Tucker Carlson: The people in charge are intent on replacing democracy with authoritarianism – Fox News
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
We're going to something a little different and to try to explain what this country is fighting with itself about, what are the lines that divide us?
It's pretty obviously not the old partisan divide that the rest of us grew up with Republican versus Democrat. You figured that out now. You look over the Democratic side, you see Rashida Tlaib. You're pretty certain she's not on your side, obviously. But then the question is, is Mitch McConnell on your side? And the answer, as you well know, is, no, not really. So what divides us? What is the dividing line? And it's really simple.
The people in charge are intent on replacing our free democratic system with an authoritarian system where they don't convince you of anything. They simply make you do things and they benefit from that. There are people in this country who are opposed to that, they are anti-authoritarian. And if you look at who we book on this show, that may explain why we do it. You may have noticed we have a lot of former lefties on the show. Glenn Greenwald is the most obvious. Alex Berenson as well. And many others.
Now, we probably don't agree with these people on a lot of things. Are we on the same side on abortion? We've never asked. But one thing we know for certain is that they are totally opposed to authoritarianism. So that really is the divide. People are for an authoritarian America and those who are for a free America. It's that simple. And once you start to understand politics through that lens, you figure out what's really going on.
By the way, looking at polls, is an unusually bad way to understand what's happening in American politics? Polls are often wrong and when they are wrong, they're almost always wrong in the same directionthe last presidential election made that very clear. The polling outfit Quinnipiac, for example, which is attached to some kind of college in Connecticut, predicted that Joe Biden would win the popular vote by 11 points. It also predicted that Mitch McConnell was in tough shape in Kentucky. Pollsters even convinced a lot of Democratic Party donors that they had a real shot of winning the state of Texas. In retrospect, it's clear all of this was partisan fantasy and it had a purpose. It was all designed to make a mentally decaying senator from Delaware look like Teddy Roosevelt riding a massive wave of popular support. Of course, that was a lie.
So once you understand that once you recognize what these polls are actually designed to do. They're designed to put Democratic Party leaders in the best possible light. It is worth noting when the polls move in the opposite direction. When they start to reflect badly on the Democratic Party. That's been happening over the past several weeks. According again to Quinnipiac, a reliably Left-Wing pollster, Joe Biden's national approval rating is now 38 percent. 60 percent of independents disapprove of what Joe Biden is doing as president. A new AP poll noted that just 34 percent of Americans are pleased with the direction of the country. That's called the right track wrong track poll. And for the party in power, it is very bad news.
PSAKI GRILLED ON BIDEN'S REALLY TERRIBLE POLLS, BLAMES DELTA VARIANT, UNVACCINATED AMERICANS
This means that the very same people who just last year lied to you to your face about how popular Joe Biden was are now admitting that he is actually the least popular president in modern political history. Why are they telling you this all of a sudden? Why are these reliably Democratic pollsters telling Democratic voters that their president is unpopular? Maybe because they have no choice. Maybe there are other reasons, we're not sure. What is absolutely clear is that, according to a new poll from Pew, Democratic Party, voters understand what this means and what it means is in a free and fair democratic system, they can't win.
If we allocate power based on who's the most popular with the public and that's the basic premise of democracy, the Democratic Party is in very tough shape and they know that. And that may be why, according to polls, Democrats now overwhelmingly want the government to make their political opponents shut up. More than three-quarters of Democratic Party voters want the tech companies to "restrict false information online, even if it limits freedom of information." Think about that for a second. More than 60 percent of Democratic voters want the federal government to "control that flow of information over the internet."
So all of that contravenes the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, which is the very core of our system of government and of our culture, it's what makes America great. And now the overwhelming majority of Democratic voters are against it.
So that's authoritarianism, there's no other word for it. And it's ironic considering for four years, prominent Democrats told us we were living through a fascist system. Donald Trump was a fascist. But of course, they were describing their own attitudes. So we're going to look at the rise of authoritarian impulses on the left and try to figure out where those came from and where they're going. Now, none of this is brand new. You'll recall that Democratic Party politicians have been pushing for censorship for a long time, certainly since Trump won in 2016. They blame that victory on Facebook. Here's Ed Markey in last October, for example, calling for more censorship.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass: The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down. The issue is that theyre leaving too many dangerous posts up. In fact, amplifying harmful content so that it spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy.
Oh, they're not censoring enough because these posts, according to Ed Markey, who will literally say anything you should know, are, quote, dangerous. But Markey never explained what was dangerous about them. But you got the message they all did. A few weeks after Markey said that Big Tech effectively removed the elected president of the United States from the internet, they silenced him completely and virtually nobody said anything about it. So it didn't stop, it merely accelerated. Now, Democrats and their allies in the news media have decided to drop all pretense.
GREENWALD: FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER IS BEING EMBRACED BY LIBERALS INTENT ON CONTROLLING POLITICAL DISCOURSE
Jonathan Chait writes for New York Magazine. He's considered smart on the left, one of the weirdest people practicing journalism today. He just published a deeply revealing piece in New York magazine. Here's the headline from it and we're quoting "Anybody fighting Joe Biden is helping Trump's next coup. All Republican politics is now functionally authoritarian." Right, because Republicans are calling for censorship. So that's how the Democratic Party is responding to the collapsing poll numbers of their president. They're accusing the other side of authoritarianism while practicing it themselves. Right.
So you'll recall that Joe Biden voters destroyed statues and destroyed our country's biggest cities for more than a year, and the police did nothing about it. And our media class applauded. And yet, because justice is no longer meted out equally if someone dares to dishonor the legacy of St. George Floyd, the New York Police Department Special Hate Crimes Division springs into action. Here's an actual quote, by the way, from this week on October 3rd, 2021 at approximately 10:15 a.m. in Union Square Park, a person on a skateboard threw gray paint on the face and base of a statue of George Floyd. That's the NYPD bulletin. Information, contact us!
So that's not really hypocrisy anymore, it's hierarchy. What they're telling you is that crimes against their ideas are the only crimes that matter. Well, that attitude has no popular support in this country, so you can only enforce it by force using surveillance to root out people who've got the wrong ideas. And that's exactly the basis on which the Biden administration is proceeding. That's why the administration has now given itself the authority to monitor everything that happens, for example, in your private bank account.
CNBCs Andrew Ross Sorkin: An effort that I know youre a proponent of for the IRS to collect more information and more tax dollars but more information about taxpayer bank accounts, including annual cash flows. I was curious whether you think the IRS has the wherewithal to actually do that.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen: Well of course they do. // And a simple way for the IRS to get sense of where that might be is just a few pieces of information about individuals bank accounts
Did you see that? The most interesting part of that exchange was not the Treasury secretary, she's embraced authoritarianism full-blown. It's the creepy little shill from CNBC. And the question is not does the IRS have the right to snoop into your bank account with no evidence you've done anything wrong? His question is, do they have the wherewithal, do they have the manpower? Can they actually pull it off? To what she says, of course, were the governmentwe can do anything.
WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD: THE IRS WANTS TO LOOK AT YOUR BANK ACCOUNT
So after January 6, this show reported that Bank of America "proactively" rooted through customers private financial information to find individuals who "met thresholds of interests." They spied on their own customers and then, like the good East Germans, they are, they passed those names to the FBI without telling anybody involved. The Democratic Party approves of this, and they want to make certain this kind of invasion of privacy is permanent. It's codified. And of course, they want to control your children to the center of your life. They'll destroy anyone who tries to stand in the way of this.
Bradley Keyes, for example, was a track and field coach at Pembroke Academy. He was fired because he didn't think it was good for his athletes to have to wear masks as they were playing tennis
Bradley Keyes, April 9: My goal is to get these mandates removed. And it's not just track and field. It's tennis. It is baseball. It's every outdoor sport. Masks will be worn at all times: practices and competitions. Tennis, wonderful example. Singles tennis. You go watch practices, everyone is wearing masks. Competitions, they will be wearing masks, even though they're 30 to 60 feet apart on the courts.
So we're going to tell you, we've told you a thousand times before, none of this is science. There's not a single study anywhere in the world that suggests kids benefit by wearing masks as they play sports outdoors. In fact, they are hurt by it. That's both common sense and the scientific consensus on the question. But the fact is it's happening anyway, and that's the point. They don't feel the need to justify their decisions with science, and in fact, they will punish actual scientists who object to these unnecessary medical mandates.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Aaron Kheriaty, for example, as a physician at the University of California, he's the director of the medical ethics program at UC Irvine. Not a small job. He's just announced the university has "Put me on leave for challenging their vaccine mandates in court." Oh, so it's not a question of whether vaccine mandates help or hurt or good for public health, it's about power. And anyone who challenges it is crushed. The weak are hurt the most profoundly, as always.
Here's the story we'll be telling you a lot more about it in the coming weeks about a woman in Colorado who is facing death. She's got stage five renal failure. She's just been denied a kidney transplant. Now she has a donor, a willing donor, who has a kidney for her. Everything is ready to go. But according to the health system there, the woman and her donor have not taken the COVID shot. The donor explained that her vaccination status "does not affect any other patient on the transplant list... How can I sit here" the donor asked, "and allow them to murder my friend when I've got a perfectly good kidney and I can save her life?" That's a great question. No one the Biden administration has bothered to answer or even think about it. Instead, they're forcing anyone who raises these questions to be quiet. That's not a democratic system. That's an authoritarian system.
This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the October 8, 2021 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
- The Survival of Democracy Depends on Our Willingness to Fight - Democracy Docket - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Professor Contributes to International Collaboration Examining AI and Democracy - University of New Haven - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- What Is Democracy Beyond Elections? - promarket.org - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- EU's Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2024 - EEAS - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Helldivers 2: Heart of Democracy update live, brings the fight to the streets of Super Earth - PlayStation.Blog - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Has Trump killed US democracy? - Funding the Future - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- No Surrender: The Boss Is Showing How to Stand Up to Trump - Democracy Docket - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Popes understand better than politicians the weaknesses of democracy - Catholic Herald - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Restore the Balance hosts panel on state of American democracy - The Durango Herald - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Libraries are a pillar of democracy. We need to defend them against attack | Opinion - Austin American-Statesman - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Nothing Can Justify It: Journalist Gideon Levy Reacts to Killing of Israeli Embassy Staffers in D.C. - Democracy Now! - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Letter: When true Democracy is a tricky thing - Chico Enterprise-Record - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- A Gross Usurpation of Power: Federal Judge Reverses Trumps Closure of U.S. Institute for Peace - Democracy Now! - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Bernie Sanders agrees Democratic Party is 'threat to democracy,' removed process from its constituents - Fox News - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- SCOTUS Gives Trump Green Light to Fire Heads of Independent Agencies - Democracy Now! - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Council of Europe brings young people together to discuss democracy, rights and diversity - coe.int - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Brazilian jurists Alexandre de Moraes, Crmen Lcia join experts on fact-checking and democracy as speakers at GlobalFact 12 - Poynter - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Democracy is messy, and thats a good thing - The Globe and Mail - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Letter to The Editor | Response to Democracy On A Budget - RVA Mag - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Theft from On High: Trumps Budget Bill Guts Medicaid, Medicare & More to Pay for Tax Cuts - Democracy Now! - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- The Biden cover-up and a credibility crisis that threatens democracy - JNS.org - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- The Worst Its Ever Been: U.K. Surgeon in Gaza Warns Kids Are Bearing Brunt as Israel Widens Assault - Democracy Now! - May 24th, 2025 [May 24th, 2025]
- Joe Concha says Democrats are squashing democracy, accuses them of holding fixed primaries - Fox News - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Justice Sotomayors Message to Lawyers: Stand Up, Fight and Win - Democracy Docket - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Is Germany protecting its democracy or suppressing free speech? - The Hill - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- U2 Legend Bono on Why the World Has Forgotten What Freedom and Democracy Mean - The Hollywood Reporter - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Lt. Gen. Charles D. Luckey on the Role of the Military in Upholding Democracy - RNS | Covering the world of religion. - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Battle for Democracy Plays Out in the Streets of Turkey - Stimson Center - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Distributing intimate images without consent isnt just a crime, its a threat to democracy - Virginia Mercury - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Is the AfD Too Extreme for Democracy? - The Atlantic - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- To protect democracy, we must hang together | Opinion - The Portland Press Herald - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Confronting the Threat to Democracy: A Call to Action for Arizona Business and Civic Leaders - The Fulcrum - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Congressional Agency Rebuffs Trump Bid to Expand Power Grab - Democracy Docket - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Letter | The river of democracy, rerouted - The Daily Progress - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- U.S. Allies Rally to Support Democracy and Come to Terms With a New U.S. Foreign Policy - Council on Foreign Relations - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Contemplating Democracy on the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia - International IDEA - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- New Ruling Cuts Off Key Tool to Protect Minority Voters - Democracy Docket - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Why libraries are the cornerstone of democracy in the words of just-fired Librarian of Congress - WGBH - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Editorial: Brave judges hold the line on democracy - Valley News - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Trumps Department of Education Has Become a Threat to Democracy - The Fulcrum - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Letters to the Editor: Congress, its time to right the ship before democracy capsizes - Los Angeles Times - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Salvadoran Journalists Exposed Pres. Bukeles Ties to Gangs. Then They Had to Flee to Avoid Arrest - Democracy Now! - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- Israel Kills 150 Palestinians in Gaza in Bloodiest Day Since It Shattered Ceasefire - Democracy Now! - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- What seems like the end is only the beginning Democracy and society - ips-journal.eu - May 17th, 2025 [May 17th, 2025]
- 'Beacon of freedom' dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither under Trump - AP News - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Bulwark on Sunday: Our Democracy Is Actually Dying (w/ Daniel Ziblatt) - The Bulwark - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- For Many, the Democracy Israelis Fear Losing Never Existed in the First Place - Haaretz - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Texans get a grueling lesson in democracy after driving to the Capitol to testify on a bill - Alternet - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- 'Destroy American democracy as we know it': Inside the GOP plot to attack your right to vote - Alternet - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Protecting democracy is not enough: five things Americans must fight for | Huck Gutman - The Guardian - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Opinion | Voices Against Trumps Assault on Democracy - The New York Times - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- 'Beacon of freedom' dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither under Trump - ABC News - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Opinion | How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy? - The New York Times - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- The growing threat to U.S. democracy will literally cost lives - The Conversation - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- We Have More Power Than Trump Wants Us To Believe Heres What You Can Do - Democracy Docket - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Is Ivory Coast's red card politics an own goal for democracy after Tidjane Thiam's ban - BBC - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- My Time on 60 Minutes and Why I Refuse To Stay Silent - Democracy Docket - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- The Democracy Dilemma Are Grantmakers Meeting the Moment? - fundsforNGOs - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- DOJ Wont Appeal Judges Order Against Trumps Anti-Voting Decree - Democracy Docket - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Opinion: Canada has the form of democracy, but not the substance - The Globe and Mail - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- 'Beacon of freedom' dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither under Trump - WV News - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- 'Beacon of freedom' dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither under Trump - The Star Democrat - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- 'Beacon of freedom' dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither under Trump - Caledonian Record - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- How to Identify the Right Donors for Your Democracy Project - fundsforNGOs - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- PPPs midnight coup leaves South Koreas democracy on the brink - Asia Times - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- 'Beacon of freedom' dims as US initiatives that promote democracy abroad wither under Trump - The Derrick - May 11th, 2025 [May 11th, 2025]
- Partisan and creepy interviews are threat to democracy, Nick Robinson says - The Guardian - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Star Wars-themed democracy rally held in Irvine - FOX 11 Los Angeles - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- End Times Fascism: Naomi Klein on How Trump, Musk, Far Right Dont Believe in the Future - Democracy Now! - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Australians sizzle on election day with 'democracy sausage' and 'budgy smugglers' - Reuters - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Claims Criticisms Of Judges Are 'Attacks On Democracy' | Will Cain Show - Fox News - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Hundreds rally in Farmington for democracy and climate action - The Portland Press Herald - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Chilling: Wisconsin Gov. Evers Pushes Back After Trumps Border Czar Threatens to Arrest Him - Democracy Now! - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Students and faculty advocate for academic freedom at pro-democracy rally - The Stanford Daily - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Opinion | 3.5% and the Hopeful Math for Saving Democracy - Common Dreams - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- In Brief with Mu Sochua, President of the Khmer Movement for Democracy - 9DashLine - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Democracy on edge: Germany labels leading AfD a 'far-right threat,' facing historic clash - Haaretz - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- May Day Alaska: Rallies support workers and protest Trump, threats to democracy - Alaska Beacon - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- Trumps Assault on PBS and NPR Chooses Oligarchy Over Press Freedom and Democracy - The Nation - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]
- How Bad Is It?: Andrew Marantz on the Health of Our Democracy - The New Yorker - May 5th, 2025 [May 5th, 2025]