Surprise. Astonishment. Shock.
These are the words to describe Tucker Carlson's abrupt and unexpected departure from Fox News, as he was the star of the audiences of the crown jewel of Rupert Murdoch's family.
Fox Corporation’s shares are down nearly 5% since Carlson's firing.
He was the hero of the conservatives. For right-wing politicians and future candidates of the US 2024 presidential election, he was a kind of power broker.
Some will even say that the king of cable-TV ratings was a rainmaker in the camp of the conservatives. Since Donald Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election, the man who rose to prominence at Fox News by taking one of the most coveted primetime spots in 2016 and turned it into gold, has become one of the conservative leaders in the new culture war.
Fox News v. Dominion Voting System
This culture war is aimed at the woke mind virus or liberal or progressive ideologies such as diversity, inclusion, greater equality and the fight against discrimination, racism and anti-Semitism. He used his platform to feed and voice the fears of many white people worried about the push for diversity and societal change.
"FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways," the network said in a statement on April 24, a few days after it agreed to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. "We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor."
It did not provide the reason of the abrupt breakup.
Fox News hosts had wrongfully accused Dominion Voting Systems of stealing the victory in the 2020 presidential election from then-President Donald Trump. The software company sued the network for spreading false accusations that it was at the center of a vast conspiracy to cheat Trump of his victory.
For weeks, Fox News hosts, including Carlson, had claimed that Dominion voting machines, used in some states, enabled widespread fraud in favor of the Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
But private messages from the same hosts, uncovered during the discovery process, showed that the anchors knew that those conspiracy theories were false, but that didn't stop them from continuing to hammer on air that Trump was robbed of his second term as president.
While no trial took place, the Dominion case exposed to the public the fact that Fox News' hosts were willing to relay information that they knew full well was false.
According to the New York Times, it was a racist text message from Carlson that alarmed the board of Fox. Fox feared that the cable star would be questioned by Dominion lawyers about the infamous message in the event of a trial.
'It's Not How White Men Fight'
The message was sent to one of his producers soon after the events of Jan.6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to prevent Congress from certifying Biden's victory.
"A couple of weeks ago, I was watching video of people fighting on the street in Washington," Carlson wrote on Jan. 7, 2021. "A group of Trump guys surrounded an Antifa kid and started pounding the living shit out of him. It was three against one, at least."
He continued: "Jumping a guy like that is dishonorable obviously. It’s not how white men fight. Yet suddenly I found myself rooting for the mob against the man, hoping they’d hit him harder, kill him. I really wanted them to hurt the kid. I could taste it."
Carlson never specified the color of the "kid."
"Then somewhere deep in my brain, an alarm went off: this isn’t good for me. I’m becoming something I don’t want to be. The Antifa creep is a human being. Much as I despise what he says and does, much as I’m sure I’d hate him personally if I knew him, I shouldn’t gloat over his suffering. I should be bothered by it. I should remember that somewhere somebody probably loves this kid, and would be crushed if he was killed. If I don’t care about those things, if I reduce people to their politics, how am I better than he is?" the former Fox News star wrote.
This text, which is a reflection of the points of view which he conveyed on the air, is the one that sowed panic within Fox's board and led to his dismissal. Carlson was a sounding board for white nationalism ideology on his show "Tucker Carlson Tonight." His message was uncovered during the discovery process.
Neither Carlson nor Fox News have commented on this message. The cable star posted a video message on Twitter a few days after his abrupt ousting from Fox News.
"The other thing you notice when you take a little time off is how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing," he said in the video. "In five years, we won’t even remember that we had them. Trust me, as someone who has participated. And then, at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all. War. Civil liberties. Emerging science. Demographic change. Corporate power. Natural resources. When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues? It’s been a long time. Debates like that are not permitted in American media.”
Carlson concluded by saying that America’s "current orthodoxies won’t last” and that there "aren’t many places left” where one can find "Americans saying true things.”
He never referred to Fox News directly.
