Former FOX News anchor, Gretchen Carlson, joined Jim Acosta on his weeklong 9 pm special, "Democracy in Peril," to discuss how FOX News is contributing to the dismantling of democracy. She accused FOX of leading the charge with misinformation. She notes that this has radically increased during the Trump era and since. From spreading misinformation to promoting lies, FOX is a dangerous channel spewing dangerous views.
Tucker Carlson (no relation) has risen to the top, as the leader of FOX misinformation, even exerting power over Republicans in Congress. Remember Ted "Cancun" Cruz groveling on his show earlier this month, after using the word "terrorism" when talking about January 6th? This really upset Tuckems, and he dragged Cruz onto his show to pull his spine out on live tv over it.
Gretchen Carlson said this move is "the result of fake news. You know, we're seeing not only the fallout from fake news during the Trump era, but what happened with the insurrection on January 6th. Now it's moving into other areas. Not just news, now it’s hitting science with vaccines, and now it’s into Cold War politics.”
In addition to Tucker Carlson and his bulls*t factory of lies, Gretchen Carlson blamed Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who supported the insurrection on air, while behind the scenes sending pleading texts to the White House. She said “I think the bigger story coming out of that is how disingenuous it was to be sending those texts of warning, while then going on the air to the American people and doing a complete injustice and disservice, by saying something completely opposite, and ginning up this whole reaction that it was just fine and patriotic for people to be there on January 6th.”
She had a suggestion that will, unfortunately, fall on deaf ears. It was directly aimed at Republican leaders. She implored them to push back on lies, conspiracy theories, and false narratives being pushed by FOX news. Obviously this will never happen, because FOX really does have the ability to make or break political careers. She said: “For the safety of the Republican Party and for our democracy, I wish more would, because this is not going to end well, in my mind. It's really hard to change people's opinions because they're only watching what they want to hear, you know? And that's the other problem that we have in society with the media right now, is that we're so siloed into only watching what we agree with. And so every day that thought process just gets reinforced time after time.”
Carlson ended her interview by pointing out the she believes conservative media has changed a lot over the last 5 years (the Trump era), saying “Conservative television news is certainly not the conservative news that was out there even just five years ago. There’s a big difference between having a conservative opinion and having one that supports conspiracy theories.”
I am not sure if I can buy into that fully. Trump didn't make FOX what it is. FOX made Trump what he is. But between Trump, extreme rise in hate and racism, the COVID pandemic and worldwide instability due to the rise of right-wing politicians, FOX has definitely leaned more into those view points. It really is a chicken and the egg situation. Which came first? And does it even matter?
