Democracy dies when all a politician wants is power.

  Two years after the January 6^th insurrection, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has released 41,000 hours of Capitol security video exclusively to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has fed the lies that the 2020 election was rigged against Donald Trump and that the riot in which the mob chanted “Hang Mike Pence” was no big deal. 

  McCarthy, who ran for Speaker partly on a promise to release the videos, declared that, “I said they do belong to the American public. I think sunshine lets everybody make their own judgment.” What he’s suggesting is that the insurrection is not what it appeared to be and the videos will prove it.

  It may be true that the videos belong to the public, but not to Tucker Carlson alone. McCarthy’s decision to give the videos to Carlson is an opportunity for  Fox News to present select clips from the tapes with a partisan spin that favors Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the criminals who tried to topple the government. It’s not sunshine, it’s the dark.

  Carlson has previously said of the insurrection that, “If we are being honest now, January 6 barely rates as a footnote.” And he said, “Really not a lot happened that day if you think about it.” What happened was a violent attempt to take over the Capitol of the United States.

  The duplicity of Tucker Carlson was revealed in the release of filings in the huge lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox for repeatedly broadcasting that the election machine company was party to vote rigging. Despite continuingly airing claims of election fraud by Trump allies Mike Lindell and Sidney Powell, Carlson said in internal communications that, “The fraud that we can confirm does not seem to be enough to alter the election results.” He said he thought Trump lawyer Sidney Powell was lying when she said she had proof the election was fixed.

  Yet at the same time, Carlson as well as other Fox luminaries and executives continued to air the tale of election fraud because that’s what the audience wanted to hear. Sean Hannity, who’s buddies with Donald Trump, told fellow Foxie Steve Doocy,  “you don’t piss off the base.”

  Loyal viewers were outraged when Fox scored a journalistic beat accurately calling Arizona for Joe Biden on election night. They didn’t want to hear it, and the network quickly began losing viewers to conservative rivals Newsmax and One America News. Talking about viewers, Carlson said in an internal note, “I’ve heard from angry viewers every hour of every day all weekend, including at dinner tonight.”

  Fox News then continued to air false claims of election fraud to hold its audience and keep making lots of money. 

  Kevin McCarthy did something similar. In those days of bargaining for votes on the speakership, McCarthy slowly doled out power and rewards to the party’s crazies, conspiracy mongers, and election deniers the likes of Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Paul Gosar, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who once floated the idea that space lasers were igniting California wildfires. Now she’s on the House Oversight Committee claiming that Dr. Anthony Fauci cooperated with China to create the coronavirus.

  It wasn’t the first time McCarthy chose power over truth. Two years ago as minority leader he tried to stack the January 6^th investigating committee with election deniers and Trump supporters. When Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two out of five McCarthy appointments, he withdrew all of them and refused to cooperate with the investigation. 

 Name a bill, a plan, or an idea that Kevin McCarthy has ever brought to Congress. You can’t. He was once described as  a man “fixated on how to win more elections, more often.” Kevin McCarthy’s entire motivation is power for himself and the Republican party, not the national good or protecting American democracy.

  That’s why McCarthy gave the Capitol videos to Tucker Carlson. In his quest for power for himself and the party, McCarthy gave the videos to a news operation that won’t tell the truth to an audience that doesn’t want to hear the truth. 

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