takes the long view on these things. Thanks to James O'Keefe at Project Veritas, we know that Jack Dorsey has plans for the rest of us that will extend far beyond the Trump era. Silencing Donald Trump was just the beginning. Guess who's next? You are.

DORSEY: We are focused on one account right now, but this is going to be much bigger than just one account and it's going to go on for much longer than just this day, this week ... I don't believe this is going away anytime soon. And the moves that we're making today around QAnon, for instance, [are] one such example of a much broader approach that we should be looking at and and going deeper on.

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So this is "much bigger" than silencing just one man, and it's going to go on "much longer" than just this week. Maybe Jack Dorsey isn't so bright. He just admitted out loud with the rest of them are still denying: This isn't really about Donald Trump, and it never was. It's definitely not about what happened last week at the Capitol.

It is about controlling you, and the country you thought was yours, forever. Sorry, there's a national crisis going on and we have no choice. 

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the Jan. 14, 2021 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."