As David Neiwert just discussed here, the right is in full-on freak out mode about the Pentagon’s anti-extremist initiative, where they’re trying to root out right-wing extremists and the white supremacists in their ranks, and to no one’s surprise, this had Tucker Carlson’s head ready to explode over on Fox “news.”
Carlson attacked the move as a “political purge of the military” and ranted that they should instead label Black Lives Matter an extremist group, before bringing on wingnut Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz to whine about “cancel culture” and “wokeness” at the Department of Defense.
To no one’s surprise, Carlson’s White Power Hour (as we like to call it) is equating white supremacy with the entire Republican party. Sadly these days, he’s not wrong.
Here’s Carlson and Gaetz with a big heaping helping of right-wing projection, accusing others of gaslighting, and the SPLC of being a “hate group,” for anyone that doesn’t want to subject themselves to listening to the clip above.
CARLSON: So, as far as I know, you were the only Republican in that hearing who seemed upset about what you were hearing. First tell us, is that true? Why were you the only one that was upset about it? And second, what were you hearing?GAETZ: Well, Congressman Austin Scott and Scott DesJarlais both also stood up for members of our military. The problem with Republicans is that we surrender the frame. We allow ourselves to be lulled into this concept that what we really need to be talking about is whether or not there are people who liked the wrong meme, or who might be members of the wrong listserv, or get their news in the wrong places.
Look, in China right now, Tucker, they’re not doing gender sensitivity training. They’re not wondering whether or not their military is woke enough. They are wondering whether they are advancing in critical areas like quantum computing and artificial intelligence.
Now we see the “woke-ification” of the Department of Defense, and the reason why is because the leftists have long since taken control of the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Department of State. And the Department of Defense was this last bastion where conservatives maintained a substantial amount of influence, and they’re trying to strangle out right-leaning folks who are in the military by monitoring their social media.
And what troubles me is that this discussion in Congress is gaslighting exactly what the Biden administration is doing. They’re worried about wokeness, not winning, and our country deserves better and our military deserves better.
CARLSON: Well, we need better. I mean, flat out. enough to we have a guy with Hitler memes on his Facebook page and garbage BLM propaganda overseeing hiring for the Navy seals? Why is there not some red alert going off among Republicans in Congress, like this is very serious?
GAETZ: The left is always good at designating the umpire, which is what they’re doing at the senior levels of the military right now. Do you know who we had testifying in front of us on this issue in Congress? The Southern Poverty Law Center.
We literally had a hate group lecturing us about hate. The Southern Poverty Law Center, of course, even designated Ben Carson a person of hate. So it won’t just be white members of the military who that hunted. It will be anyone who might have politics that doesn’t align with the ruling class and that should trouble every American.
What should trouble Americans is the radicalization of so many members of our military (and the entire Republican party for that matter) that participated in the MAGA sedition riot on January 6th, but in right-wing world, that’s been shoved down the memory hole, where it’s either no longer discussed, or where Trump is allowed to try to pretend it didn’t even happen.
