Let's Watch Tucker Carlson's "Patriot Purge" and Wonder Just How Dumb Things Can Get
On a scale of one to ten, with one being "extremely dumb"
What was the January 6 insurrection? A violent mob? An attempted coup? An ill-conceived lashing out featuring a guy in animal skins who looked like a Village People reject called “The Shaman”?
Yes to all of that. But I struggle to get my head around the event; it was very bad, but how very bad? The mob was violent, and I’m against violent mobs across the board. But their chances of overturning the election were functionally zero.1 It’s also difficult to remain completely serious about an event with so many goofy elements; it would be hard to soberly assess the Battle of Little Bighorn if Custer had taken the field wearing a diaper and a Cat in the Hat hat, spent the moments before the battle trying and failing to do a cartwheel, and then hopped on a baby hippo and charged the Lakota line while yelling “I’ve got a boom boom in my pants so let’s hurry up and get to Sizzler!”
To aid my thinking about January 6, I looked to Tucker Carlson’s three-part special Patriot Purge. Patriot Purge is the series that caused long-time Fox News contributors Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes to quit in disgust. It’s also one of the shows that Fox is using to lure people to its new streaming platform, Fox Nation, which is the Murdoch empire’s attempt to be as Trumpy as Newsmax and One America News. I had to bite the bullet and sign up for a month of Fox Nation, except I couldn’t bring myself to use my own name, so I used the Paula Fox spambot sock puppet account that I created for an article last week. So, Fox Nation now includes this citizen:
About Fox Nation: Tucker Carlson is prominently featured. He is the only Fox prime time host to have his own section of shows, which makes sense: His show is the highest-rated on Fox. He frequently gets more viewers than Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes combined. Non-Tucker offerings on Fox Nation include Cops: All Access with Geraldo, the Fox Nation Patriot Awards, and a ton of Christmas content, including this special, which I watched without a hint of irony:
The “Tucker Carlson Originals” section has a spicier flavor than the rest of Fox Nation. The half-hour long documentary-style shows include The UFO Files, AR15: Under Assault, and Green Energy Scams: Maine (are they going to do all 50 states?). There’s also a ton of toxic race-baiting, like The Illegal Invasion (description: “Americans are powerless as illegal immigrants invade the US”), Hunting MS13 (“MS13 is invading America and the Biden administration is welcoming the gang with open borders and open arms”), and Chicago in Crisis (“This jaw-dropping episode shows what happens when a George Soros-backed prosecutor allows Chicago’s lawless to unravel at an unprecedented rate”). These shows undermine one of the central arguments made in Patriot Purge: That the Trumpy part of the political spectrum is unfairly tarred as white supremacist. I think that the term “white supremacy” is thrown around way too freely these days, and I try not to blithely dismiss my opponents as racist, but I will say that banging on about an “invasion” of illegal immigrants and “George Soros-backed prosecutors” are exactly the types of things that racists do.
The three-part Patriot Purge is difficult to describe. The thing I’ve seen that’s most like it is The Winged Beatle, a fan-made documentary about the “Paul McCartney died in 1968” conspiracy. I would describe The Winged Beatle this way: You know that scene at the end of The Usual Suspects where the detective suddenly sees through all the lies, and everything snaps into focus in a mad rush of tightly-edited flashbacks and zoom shots? Well: What if an entire movie was that for 90 minutes? That’s The Winged Beatle. It’s the “we are THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS” vibe without a shred of real evidence for its entire run time. Despite the fact that the “Paul is dead” theory was comprehensively debunked in this hard-hitting interview:
Patriot Purge occupies the same intellectual space as The Winged Beatle. I can’t emphasize enough just how thin the whole thing is; it’s mostly just horror movie sound effects and ominous music and grainy shots of helicopters. I honestly feel that the editors and sound mixers should win lifetime achievement Emmys for heroically stretching four minutes of substance to an almost-watchable 90 minutes.
In my opinion, much of the media have actually understated the stupidity of Patriot Purge's main argument. The New York Times said that the series insinuated that the Capitol invasion was a “false flag” operation that has led to the persecution of conservatives. There’s actually another layer of insanity on top of that: Patriot Purge argues that this operation is part of a “New War On Terror”, necessitated by the military industrial complex’s lack of engagement in the Middle East. And if you think there’s no racial element to this, think again: The victims of the Second War On Terror are said to be “legacy Americans”. Gee, “legacy Americans”…what could that mean? It’s the most transparent euphemism since my grandma called my cousin “boisterous” to communicate that even she, a woman born during World War I, understood that he is gay.
What evidence does Patriot Purge summon in defense of the Second War On Terror thesis? Basically none. They claim that there was a lefty agitator-type guy in the crowd on January 6. An FBI informant (note: not an FBI employee) was apparently there, too. Elijah Schaffer of The Blaze says he saw agitators who “looked like professionals.” Meaning…what, exactly? That they were punctual and sharply-dressed? That they had briefcases and those little silver cases that hold business cards? Did he see Wayne fucking Jarvis from Arrested Development (he’s such a pro!)? What in the seven seas of fuck is Schaffer talking about? “They looked professional” is the type of claim that Patriot Purge has no problem just tossing out there with no substantiation whatsoever.
And what about the horrible oppression being inflicted on “legacy Americans” as part of this “purge”? Well, the FBI questioned one lady in an apparent case of mistaken identity. A DEA agent lost his job due to his participation in the rally. A soldier received an administrative reprimand from the DoD for defying a Covid order. The guy who was photographed with his feet on Nancy Pelosi’s desk says he was beaten by prison guards (a notoriously pro-Pelosi constituency). Obviously, I can’t adjudicate each case and determine what actually happened and what should have happened. But anyone calling this a “purge” doesn’t know what the word means; Stalin didn’t consolidate power within the Communist Party by ruthlessly issuing a series of brutal administrative reprimands.
I honestly expected Tucker Carlson to not really be involved in this. There's a scam in TV where networks give out Executive Producer credits as a two-birds-with-one-stone method of keeping their top talent happy and puffing up a mediocre show. The way it works is: The star of an existing show attends one meeting at the beginning of the creative process and conveys indispensable advice like: “The show should have zazzle!” That one meeting is enough for the network to bill the show as “from the mind of Executive Producer (Bankable TV Personality Who Is Happy To Take An Easy Paycheck).” The celebrity gets a payday, the show gets some undeserved heat, and everyone wins (except, of course, for the viewers, but fuck them).
I figured that was probably the deal with Patriot Purge. But Carlson actually appears in the show. In fact, he has some of the most ridiculous lines, including:
“If permanent Washington is willing to launch a Second War On Terror on its own citizens, what else are they capable of?” (e.d. It seems to me that launching a Second War On Terror against one’s own citizens would be bad enough, but apparently the real concern is that the SWOT is merely the thin end of the wedge.)
“The media and Democratic party leaders created the environment that made the January 6 violence all but inevitable.” (e.d. part of the Second War On Terror theory is that Democrats and the media went easy on rioters in the summer of 2020 in order to “gaslight” January 6 protesters into thinking they could get away with storming the capitol. Obviously, Democrats and the media would have to be time travelers in order to have done that, and the “Trump supporters were gaslighted” theory doesn’t fit with the “it was actually Antifa and the FBI” theory, but if you’re going to apply logic to the narrative, then Patriot Purge is simply not the show for you.)
Carlson’s most audacious line comes at the very end. After three episodes describing how Democrats and the media are hell-bent on creating a police state to persecute their fellow citizens — Carlson says that the government is “declaring war on [its] own people” — he tries to end on a notably different tone. I had Paula Fox upload it to YouTube because it really has to be seen to be believed:
This is what I call the “Shallow Hal final act flip-flop”. It’s not specific to the 2001 comedy Shallow Hal; it applies to any movie that tries to have its cake and eat it, too. Shallow Hal is nothing but fat jokes; it’s fat fat fat fat fat for 90 minutes. Then, they try to make a cheap “it’s actually inner beauty that counts” message stick at the end. Fuck you! You made the movie you made — own it! Don’t slap on some ex post facto high-minded message to try to trick us into thinking that the movie was something other than what it obviously was.
This is what Tucker is doing with his unbelievable “tell the truth/love each other” ending. He spent 90 minutes shrieking “This is WAR! They’re coming to get you!” and then he tries to take the high road in the final 20 seconds. Pure balls. It’s as if Deliverance had ended with a blood-covered Burt Reynolds turning to camera and saying: “Seriously, though: Visit Georgia!”
What to make of all this? Well, Patriot Purge is vile, conspiratorial, and divisive. It uses a few one-eighth-truths and a boatload of scary music and graphics to try to convince people that they’re about to be victims of Minority Report-style authoritarianism. Its content — along with the fact that the President did try to overturn the election and the fact that protesters did break into the Capitol with the goal of doing exactly that — makes it tempting to get my knickers in the biggest of twists and take to the streets shouting about the threat of fascist mobs.
But that’s not the reaction I had. The series interviews some people who were involved in the storming of the Capitol, including the feet-on-Pelosi’s-desk guy, who says he struggles with schizophrenia, and the husband of Ashli Babbitt, the woman who was fatally shot by a Capitol Police officer as she breached the Capitol’s inner door. How did those interviews make me feel? Honestly: I just felt sorry for them. I know I’m supposed to be mad because they joined a mob and tried to overturn an election — and I don’t endorse those actions — but anger wasn’t my primary emotion. I was mostly just sad that people got swept up in a bunch of lies and made a series of terrible decisions that drastically altered their lives for the worse.
After the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, I wrote this essay about how people often do stupid, terrible things when they place themselves at the center of a hero narrative. That piece captures a lot of my reaction to Patriot Purge; I’m sad that people are so devoid of meaning in their lives that they delude themselves into thinking that they’re important players in some big, historical moment. The most tragic of these people draw on false beliefs to make huge decisions that lead to disaster. The deep irresponsibility of Patriot Purge comes from the fact that it provides the soundtrack and talking points for people who want to indulge the silly fantasy that they’re struggling against a Matrix-style attempt to subdue the population.
Extremism matters to the extent that it has power. The fact that the President — the very embodiment of power — tried to overturn an election and showed other authoritarian tendencies remains far and away the greatest threat to American freedom. But I’m beginning to mentally separate institutionalized extremism — like putting the pieces in place to steal a future election — from the “Nazis are marching in the streets!” narrative. The “Nazis are marching in the streets!” narrative is the mirror-image of the also-very-stupid “Antifa is starting a civil war!” narrative. Yes, there is violence sometimes. The appropriate response to violence is law enforcement commensurate with the size of the threat. But let’s not lose perspective; we are not living in 1920s Germany, where right-wing and left-wing extremists engage in Anchorman-style street brawls on a daily basis.
Keeping perspective defangs Carlson’s narrative. I, for one, will continue to make brave forays to the grocery store and post office without fear that I’ll be accosted by a white supremacist or Antifa mob. I know that’s lame; it makes my life seem boring and unimportant. I could certainly make things more exciting by deluding myself into thinking that there’s a deep state conspiracy out to get me. Unfortunately — and this really is unfortunate, because I have 28 days of my Fox Nation subscription left — I just can’t get myself to believe that shit.
The mob’s chances of overturning the election were functionally zero — Trump actually had a shot. And Trump did tangible things like apply pressure to the Georgia Secretary of State, the Michigan Elections Board, and Mike Pence. The mob could have done awful things to Mike Pence, but the idea that they were going to break into the building and somehow force Pence to certify fraudulent elections results is complete fantasy.
The summer 2020 protests were an attempt to "gaslight" the Right? I propose that we declare a moratorium on the word "gaslight" as it no longer seems to mean anything.
It’s perhaps also worth noting that so many of the people who latch on to this stuff are part of a religious movement that’s losing its steam. As evangelical social morality from a hundred years ago can’t hold up to pressure of, say, your boisterous cousin being open about who he is and the family continuing to love him anyway, they need some other way of feeling control over their life narratives.