As the de facto voice of the MAGAs, Tucker Carlson’s George Wallace-like commentary is predictable. Regrettably, many MAGA-types have too many cultural, psychological, and other barriers to view the insurrection in any context other than “those people are causing trouble.”

The lamentable limitations of Carlson’s fans were summarized by Proudhon in the mid-19th century:

“…because of this ignorance of the primitiveness of their instincts, of the urgency of their needs, of the impatience of their desires, the people show a preference toward summary forms of authority. The thing they are looking for is not legal guarantees, of which they do not have any idea and whose power they do not understand, they do not care for intricate mechanisms or for checks and balances for which, on their own account, they have no use, it is a boss in whose word they confide, a leader whose intentions are known to the people and who devotes himself to its interests, that they are seeking. This chief they provided with limitless authority and irresistible power. Inclined toward suspicion and calumny, but incapable of methodical discussion, they believe in nothing definite save the human will.”

But Carlson is absolutely correct that Trump, Kushner, Pence, many other FOX commentators, not too mention the rest of the media and the political class do appear “weak” in the face of the insurrection because they have largely lost their legitimacy. Few trust or respect any of them. The insurrection is fourth-generation warfare in action, i.e. an insurrection by non-state actors functioning within a moral paradigm where perceived underdogs (victims of police brutality, poor and working-class people impoverished and placed under house arrest by the quarantine) are in revolt against a ruling class that has lost its perceived legitimacy.

By Peter Weber

Politico

Some people think President Trump’s threat to send the U.S. military into American cities to restore “law and order” is a frightening assault on civil liberties. Fox News host Tucker Carlson called it a good first step in a long and winding monologue Monday night.

“When the mobs came, they abandoned us,” Carlson began. “This is how nations collapse, when no one in authority keeps order.” He called the protesters “the worst people in our society” and the rioters “vicious psychopaths” who are “trying to topple our political system.” Americans “must protect ourselves and our families,” he said, “but we cannot allow ourselves to become like they are. We are not animals, we are Americans.” Our leaders “set us against each other,” he said, shifting gear, but “we will love our neighbors relentlessly and in spite of all of it, not just because they look like us or share our political views, but we love them because they are human beings and they are Americans. Those are the ties that bind us together, the bonds our leaders seek to destroy. We can’t let them.”

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