Reliable Sources this morning featured a segment on an author who’s written a book about how “woke” white liberals are ruining everything with their elitist anti-racism and class warfare against the salt o’ the earth working class. Yeah. It’s just a new angle on the same old story. It’s not that there isn’t some truth to the fact that the progressive left can be annoying. It can. But to say that it’s just white liberal elites from the big bad city who are agitating for racial and social justice is just — wrong. And MSNBC hosts saying that the parental “backlash” against CRT is a function of white supremacy certainly has some basis in truth and, moreover, is simply not America’s greatest problem at the moment.
“Patriot Purge,” Tucker Carlson’s three-part documentary series about Jan. 6, attempted to rewrite the events of the insurrection.
The series floated several conspiracy theories about Jan. 6, including that the violence was instigated by left-wing activists, that it may have been an FBI-led false flag, and that the government is using it to strip millions of Trump voters of their constitutional rights.
The series flashed to imagery from the post-9/11 era and included sympathetic interviews with people involved in the events of Jan. 6. It falsely claimed the rioters are “political prisoners.”
In his controversial and conspiratorial documentary series attempting to rewrite the events of Jan. 6, Fox News host Tucker Carlson described the attack on the U.S. Capitol as a false-flag operation contrived to frame, trap and “purge” Trump voters in a “new war on terror.”
The series started airing Nov. 1 on Fox Nation, Fox News’ subscription streaming service. It was produced as part of a multiyear deal Carlson signed to make specials for Fox Nation, and it was co-written by Scooter Downey, who previously directed films for far-right figures. On Fox News’ flagship morning show, “Fox & Friends,” Carlson defended it as “rock-solid factually.”
Yet the three-part documentary, “Patriot Purge,” not only whitewashed what happened on Jan. 6, as supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, clashed with police and halted congressional proceedings in an effort to overturn the 2020 election. It also conjured a dystopian, alternative explanation for the insurrection, centered on a mix of conspiracy theories, including that the violence outside the Capitol was spurred on by left-wing instigators and agents provacateurs, and that the siege may have been a trap orchestrated by the FBI. It warned that the same national security apparatus that swelled in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is now being turned inward and aimed at taking out Trump supporters.
“They’ve begun to fight a new enemy in a new war on terror,” Carlson said in the series, which flashed to images of violence, terrorism and torture from the post-9/11 era. “Not, you should understand, a metaphorical war, but an actual war. Soldiers and paramilitary law enforcement, guided by the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies, hunting down American citizens, purging them from society, and throwing some of them into solitary confinement.”
The characters Carlson highlighted in his series as experts include the editor of the right-leaning site Revolver News, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired after appearing on a panel with a white nationalist; and a writer for Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze, who entered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office with the rioters and tweeted that they were “revolutionaries.”
The film also featured sympathetic interviews with conservatives involved in the harrowing events of Jan. 6, such as “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander and Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man who stole a letter from Pelosi and was photographed with his feet on her desk and a stun gun in his pocket. And it spotlighted the family of Ashli Babbitt, the woman fatally shot by law enforcement as she tried to force her way further into the Capitol.
“It is political propaganda that is meant to rally a support base that has shown a willingness to mobilize on the basis of disinformation and lies,” said Michael Jensen, a senior researcher at the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. “That’s how we got Jan. 6 in the first place.”
Here are the main themes from Carlson’s documentary series, fact-checked. Fox News did not respond to a request for comment.
You can click over to read all the details. It’s shocking propaganda. And Tucker Carlson is the most popular new host on television.