Ever since the failed MAGA coup of January 6, the GOP has had a decision to make: Is it the party of Donald Trump and QAnon, peddling conspiracy theories and known lies, or is it what it used to be, which is…well, not quite that. While Senate Minority Leader has signaled he wishes to return to the before-time, new lawmakers like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert want to take it in new and dangerous directions. On his Tuesday Fox News show, Tucker Carlson seemed to try to thread the needle between the two only to leave people wondering if he was playing dumb or if he actually was dumb.
Tucker Carlson says he couldn’t find any evidence that the Qanon conspiracy theory even exists, like theres nothing out there proving that it’s a thing pic.twitter.com/tqeYm73pAb
— Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) February 24, 2021
Carlson spent a segment trying to disprove the existence of QAnon, the fanciful theory that has poisoned many a mind, including Marjorie Taylor Greene’s. He detailed how he and his staff spent a day — a whole day — cruising the information superhighway, attempting to find something whose online existence is pretty well-documented. And yet they couldn’t find squat.
“It’s worth finding out where the public is getting all this false information — this ‘disinformation,’ as we’ll call it,” Carlson had the stones to say. But he and his staff found nary a QAnon. “We checked! We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which in the end we learned is not even a website. If it’s out there we could not find it. Then we checked Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter feed, because we have heard she traffics in disinformation, as CNN told us. But there’s nothing there.”
One could say Carlson wasn’t fooling anybody, but people were genuinely confused if he was being fake-dumb or sincerely stupid. Some went with fake-dumb.
Tucker, I know you’re just playing dumb because you have contempt for your viewers, but I can explain where QAnon disinformation originates. I can even show you when Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted about QAnon. https://t.co/xj1tfAksZ6
— Travis View (@travis_view) February 24, 2021
Now THIS is a dog whistle. This is Tucker throwing meat to the “there is Q, there are anons, there is no QAnon” nonsense. He’s not dumb enough to think “QAnon” is a website. Well, maybe he is. https://t.co/uZIvgRAmGy
— Mike Rothschild (@rothschildmd) February 24, 2021
“We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which in the end we learned is not even a website!”
It would be breathtaking if Tucker Carlson were this stupid. It is somehow even more breathtaking that he is willing to pretend to be this stupid.https://t.co/6SMH6FLsz9
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) February 24, 2021
he’s trolling, ignore https://t.co/1idauyucsN
— Aric Toler (@AricToler) February 24, 2021
Tucker: https://t.co/ApFp4CxJSe pic.twitter.com/FOwdDGLXyk
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) February 24, 2021
Others sincerely stupid.
What @TuckerCarlson is acknowledging here is that he’s a fucking moron who can’t navigate the internet. https://t.co/YdGcxlDi4o
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) February 24, 2021
Some thought it was just BS.
There was no official website for this so-called “Manson family” so we can only presume they never existed. Liberal media hoax.https://t.co/5HOq0PqWF9
— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) February 24, 2021
“We spent all day trying to locate the famous QAnon, which in the end we learned is not even a website”
C’mon man https://t.co/mHKq0iXZAM
— Bonnie Kristian (@bonniekristian) February 24, 2021
His viewers, incidentally, may not agree with him on this point.
Probably news to some of his viewers https://t.co/yiYXt22JMp
— Lawrence Hurley (@lawrencehurley) February 24, 2021
But some claimed Carlson simply has contempt for them.
The sheer disdain Fox News has for its audience never ceases to amaze me https://t.co/INs61niWvQ
— Brandon Wall (@Walldo) February 24, 2021
Whatever the case, if he was trying to find QAnon, he wasn’t looking hard enough.
… tucker carlson looking for qanon. https://t.co/FBEUcltmaw pic.twitter.com/taRqfkNrxV
— fake nick ramsey @
(@nick_ramsey) February 24, 2021
In fact, he could have simply checked his own network’s website.
Tucker could’ve just asked his colleagues… Fox’s website has a QAnon explainer… https://t.co/0RytFtI6MR https://t.co/2ekpjQGVt2
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 24, 2021
Some suggested he pretend he can’t find another group.
Now maybe he can do Antifa https://t.co/sZzXGPfhdw
— Michael Pachter (@michaelpachter) February 24, 2021