Photo: Alamy
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson broke the internet on Wednesday night after posting a monologue on Twitter that garnered millions of views, proving that online media has eclipsed traditional cable TV.
Carlson, whose shocking departure from Fox News was announced on Monday, had been noticeably quiet in the wake of the news. RSBN reported earlier this week that Carlson had been spotted in public this week with his wife in Boca Grande, Florida. He was all smiles and appeared to be in good spirits.
On Wednesday evening, he posted a video on Twitter where he addressed his audience with his signature rapid-fire monologue style, slamming censorship and speaking to the “hope” that Americans could cling to.
He started off, “One of the first things you realize when you step outside the noise for a few days, is how many genuinely nice people there are in this country – kind and decent people, people who really care about this country, and a bunch of hilarious people, also. A lot of those. It’s got to be a majority of the population, even now. So that’s heartening.”
While Carlson gave no reason for his exit at Fox News, he took the high road in his monologue and expressed how “unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are.”
He added, “They’re completely irrelevant, they mean nothing. In five years we won’t even remember that we had them.”
The popular media personality noted that the “undeniably big things, the ones that will define our future” like “war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, [and] natural resources” received basically no air time on television today.
He said that both political parties in the U.S. had “reached consensus” as to what benefited them and were stifling all other conversations in American media.
“They actively collude to shut down any conversation about it,” Carlson continued. “Suddenly the United States looks very much like a one party state. That’s a depressing realization, but it’s not permanent. Our current orthodoxies won’t last – they’re brain dead. Nobody actually believes them.”
He also slammed “liars” and elevated the voice of truth, concluding, “When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars that have been trying to silence them shrink and they become weaker….true things prevail. Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.”
Carlson’s video on Twitter alone garnered 49.3 million views in less than 24 hours after posting, and they are still climbing. This is significant because the number of primetime viewers for networks like CNN and Fox News is much lower.
DC Enquirer reported that Brian Kilmeade, who replaced Tucker Carlson’s time slot on Fox News, only netted 1.7 million viewers on Tuesday night this week.