Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson blasted Walmart for its “woke” approach to the gun debate.

Carlson argued that by taking the side of metropolitan elite liberals on guns, there is less concern about its labor practices and its decision to purchase cheap goods from Chinese manufacturers produced at costs that cannot be matched by American manufacturers.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: Yesterday, Walmart, which is the world’s largest retailer, announced that it is taking sides in the gun debate. The company says it will no longer sell handgun ammunition in its stores. Nor, Walmart says, will it stock common rifle rounds that, quote, “can also be used in large capacity clips on military-style weapons.” And then the company went even further than that.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon issued a strident statement calling on Congress to ban many semi-automatic rifles, as well as to seize firearms from Americans who have not been convicted of a crime or even charged with one.

For a company that operates primarily in rural America, all of this was a big step. How do rural Americans feel about it? We can only guess. There’s not a lot of polling going on in Two Dot, Montana or Roxbury, Maine. But we do know that in the most expensive parts of  New York City, Washington and Los Angeles, all the smart people were deeply impressed. They love Walmart now:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP DONNA EDWARDS: You know good for Walmart for doing this. These are weapons of war
DON LEMON: Maybe what’s happening here is that Walmart is listening to its own customers and listening to the American people who want changes not just in the stores, but in society.

RUTH MARCUS, WAPO: You have a business acting in a more enlightened and more agile way than government does

NICOLLE WALLACE: At least Walmart today announced new action, insisting that the status quo is unacceptable

ANDREW SORKIN: I was surprised. Happily surprised and I think this is a momentous moments and a watershed moment)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Uh huh. So Walmart is now more enlightened than government is, says liberals. That’s a fascinating turnaround.

Because for years, you’ll remember, Walmart was the target of coordinated attacks from the left. Progressives used to attack the company for destroying small-town America, and of exploiting workers. Walmart hired PR consultants and union busters to push back for years, but the company never really changed the way it does business.

And yet, somehow, the left mostly stopped attacking them. How’d that happen? Simple: liberals got rich and lost interest in economics. They adopted identity issues, instead.

But Walmart, meanwhile, figured out that it could buy immunity from criticism from the left by mouthing leftwing pieties. That’s all it takes: sounding woke and they’ll leave you alone.

Notice that Walmart plans to sell the remainder of its AR-15 ammunition. So this couldn’t really be about saving lives, obviously. It’s about the money. It’s only about the money.  That’s not a surprise because there’s a lot of money at stake.
By revenue, Walmart is the largest company in the world. The Walton family is the richest in America. Collectively they’re worth more than a $150 billion. How did they get so rich?

By selling foreign goods to domestic consumers: Cheap Chinese garbage, manufactured in offshore factories paying slave wages — wages that American manufacturers could never match.

…

According to one study, from 2001 to 2013, America actually lost 400,000 jobs thanks to Walmart’s reliance on Chinese imports. And it shows.

None of this was an accident. At times, Walmart sold goods at a loss, just long enough to drive American competitors out of business completely. Smaller retail shops and the jobs they provided vanished. In many places, Walmart was one of the few remaining employers. As of today, more than 1.5 million Americans now work there at any one time work at Walmart. And it’s not, by and large, an improvement over what we had before.

In 2005, 20 percent of Walmart employees worked part-time at the company. Today, the majority work part-time. Why? You know why: If Walmart keeps employees’ hours low enough, it can avoid paying benefits. People can’t live like that, and Walmart knows it.

But if Walmart knows that the federal government — that is to say, taxpayers like you — will subsidize their low wages with welfare benefits. In other words, you’re working so that the Walton family won’t have to pay their employees enough to live. That’s true. That is happening right now, but we’re not talking about it because Walmart is pushing gun control.

So take three steps back and let’s think about what happened here: The company more responsible than any other company for destroying and degrading rural America — for making our towns uglier and cheaper and poorer — the same people who push the appalling lie that brightly-colored plastic crap from China is going to us happy — that company is now lecturing normal Americans — the very Americans they have hurt —  about how immoral they are for daring to protect themselves with firearms.  That’s what they’re saying. And everyone in Washington, New York and LA is applauding them as they do it. It’s not a good sign.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor