Carlson’s hard investigations
No website? No QAnon.
Great news for cult experts, sociologists, internet researchers, deprogrammers and the thousands of families destroyed by QAnon: The conspiracy theory is not real.
This revelation does not come from academic sleuths who’ve apparently wasted the past few years chasing dubious shadows down imaginary rabbit holes.
No, it comes from Tucker Carlson.
In a Tuesday segment that started with a graph questioning the number of Black people killed by police, the cable host pivoted to the broader issue of disinformation.
“So it’s worth finding out where the public is getting all this false information, this disinformation, as we’ll call it,” he said. “So we checked. We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which in the end we learned is not even a website. If it’s out there, we could not find it.”
It’s a good thing Carlson wasn’t cast to play Fox Mulder.
Tune in next week when he disproves the existence of Beyoncé after failing to find her number in the Yellow Pages. And don’t miss Tucker’s upcoming prime-time special on Fox News: “If Gravity Is Real, Why Do I Keep Falling Up The Stairs?”
Everyone feel better? Tom Hanks is not sex trafficking kids inside armoires from Wayfair. Hillary Clinton is not harvesting adrenochrome, which she was going to trade to Bill Gates for his tracking data from the nano-chips he secretly stashed in the coronavirus vaccine with the approval of the hologram Joe Biden, who in turn is controlled by a Milky Way cabal of lizard aliens and Satanic pedophiles. The decentralized conspiracy, which started as an obvious troll-turned-grift on an image board in 2017 before spreading across social media, is not real because there is, what, no QAnon.com? I don’t know. If a web domain was required to verify every corrosive cultural phenomenon, TuckerCarlsonIsADouche.org would be very real.
But I suppose this bolsters the case Fox lawyers made last fall in successfully defending a defamation case against the host with the argument no “reasonable” viewer could possibly take him seriously. I suspect even Tucker’s wife rolls her eyes when he’s lounging in the backyard, railing against the myth of white supremacy while sipping umbrella drinks in his fly-fishing waders.
The judge in that defamation case agreed and went one step further, characterizing “Mr. Carlson’s statements” as “exaggeration,” “non-literal commentary” and “simply bloviating for his audience,” which would make a pretty good epitaph.
But on Tuesday night, undeterred by the legal precedent he is a court jester, Tucker was not done trying to give an ironic master class in disinformation. With a resting face that is always a mix of agitation and queasiness, like he had a bad enchilada for lunch, he continued to investigate who or what is tearing society asunder with systemic and diabolical lies. If it’s not Q, then who?
“Then we checked Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter feed because we have heard she traffics in disinformation, CNN told us,” he sneered. “But nothing there.”
Nothing there? I had to put down my martini because by now the laughing jags were making the vodka spill over the edge. So you scanned a scrubbed Twitter account and found no evidence the kooky congresswoman has ever questioned Sept. 11 or called school shootings false-flag events or wondered if California fires were caused by Jewish space lasers?
Is it any wonder “Tucker Carlson Tonight” has become a safe space for far-right snowflakes who melt down in reality?
If this guy worked for the IRS, everyone would confidently cheat on their taxes.
“Next we called our many friends in the tight-knit intel community,” Carlson continued, building toward his big finish. “Could Vladimir Putin be putting this stuff out there? The Proud Boys? Alex Jones? Who is lying to America in ways that are certain to make us hate each other and certain to destroy our core institutions?”
I was suddenly reminded of something my grandmother used to say when she was tutoring me in algebra: “You just answered your own question.”
And sure enough, Carlson concluded disinformation was not coming from conspiracy theories without official websites — it was coming from “cable news” and “politicians talking on TV.” It was like hearing a Netflix exec denounce streaming.
Carlson was presumably not blaming his own cable network for disinformation, even though Fox is a GM-grade assembly line for partisan dishonesty. No, he was going after CNN, a former employer that gave him the boot years ago, not long after Jon Stewart made a fool of him on live television.
CNN should consider a restraining order because Tucker is now an unhinged stalker. His obsession with CNN and, by extension, the “liberal media,” reveals a fellow who lost the plot years ago and now resents the mocking scrutiny this brings.
He will always take the low road in high dudgeon.
So, applying his tortured logic, I am now offering a $1million reward to anyone who can prove Tucker Carlson is not Q.
Is there a bigger conspiracy theorist on cable news? Is there anyone more inclined to defame liberals and the Hollywood elite? Who is the polar opposite of Oprah? What news personality does more to make people hate each other and destroy institutions?
When submitting your reward application, please include a website.
Twitter: @vinaymenon