Minneapolis Raging, Tucker Carlson A Raging Dick

A stable island of certainty and hypocrisy in an uncertain time.

Protests in Minneapolis over Monday's police killing of George Floyd segued into rioting last night — or insurrection, if you prefer, although we don't prefer violence of any kind. If police wouldn't choke black citizens to death while they're saying they can't breathe, that would definitely reduce the chances of unrest growing out of protests over police killing unarmed black people, is what we're getting at. Rioters looted a Target and several other stores in a shopping center across from the police station where the killer cops — who were quickly fired — were based. Fires destroyed an Auto Zone store and a low-income housing development that was under construction, and multiple stores and businesses in the area were robbed or had their windows broken. At least one person was shot dead, reportedly; a pawnshop owner said the person was looting his business. The shooter was arrested and police are investigating.

It's fucking depressing, is what it is. The violence is a predictable — if not defensible — result of rage over years of police brutality and this one especially horrifying killing, but all we're going to hear about now is how Minneapolis is out of control and cops need to bust heads even more. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who has called for the cops involved in Floyd's killing to be arrested, also asked Gov. Tim Walz to deploy the National Guard to help keep order.

At least we always have Tucker Carlson to make matters worse.

The Fox News host explained that while police brutality and racism may be bad, property crimes are the real threat to America because rioting is "a form of tyranny." After all, America fought a revolutionary war to free itself from a tyrant, after an opportunistic George III of England stole a 70-inch TV from a big-box store.

While we'll leave the full accounting of looting porn to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, we would note that as some people were trying to burn down that Auto Zone store, some of the protesters who had gathered to demand justice for George Floyd were trying to put out the fire, too. So there's that.

The situation almost certainly became worse last night after cops responded to largely peaceful protests (but they damaged a squad car!) Tuesday night by firing tear gas into the crowd. It's almost as if escalation leads to escalation, just as years of police violence tends to leave people ready to burn things down. Not that we're endorsing burning things down.

Last night, Carlson explained that, of all the bad things in the news lately, the riots in Minneapolis are definitely the worst threat to America, because unlike a cop kneeling on the neck of a man begging to be allowed to breathe, the riots are violent .

Carlson euphemistically said that George Floyd "died in police custody," and that there's a good chance there may be arrests in his death. But the main point is that what's going on in Minneapolis wasn't a political protest at all, just a riot. Black lives may not matter, but property sure does.

So that's what rioting looks like. It happened last night, as you can see, it's happening right now. We want to be clear we're not showing you these pictures to defend the behavior of individuals in the Minneapolis Police Department [which was exactly why he was showing footage of people smashing a police SUV's rear window]. We're not. We're defending society itself.

Rioting is the one thing you don't want. Ugly opinions, police brutality, officious birdwatchers, rude entitled ladies walking their dogs in big city parks—all of that is bad, but none of it is nearly as bad as what you just saw.

I dunno, if it's a choice between a police cruiser's window being smashed and a murder, or even a Target store being looted and a murder, I'd prefer not murder. But do go on equating police brutality with an "officious birdwatcher."

The indiscriminate use of violence by mobs is a threat to every American of all colors and backgrounds and political beliefs. Democracy cannot exist when people are rioting. Rioting is a form of tyranny. The strong and the violent oppress the weak and the unarmed. It is oppression.

You know, we'd agree that democracy would not go well in a state of full-time rioting, and we are definitely not on the side of anyone calling for all riots, all the time. Still, bold rhetorical move to frame theft and arson as "tyranny" — especially to an audience that wants to water the Tree of Liberty with the blood of tyrants.

Carlson is presenting us with a fake binary here anyway: Democracy isn't going to go so well, as the Kerner Commission found way back in the '60s, when entire communities are consigned to poverty, disempowered by institutional racism, and subjected to brutal policing.

At least Carlson figured out the real reason for the unrest: It was CNN calling the people in Minneapolis "protesters" instead of rioters. and even worse, suggesting the violence had anything to do with calls for "justice" for George Floyd.

That was lying, and it's hard to overstate how sinister those lies are, or how dangerous they are to all of us. As we're often reminded, America is a diverse country. Diverse countries can only survive if the groups within them can coexist peacefully.

Oh, he's so close to getting it, as he's also a million miles away from ever getting it. You see, the problem is using the wrong words, and that's what causes violence. That, or noticing that not all the groups are treated equally, which is the real problem.

But news organizations like CNN do not want that, and that's why every day they work hard to fan racial resentment, to make different groups distrust and hate one another.

Yes, that's Tucker "Why Do We Even Need Diversity"McNear"Immigrants Make America Dirtier" Carlson explaining why we can't just get along. Please tune in for more healing fromAmerica's Radio Rwanda tomorrow.

Oh yes, and the armed goons swarming into state capitols to demand the right to get haircuts and spread a deadly virus? Carlson explained, of those armed protesters,

This is America. We're allowed to disagree with what our leaders do however we like. And we're allowed to express that disagreement in public. That's our birthright.

After all, there was a very big difference about those people. They didn't break any cop car windows, they just stormed the capitol with guns and spit and coughed on the cops in the midst of a very infectious and deadly pandemic. And that's how you rise up for a righteous revolution to save liberty.

[ Minneapolis Star-Tribune / Media Matters / Smithsonian ]

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