Tucker Carlson argued without evidence Thursday that the protests and racial tension sweeping the United States this year were part of a “nationwide fear campaign” engineered by Democrats to spur their supporters to vote.
“Sometimes, under extraordinary circumstances, convincing Democrats to vote requires race riots and a nationwide fear campaign,” the Fox News host argued. “Unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing right now.”
Carlson claimed that Democrats were saying things that could turn the country into “a permanent maelstrom of angry tribalism” to get voters riled up enough to vote against Trump.
There is no evidence that the Democratic Party is engineering such a fear campaign, and Carlson ignored recent events that are the real reasons for the United States’ current turmoil. They include the COVID-19 pandemic and the death of Black Americans such as George Floyd at the hands of police.
Nor have the protests been riots, as Carlson claimed. The vast majority of U.S. protests between May 24 and Aug. 22 were peaceful, with only 570 out of 10,600 resulting in violence, according to a report published Thursday by the U.S. Crisis Monitor, a joint effort between the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project and Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative.
Moreover, according to a report by The New York Times, current unrest and looting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, have caused local Democrats to worry that protests might backfire and aid Trump’s reelection prospects.
For his part, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden condemned any violence at protests. Rioting, looting and setting fires were “lawlessness, plain and simple,” Biden said in a speech in Pittsburgh Monday.
Carlson himself has stirred up his own brand of “angry tribalism.” He accused Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), of denying people COVID-19 vaccines if they aren’t of a “certain color.” He warned his viewers — again, without supporting evidence — that Black Lives Matter protests will result in demographic shifts that will destroy America’s cities.
Carlson also criticized Biden for meeting with Jacob Blake Sr., whose son was paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot several times in the back by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Aug. 23.
Carlson pointed to Blake Sr.’s past anti-Semitic social media posts and accused Biden of raising him “to a position of greater prominence in this country and greater moral authority.”
Biden met privately with the Blakes on Thursday to discuss systemic racism and police reform and to extend to “Jacob Jr. a sense of humanity, treating him as a person worthy of consideration and prayer,” according to a statement released by a lawyer for the Blake family.
Watch Carlson’s full tirade below.