Of Mobs and Men, Part 2: Would the Real Howard Beale Please Stand Up

In the last few days, a new controversy has bubbled up across the media landscape. Fox News personality (let us just dispense with the notion that Fox News is engaging in anything relating to journalism), Tucker Carlson claimed that his home was "attacked" by protesters. Carlson claimed people were trying to break down his door, his wife was hiding in a pantry, and that they threatened to kill him. 

Other commentators and media personalities immediately took to social media to decry this as "going too far." Then they spilled out onto the op-ed pages of major news organizations. They came not only from the far right and the usual suspects considered "principles conservatives," but also from a fair number of personalities and journalists more associated with a "moderate" leftist perspective. For a few days, media watchdog organizations, much of the media themselves, and many who are regarded as "sensible" leaders or beloved personalities on the left, jumped on the train to defend the sanctity of Tucker Carlson's home and the safety of his family.

It's well meaning and well intended to come to someones defense when it seems their home and family have been threatened. It's also, in this case, catastrophically wrong. 

To put it plainly, this was yet another scam. Protesters from the group Smash Racism DC did protest at Tucker Carlson's home. That is the only part of the story that is even remotely related to the truth. A public defender was able to get a copy of the police report related to the protest. Nowhere does it mention the version of events Carlson described. Tucker Carlson lied to smear people who chose to non-violently confront him based on the fact that he has arguably become one of the most persistent, high profile disseminators of white supremacist rhetoric and ideology that can be found on a national television outlet. 

Tucker Carlson has gone beyond the standard "conservative" practice of dog whistle phrasing meant to signify allegiance with white grievance. The editorial decisions being made about what topics to cover on his nightly program are directly lifted from the feverish terrors of white supremacist literature and web content. He's not wearing a Swastika pin or a white hood, and he's not giving the Nazi salute or reciting the 14 words, but he is definitely speaking directly to the interests of the white supremacist movement, in language that mirrors their own. 

Essentially, Tucker Carlson is using his show and his platform on a major network to promote white supremacist ideology, which is entirely, inherently, fundamentally built on lies. He gets on television, night after night, and lies to tens of millions of people, trying to convince them there is some combination of Black/brown, Jewish, gay, Muslim enemy that wants to destroy them and their entire lineage, with the help of whatever passes for "liberal establishment" on that day. This menace, as far as the white supremacist narrative goes, wants to not only erase them from the future by replacing them, but it wants to erase them from history as well. It wants to subjugate them by any and all necessary means. Nightly, this is the message Tucker Carlson and his ilk send into the homes of millions of people in the U.S. 

It's all lies. Daily lies. Yet, somehow, when the entire basis of his programming is a persistent campaign of disinformation designed through trial and error of focused determination by white supremacists, to foment white racial hatred and misogyny, Tucker Carlson can simply be taken at face value when he claims that anti-racist activists tried to break into his home and threatened to kill him? 

This is a much bigger issue than Tucker Carlson and this specific incident. Some of it stems from the desperate desire of people in the U.S. to believe this is a country about which something is very special, something inherently different from the other nations that currently exist or have ever existed. There are arguments that can be made that give some degree of support to that belief. At the same time, it has a bevy of pernicious results and the people in the US are currently doing their damnedest to prove that what they may have thought to be different about them, is a fantasy.  

Part of that belief system is related to common decency or a shared common good. We desperately want to believe in it. It's here that Tucker Carlson and his fellow apocalyptic crusaders are able to take advantage of a good will they extend to no one who isn't ideologically aligned with their own. This it's believed (especially by those who are of a more "moderate" or "centrist" political temperament and definitely white), is what makes "us" better than the Tucker Carlson's of the world. We sleep well in the self righteous belief we are better, and the conservative media industry knows this. Part of this idea of common decency is "we listen to people we disagree with." Because of how badly so many want to be perceived as being engaged in an effort of common decency, it seems we've never gotten around to being able to make a decision between what is "disagreement" and what is an all out assault on common decency and entire sections of the population of the world. Right wing media has been exploiting this for decades as well.  

We can go all the way back to the Satanic Panic of the 1980's to see that this isn't just a harmless set of mistakes. Instead, it was a controversy stitched together as a tapestry, whose every thread was based on lies and claims without factual basis. It had significant consequences. The West Memphis Three are the most well known. There were others though, as heartbreaking. The McMartin Preschool case is among them. 

The argument is, "the public is interested. It's our job to address the public interest." This line of thinking is what produces news outlets where a mass shooting is covered in the same thirty minute program as "Gangam style is sweeping the country!" Yes, one of these things is in the public's interest, and the other is of public interest. These are two different concepts. 

Satanic Panic was in part driven by the daily talk show circuit, and even those who would today be seen as having their sympathies and politics be solidly left (Oprah) were helping stoke that fire by giving it the oxygen of amplification. It's rarely brought up that the entire controversy, including the many false accusations that accompanied it, were a creation of conservative Christian ideology during their reassertion of power granted by Ronald Reagan. Consider that in Tucker Carlson's claims of an "attack" on his home and in the Satanic Panic cases, false allegations meant to directly tap into the particular zeitgeist of the time are employed. It's an important factor, and it's going to come up repeatedly. It's equally important to point out that the fear of false allegations has been a central point in the public response of the "conservative" movement and the Republican Party where women have come forward to tell their stories of sexual abuse and rape. 

This is a pattern, the creation of a controversy, with false allegations, that even those who are otherwise politically and socially the left end of the American political spectrum give both amplification and sympathy. It's a cycle of swindling. At some point, the question of common decency and public good has to turn to whether or not there is anything decent in continuing to allow a pack of swindlers, who are creating a creating a dedicated following drunk on a cocktail of white supremacy, religion, classist hatred of the poor and naked greed should given anything like the a consideration as "good will" participants in a civil society. 

This is a quick list of some of the other controversies based on false allegations: 

1. The ACORN video controversy. - Here's how it was initially covered. It's definitely wasn't just CNN either. NPR hopped on that train as well. The reality turned out to be something significantly different. ACORN had been serving minority communities, for decades. The controversy destroyed it, and the brought significant hardship to those who had worked to make the organizations a public good. 

2. Planned Parenthood sells baby parts - CNN was on the case immediately, yet again. Planned Parenthood has been one of the bogeymen of right wing politics for decades. That it provides health care services to more low income women than any other provider in the country doesn't matter to them. There's political significance because some of it's locations also perform abortion. That this resulted in criminal charges for the conspirators who created the videos, hasn't changed the depth to which it has taken hold in conservative rhetoric. 

3. 2009 DHS Terror Threat report - In 2009, Department of Homeland Security issued an internal report reflecting on the fact that far right extremists had become more of a threat for terrorist attacks within the US than the Islamic religious extremists it had been focused on for almost a decade. It's there in the very first sentence, "Conservatives are up in arms..." Conservatives called it a "witch hunt" and did everything they could to delegitimize it, within DHS and in the public square. Now, law enforcement, from DHS on down to local police are saying they are "unprepared" for the greatest threat for mass casualty attacks that people in the US face. *Note to readers - I wrote a long piece specifically about those claims by DHS, but related tangentially to the effects of continuing to believe there is a separation between mainstream conservatism and the same far right that is a threat of mass violence. Check it out here.*

4. Voter Fraud - This one is playing out with significant consequences, right now. It's being deployed in every close race across the country, including Georgia, Florida and Arizona. Voter fraud is a persistent mythic controversy in the world of conservative media. However, voter suppression has been widespread in GOP controlled states on levels not seen since Jim Crowe. Again, there are false allegations, without evidence, that stand in contrast to the actions of the conservative movement and it's political arm, the GOP. The false allegations are hiding the actions they're actually taking to undermine the power of the vote, the very thing their claims of voter fraud are meant to be a defense of. That hasn't stopped many of the most respected outlets from covering elections as if massive voter suppression was not demonstrable and being prosecuted by one political party. Horse race political coverage sells content. It may be just too much for news outlets to consider that the GOP may be undermining the confidence in elections purposely, and not just to win this particular election. 

5. Campus free speech - This has been another conservative bogeyman for years. It's the persistent claim that universities and colleges target conservatives for suppression of their speech. Again, the data tells an entirely different story. Free speech is not having it's best days on college campuses, what with the Professor Watchlist put together by conservative activists and all, but the story is much more complicated than all that. 

6. The Birther Movement - Who can forget this one? It has all the best elements, proof to the contrary, racist overtones (and undertones, and through lines, it's just racist through and through). The claim was Obama was born in Kenya, and is a secret Muslim. It's what gives Donald Trump the foundation for a political career. A sitting president had to produce his birth certificate to prove his citizenship (citizenship being an obsession with the now Trump admin, not shockingly, considering how well it worked for him before). Two factors were equal in their ability to predict the likelihood of an individual voting for Donald Trump, negative attitudes about Black people and negative attitudes about Muslims. Obama, the conspiracy held, was both. 

In total, including Tucker Carlson and the Satanic Panic, that is 8 sets of false allegations and/or conspiracy theories that have been pushed by or embraced by the major conservative outlets and by local and federal GOP politicians. It's not even close to a complete list. That list would take months to properly document, maybe even years, as it seems weekly, there is some new set of claims that are provably false, and reiterated ad infinitum on the airwaves, websites and in the pages of major national outlets.  

This rush to accept as credible the claims of what is now an entire media industry dedicated to misinformation and fomenting fear and outrage that evidence clearly contradicts presents a significant danger to the lives of millions of people in the US. The Satanic Panic put people in jail for decades. Funding for the broad spectrum of medical care that Planned Parenthood provides is constantly under threat. ACORN was a 45 year old organization that was going good work in low income minority communities. Tanking the DHS terror report has made for an environment where no one is prepared to deal with the most significant threat of terrorism and mass casualty attacks that we face today. Baseless allegations of voter fraud don't just threaten to shake public confidence in the entire American political system.

*Note to readers - FBI hate crime statistics were released today. There was a 17% increase in hate crimes in the first year of the Trump administration. The effects of media personalities like Tucker Carlson are real. It should also be mentioned that reporting of hate crimes skews low for three reasons. 1) Effected communities often have a tenuous relationship with law enforcement, and therefore don't report hate crimes. 2) Reporting is done on a voluntary basis by law enforcement, so if a department decides not to report, they just don't have to. 3) Hate crime legislation varies from state to state, and some states have hate crime statutes that are incredibly hard to prosecute, by design. Those states also often have an environment in which law enforcement will only report crimes that have a designation of hate crime attached. District attorneys are less likely to prosecute under a hate crime statute if it requires an undue burden of proof, and therefore, law enforcement doesn't report them as hate crimes. Those things, taken in combination mean there is a high likelihood of many more hate crimes being committed than are being reported to the FBI. Example: Charlottesville PD reported a single hate crime, as a simple assault in 2016. The numerous assault, assault and battery and the vehicular homicide, aren't reported. 

This is not a history of mistakes. This is a history of con artists and swindlers taking advantage of the attempt to allow a misguided good will by outlets that aren't overtly conservative, in the most charitable definition. The less charitable take is that revenue is king, and so long as these conspiracies and scams sell content, they will be king as well. 

Let's look at a slightly different way that this kind of bad faith manipulation works, and the very real consequences it has. 

Following the death of Freddie Gray in 2015, while in police custody in Baltimore, protests began. Black Lives Matter had been there in numerous other cities when Black people were killed by police under questionable circumstances. They were there in Baltimore, addressing a disturbing history of police violence against the city's Black population. By this point, Black Lives Matter has long been a lightning rod for conservative accusations and conspiracy theories. Protests erupt into near full scale civil unrest. This is script as old as the Industrial Revolution. Conservative commentators decry unrest as lawlessness, depict the participants as criminals, animals and the like, despite the data that tells an entirely different story. Ignoring the pleas of activists, community members, local organizations and their accusations of widespread police misconduct, this mostly Black city becomes a constant news item, for weeks. Cable news runs footage of the Uprising at every possible opportunity. Front pages of most national outlets are covered in descriptors and explainers of different kinds, always attempting to not present what could be constituted as a bias. Certainly not presenting a narrative that suggests widespread unrest and widespread neglect are inextricably interwoven, and that one is a guarantor for the other. None of the officers in the case is convicted in Gray's death. 

But the Uprising (as residents and activists in Baltimore refer to it) ends, and things go back to "normal." The media moves on. 

In 2016, the DOJ releases a report saying the Baltimore Police Department is abusive and corrupt on multiple levels. The DEA had begun investigating the Gun Trace Task Force unit in 2015. It eventually proves a criminal conspiracy within the unit, of proportions that should be unthinkable. In many ways, it mirrors the LAPD Rampart scandal. The Gun Trace Task Force unit is acting as it's own criminal organization, within the Baltimore PD. It's been given it's own broad authority, and is either acting without oversight at all or acting within a command system that ignores this criminal activity. The criminal proceedings turn up evidence and incidents that mirror exactly what activists, community members and local organizations have said for years prior to the Uprising. Possibly the only thing more jaw dropping than the scope of the criminal activity the Task Force was engaged in, is the assertion that no other parts of the department had any idea it was happening. Eight officers are convicted on charges related to the investigation, crimes over a period of many years. 

By this time though, it's 2016. The Uprising has been forgotten in national media coverage and the minds of the public. At this point, it's all Trump, all the time. This isn't to say Trump shouldn't be covered. He should. He's shown himself to either be a completely incompetent narcissist or a dangerously ascending authoritarian. That needs to be covered. Panel after panel featuring one side trying to appear objective while the other attempts to warp the bounds of observable reality isn't necessary. They're lying, that much has already been demonstrated. 

In continuing to cater to those lies, the truth of the Baltimore Uprising is obscured or left out altogether. Eight police officers sitting through trials, and be convicted on a breathtaking variety of charges, some of the crimes being downright vicious, isn't the kind of compelling television as protesters clashing with police, the burning buildings that result from it or the eponymous narratives about looting. The story of the Uprising ends up disconnected from the story of the Gun Trace Task Force, and in the public mind, it's still just poor black people, frustrated and angry because they're poor. Being poor can be explained away, by any variety of things in the grab bag of conservative talking points. To some degree, it seems America just thinks most Black people are or should be poor, and that's the natural order. Here though, in this instance, the community and activists in it, spoke directly to the exact kind of tactics those police were eventually convicted for. 

Conservative commentators had a field day with addressing the Uprising. They got to do it on every cable news channel, in the pages and on the sites of many of the most respected news outlets in the country. The lack of coverage of the Gun Trace court cases means the same misrepresentations and lies they've always told, don't get the most direct challenge to them that has come in decades. The story of the Baltimore Uprising wasn't over when people left the streets. It didn't start with Freddie Gray. The Gun Trace task force backs up the claims of activists, organizers, clergy, community members of all kinds have said about how why there was an uprising in the first place, but that story isn't told. What happens the next time there is an uprising, in Baltimore or some other city? Does the general public have the context they need? Who holds public officials, including law enforcement, accountable in an effective way when they don't have that full context? When do police unions face real opposition in trying to paint any calls for accountability as "endangering the lives of police" as they help to put officers back on duty that endanger the lives of the public? There are news outlets, on the ground, in Baltimore, who have gotten this story right, but they are few and they don't have an audience at all comparable to that of national outlets. Even after the verdicts in the Gun Task Force trial were returned, the major national outlets didn't bother to go back and even interview local community members, activists, clergy or anyone they'd been interviewing as the Uprising was happening.

Many of those same conservative commentators, they're still commenting in all those same outlets, pushing the same discredited ideas and narratives, on a daily basis. Maybe some of those outlets have found new commentators, journalists or whatever we want to call them, but the fact that they're still pushing the same discredited narratives makes them no less swindlers and snake oil peddlers. That the Gun Trace Task Force cases are undeniable proof that Black Lives Matter as a movement, and the various attendant protests that have sprung from it (including kneeling athletes) have direct cause, including the attacks it has weathered from conservative media, would completely sink the dynamic of a large part of U.S. news coverage. Now, we have a DOJ that has instituted the policy of following "Black Identity Extremists" with no real definition of what that is, and even former FBI officials are saying it's preposterous. All the while, the DOJ has somehow missed the threat of our most clear and present danger. There are material consequences for giving  right wing media figures a place in national media that does not treat them as bad faith actors. 

 By continuing this dynamic, even the most well meaning of journalists or news organizations are directly aiding an environment and ecosystem which guarantees the demise of well meaning journalists and news organizations. It's also continuing the further spread and rise of white supremacist violence. 

This all brings to mind the film Network. It's narrative of the competition between profit motive, public good, exploitation, ratings, catastrophic mental health episodes, and the publics insatiable appetite for all of it, seems more than prophetic at this point. Prescient doesn't even quite cover it. It's almost enough to make it sensible to question whether there a "magic mirror" was somehow involved. 

The difference now being that it's not clear who the players are, which part of this cast is playing which role. Are the Tucker Carlson's the real Howard Beales, spraying their discontent across the media landscape to the applause of an adoring, unknowing audience? Or is it the various other organizations who continue to allow an entire movement that has been peddling lies for decades on their outlets the real Howard Beales, because they're particular version of optimism is at this point suicidal? It could also be the rest of us are the real Howard Beale. Those who are imploring our national press to wake up from the coma that was induced from too many years of comfortable positions as consensus makers in cooperation with the political establishment, howling into a void that doesn't just swallow us, but incorporates us, exploits the discontent, and turns it into just another piece of content to sell.

We may not be able to say who the real Howard Beale is until it's already too late.