Late-night grapples with Trump, Fox News, and the GOP going full fascist cheerleader
As Putin invades Ukraine, Tucker Carlson asks, "Yeah, but has Putin ever called you a racist?"
Life moves pretty fast. Last night’s late-night Ukraine material was made obsolete before broadcast, as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, putting aside his daily routine of killing dissidents and cyber-attacking American democracy, straight-up invaded democratic Ukraine while late-night shows’ pre-taped monologues were still cooling. Unfortunately, those takes remained hot, since Putin’s long-planned invasion only served to underscore just how far up the Russian fascist’s ass the American right-wing has burrowed.
Jimmy Kimmel played the clip of Fox News host, fish stick scion, and perpetual propagandist for the very concept of grimy human awfulness Tucker Carlson asking his (white, conservative) viewers, well, just how bad is this Putin guy, anyway? Kimmel speculated about blackmail material Putin may have on Carlson (whose nightly pro-Putin rants are now routinely carried verbatim on Russian state television), which ignores just how snugly Carlson and Fox’s white supremacist rhetoric hews to Putin’s. Carlson asking his (again, white) viewers, “Has Putin ever called me a racist?,” represents Carlson stoking the same white grievance fires that have made him Fox’s primary (although hardly only) cheerleader for conservatives bigotry-based autocracy.
Seth Meyers noted how GOP cult leader (and guy who advocated for literally every item on Putin’s invade-Ukraine to-do list while in office) Donald Trump went on a right-wing podcast in the hours leading up to Wednesday night’s invasion to praise the Russian leader’s pending land-grab as “genius” and “wonderful.” (Just to note: The guy who Hillary Clinton called a Russian puppet during the 2016 election was and is a Russian puppet.) Meyers joked that Trump’s effusive praise might be the only thing to give Putin pause, even though, as noted, Donald Trump is simply following orders.