It never ends, does it? Three years later, the fight to claim some fraudulent election in 2020 still rages on, even as it flies in the face of every iota of evidence and reason in public life. That hasn’t stopped many from claiming the election was stolen or profiting from that lie. And none is as prolific in his knowing deception as Tucker Carlson, even as his texts show that he knows better.
A pattern of deception
Lies are not new to politics. Their presence is like oxygen to many in both government and public media; it is hard to go a day without facing them, but certain lies matter more than others. The Big lie former President Trump promoted is one of those lies that won’t disappear.
In mid-2020, an estimated 70 percent of Republicans believed that the election was fraudulent, thanks partly to comments by Carlson and other commentators on the right.
During the 2020 election, Carlson argued that Democrats supported mail-in-ballots because "they want the uncertainty over the outcome of the election, so they can manipulate the results.”
After Trump lost, Carlson continued his pattern of insinuated wrong-doing by election officials, saying: “We don’t know anything about the software that many say was rigged. We don’t know. We ought to find out.” From fraud claims in Fulton County, GA, to absurd accusations of dead people voting, Carlson consistently carried the torch of election denialism. It is worth noting that the people that Carlson called out by name are alive and well, something he had to apologize for once he was caught.
The only nugget of dignity here is that Carlson never went as far as Rudy Giuliani or Sidney Powell.
Deposing a propagandist
But this string of nonsense caught Carlson in some hot water when Dominion Voting Systems, a company that Fox News had allegedly defamed for contributing to supposed voter fraud. Carlson was deposed in August of 2022 and by February of this year, texts released by Dominion’s lawyers showed that Carlson didn’t believe a word of what he was saying.
In a series of texts, Carlson raised concerns about Trump’s voter fraud claims, as well as warning that Trump’s audience could destroy Fox News if they didn’t placate them. In one text he wrote:
“We worked really hard to build what we have. Those f**kers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me…”-Tucker Carlson to his producer
and in another, he warned that:
“What [Trump]’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”
Carlson, unsurprisingly, also dismissed the claims of software tampering promoted by Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, referring to the claims as “absurd” in additional texts. But even with his private reservations, Carlson said nothing.
Nobody should be surprised by the idea that Carlson spread some of these ideas or that he has ignored responsibility for them under the veneer of asking questions.
What Americans should be surprised by, and infuriated by, is the absurd degree to which Carlson was willing to go to lie about them even though he knew the claims were garbage. The fact that he cared more about his ratings and the stability of his station than the stability of the American republic is insane. If there is any justice in this world, Dominion’s lawsuit will tear Fox News apart, or at the very least, keep Carlson in line.