Counterpoint: Tucker Carlson and the conservative circular firing squad; Someone who agrees with me 80% of the time and disagrees 20% is not my enemy. But many conservatives are, for understandable reasons, purists

It’s no secret that I admire Tucker Carlson, an honest, brave, and extraordinarily insightful commentator whose Fox News program was, until recently, the most popular program on cable news. With Fox News’ news operation calling Arizona for Biden early on Election Night, and subsequently dogmatically labeling Biden “president-elect” and often dissing those who question the legitimacy of the election tabulations of the mainstream media and the media’s proclamation of the winner, conservatives are infuriated at the network and all its personnel.

Dex Bahr today excoriates Tucker on these pages, but I must speak in his defense, for he is too important and honest to be thrown out with the bathwater, as it were.

First of all, Dex gets one thing wrong, when he writes:

Oh and by the way, if Carlson’s guest, Dr. Robert Epstein, documented all these instances of Google skulduggery, why he is sounding the alarm now and not before Nov. 3?

In point of fact. Dr. Epstein has been a guest on Carlson’s program (and elsewhere) a number of times, going back years. This is simply a wrongful attack.

But that is a small error compared to the larger principle that the conservative tendency toward forming up circular firing squads is self-destructive. Someone who agrees with me 80% of the time and disagrees 20% is not my enemy. But many conservatives are, for understandable reasons, purists. And, in the case Dex’s critique of Tucker, other than Tucker’s criticism of Sidney Powell last week, which has been covered extensively already including on these pages, the “sins” he enumerates are a matter of disputing Tucker’s choice of which elements of the election fraud to cover and which to not.

RE: I’m not trying this case in the court of public opinion” — while you’re sitting there doing on interview on a cable news channel whose sole purpose is to convey your allegations to a public audience.

In fairness to Sidney Powell, she offered the following to Tucker:

1) A written SWORN affidavit from a relevant person for him to read out loud in his show.

2) Since she is not a detailed numbers person, she offered to bring a data analyst who looked at the election numbers to his show, together with herself to present the evidence of fraud.

Sidney tells us that these were not enough for him and he was quite insistent and rude to her.

As opposed to what, your brand of conservative that leaves us bound to a party that abuses us the way Democrats abuse minority voters. So we are sanctimonious because we realize that as a group we are powerful separate we are laughed at and rejected for our outdated beliefs. FOX began this switch when the Murdoch boys took over. They use Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham to bring on advertisers and to keep us sanctimonious types watching. We are acting for possibly the first time as a powerful bloc demanding that we be heard and you deride us. Carlson is no friend of mine, he is more libertarian then conservative and has never struggled in his life the way the vast majority of conservatives have. But he is somehow a sacred cow to those who would refer to the rest of us as sanctimonious. Sounds like the hubris is strong in your post.

Seems to me that FOX is doubling down like they don’t care about the loss of viewers.

Well, I thought I would be sad about not seeing FBN all day long...I discovered that I am doing fine for three weeks now and all I remember is that there was a decided change in the way Varney talked about President Trump.

He started pointing to the rotten polls...FOX polls...and it was depressing. Bye, Stewart.

Tucker is making the same fatal mistake as others before him, attacking those who won’t swallow the whole bottle of his snake oil. He is thin-skinned and he’s lashing out at conservatives for abandoning Fox and affecting the ratings of his show. He was put on a pedestal by conservatives and started to think that he could walk on water, and that his audience would remain no matter what he said. He’s learning the hard way that conservatives are not sheep, and will not slavishly follow anyone if that person or group abandons them. There is clear evidence of fraud and Tucker is at the “can’t we all just get along” stage of surrender. That may be fine for the GOP Establishment, but it’s not fine for the millions of voters who are trying to save America from permanent fixed elections.

I don’t need Tucker on my TV.

I don’t need to hear what he says. Hell, I don’t even care what any TV personality says.

I don’t need to spend even a minute of my life watching him. He brings nothing of value to my life.

I don’t need to help him make a living.

So I don’t and I won’t. He can fend for himself...or not...I don’t care.

I am very proud of conservatives right now. We stood together and are becoming a force be reckoned with. The way we have let FOX know of our displeasure is something we need to continue.

We have amazing financial power and make-up the majority of the country. I remember before Chik-Fila went all woke, how we stood up for the former owner. The GOP is not conservative, they just feed off of us.

The left does not fear us, we need to make them fear us as a collective force for change!

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