Tucker Carlson’s anti-riot rant is nothing to applaud

Fox News host Tucker Carlson went on a rant a few nights ago that deserves to be ignored, but because it has become a widely applauded cause celebre on the Right, it must be countered. Carlson engaged in incendiary demagoguery with overtones of ideological purges of the sort no real conservative should encourage.

The first minutes of Carlson’s monologue sounded promising. He made the morally correct point that violent riots must be stopped because they hurt innocent people. He provided example after example, complete with distressing videos, of innocents being brutally terrorized. He condemned political and media leaders for making excuses for the violence. He expressed righteous outrage, justly so.

Alas, Carlson didn’t use that scene-setting to say anything constructive. Instead, he went full Franco, or perhaps preppie Peronist, while painting an apocalyptic picture without a single shade of gray. Calling for a crackdown of epic energy, excoriating everybody who uttered a single word of sympathy for peaceful protesters or racial understanding, Carlson promoted grievance against grievance, escalation upon escalation, violent rage against violent rage.