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Notes -
Tucker Carlson is the maddest of lads.
Among the speculation about why Tucker Carlson was fired, so suddenly, and without any actual reason, was this interview. He had one version of it taped for Fox News, and they still own that tape. So he had the Chief of the Capital Police come in again and tape the interview again.
This makes things notable in a few ways. I'm still digesting this interview, mind you. But for starters, there is the surface level that the Chief of the Capital Police feels like he was set up to fail. Tucker takes this further, and heavily implies or leads that the whole damned Jan 6th was a setup. Then on a deeper level, there is the fact that this is the second time they've done this song and dance, so the Chief of the Capital Police knows this is Tucker's angle, beyond a shadow of any doubt, and he's still doing the interview again.
But here is Zerohedge's takeaway from the interview.
So what's the right wing claim?
"It was basically a LARP, nothing happened, they walked around for 20 minutes then got escorted out, a couple people went over the line and one of them got shot"
or
"It was actually a serious incident, but the request from the capitol police for backup was deliberately denied so that Democrats could bait the (otherwise imbecilic and LARPing) protestors into potentially committing crimes and making headlines"
?
Actually, both of the above can be true at the same time. (I actually believe both statements are mostly true.) But if they are, it reflects abysmally on Trump supporters and everyone else on the conservative side defending those involved. In reality, the 'Capitol Riot' was just more militia LARPing from the schizo conservative equivalent of black bloc anarchist types who think that smashing the street level windows of Starbucks' corporate office heralds the end of capitalism.
Focus on Jan 6 is embarrassing and demoralizing for the right. Conservative coup attempt (and yeah, it seems likely at least some of those involved genuinely believed they could change the result) and its participants look like attendees of a family tailgate in the parking lot of a Missouri walmart, and behave like retirees on a bus tour group visit to the Smithsonian.
Even the tiki torch parade was more intimidating.
Does it matter whether the Jan 6 protestors were fools or badasses? It may be satisfying to some, but I don't think it's very important to the country the moral value or lack thereof of the protestors. What's much more important is to what extent Congressional leadership and multiple high-level people in many military and law enforcement agencies coordinated to ensure that the Capitol would have very minimal protection on Jan 6 despite ample intelligence of how big of a protest there was going to be, as well as lots of provocateurs. Unless we believe Mr. Sund is completely full of shit, I think it's hard to conclude anything but that exactly that happened. They wanted an ugly riot and they did what it took to ensure that they got one.
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