MSNBC commentator Jason Johnson said Thursday on “Deadline” that Fox News host Tucker Carlson was a “spokesperson” for a movement to the United States into a “white nationalist state.”
Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “I want to ask you about something that I’ve wrestled with. You’ve got more clarity than I do. But I understand better than anyone the appetite to turn the page on Donald Trump. I try not to say his name, I try to call him the disgraced ex-president. But what he has uncorked, what is happening now, is worse than what happened at any moment of his presidency. What he has uncorked is a unorganized but vast anti-democratic movement. Its oxygen is disinformation. They view Fox News as the medium source. We think Fox is outrageous. To his supporters, they’re in the center. They view Fox as center-right because to its right is all that other stuff, Newsmax, OAN and whatnot. What do you view this moment for—what do you view sort of this moment as in terms of navigating what we’re watching?”
Johnson said, “They’re worshipping a cult of Donald Trump. Trump has become the aviator of all this. As long as Donald Trump is there, they’re going to engage in this kind of behavior. What I fear, more than anything else, I’ve said all along, this has been brewing for decades. This was starting back with Newt Gingrich, starting in the 2000 election. This has been growing for decades.”
He continued, “We should have probably seen that a group of people who can be okay with individuals marching into the Capitol and trying to hang Mike Pence aren’t the kind of people you can ever work with again. We’re not dealing with a party anymore. I don’t like using the term, Republican Party, because it’s basically a storm front for an armed insurrection. That’s all it is. We have to start talking about them that way. We have to recognize that Tucker Carlson is not a journalist. He’s basically a spokesperson for a revolutionary movement to overturn this country and turn it into a white nationalist state.”
“That’s what’s going on,” Johnson added. “Any other terminology and we play into it. I hope that we recognize that this is war. This is war for the future of this country. One side is ready and fighting and has already launched their first salvo and the other side is trying to figure out if they want to vote on it. That’s what I see this point as being. I hope we don’t look back on the summer of 2021 and regret the decisions that weren’t made to protect this country. ”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN