Nicolle Wallace and Mark Leibovich excoriated Republicans for their silence in the face of fascism, and in particular, the crickets on the right about Tucker Carlson visiting Hungary to play footsie with Viktor Orban and address a right-wing conference there.
Hungary, a place where Orban has near-complete control of the media, and owns the judiciary. This is Carlson's fever-dream, and indeed, as Leibovich pointed out, much of Trumpworld's. Wallace wondered why "there's no one rebuking Tucker Carlson for wrapping both arms and both legs around Viktor Orban this week," but Leibovich rightly pointed out, who on the right did we expect to call him out?
Frank Figliuzzi, though, took deadly aim at Carlson himself.
Wallace listed the things with which the GOP apparently have no problem: assault on the rule of law, leaving our Kurdish allies to die in Syria, describing the press as the enemy of the people, calling the Justice Department and FBI "enemies of the state..." before asking Figliuzzi, "What do we need to do to stop what Colonel Vindman described as slippage of our democracy, or is it too late?"
We need to recognize the threat and the risk, he replied.
"I don't think most Americans understand the gravity of this situation. I kind of view it as my mission as a national security contributor for this network to point out threat and risk. I'm not here to critique another network, I'm not here to critique Tucker Carlson, who should be very grateful the freedoms we enjoy as Americans that allow him to travel wherever he wants, hold whatever beliefs he wants to and resist any pressure, free of pressure as a media member on his particular show," Figliuzzi said.
Come on, Frank, you can be honest. Carlson should be grateful, but he likely isn't, because he's cut from the "rights for me and none for thee" cloth, and he's gonna go where the white power is.
Figliuzzi continued, "Ironically he's chosen to set up shop this week in a nation that increasingly stands for none of that and has wrapped itself in white identity movement, nationalism, anti-refugee. Here's where I'm going to point this out so people can do that, first half of the battle, recognize the threat."
What's the threat, Frank?
"This is where this goes and it's not pretty. This leads to demonization of the other. Hungary, right now, is about white identity nationalism and hatred of the other. People who don't look like them, people who don't speak or worship like them. They have wrapped it in Christianity and family values. You heard that in the clip you played of Tucker's opening comments," Figliuzzi explained.
But what's that got to do with us, Frank?
"And it's happening here and now. And so we need to understand America is going to decide what it wants to be when it grows up, but does it want to be the country that doesn't welcome people like my grandparents into the country, doesn't stand for the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, doesn't welcome anyone any more who doesn't look or talk like us?" Figliuzzi asked.
Well, some people want that. Most Republicans are perfectly fine with that. Can you at least stuff Tucker into a locker for us?
"Hungary would likely not allow Tucker Carlson to emigrate to Hungary. He possesses no particular skill sets, he's of no value to them. They wouldn't want him," concluded Figliuzzi, wondering again if that's the kind of country we want.
Honestly, I'd be perfectly happy if Carlson stayed in Hungary if that's the kind of nation he prefers. Hopefully they have burn units over there. We'll keep people like Figliuzzi, thanks.
