2 Fox News Personalities Resign To Protest Tucker Carlson

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Tucker Carlson has gone so far to the far-right that he has fallen off of the conservative cliff.  This talking head has just completed a special Patriot Purge, which is so awful that two George W. Bush conservatives quit Fox.

The special is an alternative history of what happened when over 10,000 homegrown terrorists and Donald Trump supporters crashed into our precious Capitol Building on January 6. Carlson claimed “through insinuations and imagery” that the show’s violence was a “false flag.” He even indicated that the rioters had been persecuted over the event, according to The New York Times.

Both men came up as George W. Bush conservatives. Goldberg had recently finished a book Liberal Fascism. And Hayes had just written about the Invasion of Iraq at The Weekly Standard. He said:

‘[T]here’s a domestic war on terror and it’s coming for half of the country. That’s not true. Particularly disturbing in “Patriot Purge, was the imagery of waterboarding and suggestions that half the country is going to be subject to this kind of treatment, that’s the same kind of treatment that the federal government used when it went after Al Qaeda.’

New York Times‘ Media Columnist Ben Smith tweeted:

New: Two Fox News Contributors Quit in Protest of Tucker Carlson’s Jan. 6 Special’

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Hayes continued talking about Carlson:

‘[He] pumped that stuff out into society, and all you need is one person out of every 50,000 people who watch it to believe it’s literally the story about what happened, that it’s true in all of its particulars and all of its insinuations. And that’s truly dangerous in a way that the usual hyperbole that you get on a lot of cable news isn’t.’

He was chilled when a man attending a pro-Trump conference, Turning Point USA, stood up and asked:

‘When do we get to use the guns?’

Hayes said that was “a scary moment:”

‘That’s a scary moment. And I think we’d do well to have people who, at the very least, are not putting stuff out that would encourage that kind of thing.’

He had been reflecting on William F. Buckley, now deceased. The founder of The National Review had said that he wanted to catapult some of the most extreme groups, for example, the John Birch Society away from his conservative movement. His mission was:

‘[I]mposing seriousness on conservative arguments.’

NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik tweeted:

Despite false claims and incendiary rhetoric on Fox about the elections and Covid, many journalists inside Fox News concluded Carlson’s “Patriot Purge” was dangerous and different. Bret Baier and Chris Wallace objected to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott & news chief Jay Wallace’

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Goldberg sent a text to his business partner, Stephen Hayes on the evening Carlson’s trailer came out. He said:

‘I’m tempted just to quit Fox over this.’

Hayes responded:

‘I’m game. Totally outrageous. It will lead to violence. Not sure how we can stay.’

Goldberg noted that he and Hayes had remained at Fox News, because the network had told them that it would be more independent after Trump lost, and the network would “right the ship:”

‘Now, righting the ship is an academic question. The “Patriot Purge” thing meant: OK, we hit the iceberg now, and I can’t do the rationalizations anymore.’

Then he added:

‘Whether it’s ‘”Patriot Purge” or anti-vax stuff, I don’t want it in my name, and I want to call it out and criticize it. I don’t want to feel like I am betraying a trust that I had by being a Fox News contributor. And I also don’t want to be accused of not really pulling the punches. And then this was just an untenable tension for me.’

Defending Democracy Together Director conservative Bill Kristol tweeted:

‘”Patriot Purge” was “a sign that people have made peace with this direction of things, and there is no plan, at least, that anyone made me aware of for a course correction,” Mr. Goldberg said.’Kudos to @stephenfhayes and @JonahDispatch for standing up to Fox, yelling Stop, at a time when few other conservatives are inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.’

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