Fox surprised everyone last week with the sudden announcement of the firing of its star presenter, Tucker Carlson. From the outset, the dismissal went through a “rupture” perhaps agreed, although without prior announcement to the affected party.
It had been six days since Rupert Murdock’s company had agreed to pay $787.5 million to the vote counting company Dominion Voting Systems for having accused it of being behind the alleged electoral fraud denounced by Donald Trump even knowing full well that it was all a hoax. .
Fox thus avoided the embarrassment of a high-profile defamation trial that not only had a good chance of losing but was going to embarrass it before the entire planet. Carlson had actively participated in the hoax, but also other presenters of the chain and even the top managers of the news channel…
… Until, days later, it emerged that it had been a certain internal message from the presenter, hitherto unknown, that had alarmed the company to the point of resorting to the guy’s dismissal to try to stop the scandal.
The New York Times revealed the content of the message in question on Tuesday night. In it, Carlson recounts what she felt when she watched a video of how three Trump supporters beat up an anti-fascist protester in Washington.
The now former Fox presenter sent the text on January 7, 2021, hours after the violent assault on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters. The facts went back a few days before.
“A couple of weeks ago, I was watching a video of people fighting on the streets of Washington. A bunch of Trump guys surrounded an antifa kid and started beating him to death. It was three against one, at least. Jump over a guy like that is dishonorable, obviously. It’s not how white men fight,” began the message, private in nature but which became part of the Dominion case summary.
“Yet,” Carlson continued, “I suddenly found myself supporting the mob against the man in the hope that they would beat him harder, kill him. I really wanted the boy to be hurt. I could taste it. So, somewhere deep inside of me brain, an alarm sounded: this is not good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. Filthy Antifa is a human being. As much as I despise what he says and does, as much as I’m sure I would hate him personally if I met him, I shouldn’t wallow in his suffering. I should be upset about it…”
The most ultra and lying commentator on American television ended by pointing out that he had to remember “that, somewhere, someone probably loves this boy.” Furthermore, he added, the young man whose death he had wished “would be crushed if they killed him.”
Carlson ended his reflection like this: “If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce a person to his ideology, to what point am I better than him?”
Good question.
