I just stumbled across this possible reason why Tucker Carlson was fired in a post at Vanity Fair. It's *almost* unbelievable.
As the post points out, there doesn't seem to be a logical reason why Carlson was fired but not Bartiromo, who was a much more enthusiastic promoter of the Big Lie and the false narrative that Dominion was complicit in getting Biden elected. Also, Fox usually pays off employees bringing harassment suits so Abby Grossberg should have gotten a hefty settlement without Carlson getting fired. So that's not it.
No, the theory that VF is going with is Carlson gave a speech recently where he made trans rights the biggest threat to life as as know it in America and said that we may not be able to defeat it without … prayer.
Yep, that's what did it. Rupert doesn't like that religious stuff:
Rupert Murdoch was perhaps unnerved by Carlson's messianism because it echoed the end-times worldview of Murdoch's ex-fiancée Ann Lesley Smith, the source said. In my May cover story, I reported that Murdoch and Smith called off their two-week engagement because Smith had told people Carlson was "a messenger from God." Murdoch had seen Carlson and Smith discuss religion firsthand. In late March, Carlson had dinner at Murdoch's Bel Air vineyard with Murdoch and Smith, according to the source. During dinner, Smith pulled out a bible and started reading passages from the Book of Exodus, the source said. "Rupert just sat there and stared," the source said. A few days after the dinner, Murdoch and Smith called off the wedding. By taking Carlson off the air, Murdoch was also taking away his ex's favorite show.
Yeah, that was a bridge too far for Rupert. And let me tell you from a first person experience, if you've never been blindsided by proselytizing relatives whipping out and reading a conversion story just for you at the end of a Thanksgiving meal because you're the only family holdout and have been resisting since the age of 3, then you haven't lived. The end times religious do not respect boundaries or your own personal beliefs, which are illegitimate to them. They really, truly believe that they can easily swap them out for something you find wholly implausible and silly without subjecting you to a lobotomy. They stupidly think you can be persuaded after a nice meal and a couple of glasses of wine.
I mean, it works for other types of seduction, right?
Rupert Murdoch might be Emperor Palpatine's evil twin. But even he has red lines that you dare not cross. Sure, pray yourself silly in private. Knock yourself out. But keep that "Jesus is going to save us all if we just make life unbearable for everyone" stuff.
Maybe he wants to personally take credit for messing up the world and getting it to run the way he wants it to. Murdoch doesn't need divine intervention.
Or maybe he knows just how bloody insufferable and annoying a committed end timer can be. They're like MAGA on steroids. Let's face it, MAGA aficionados can be pains in the asses and it's ideology can cause family rifts. But they don't shove it down your throat during dessert and actively employ every manipulative trick in the book to get you to go along with them. They're not that sophisticated. It takes a fanatical end time "Christian" to apply the screws to you in order to get you to break.
Maybe his fiancé turned that screw one too many times and Rupert put his foot down when he realized that Tucker was her favorite Fox News anchor. He might have come to the realization that MAGA might burn itself out but messianic Christianity has been around for a couple of millennia and when they reach a critical mass, bad things can happen like endless wars and "always winter with no Christmas". It's kind of an unstoppable force. And as we know from history, end times media stars frequently lack consciences. They just use religion to whip up frenzies. Carlson's reach was huge. Could he have United the anti-authoritarian authoritarian libertarians with an even more committed religious movement?
Rupert wouldn't be able to control that. MAGA had already gotten the movement in trouble because that contingent will naturally seek out even more extreme points of view. Couple that with Armageddon and there goes his business model.
So that's why Tucker got fired. Or so the rumor mill is saying.
I'm not sure if it's true, and I'm definitely not a fan of Rupert Murdoch. But maybe he was on to something. Maybe he saw the future. Maybe his fiancé just pushed one button past her limit. Who knows. I just thought I'd bring it up because it's the one thing Rupert and I agree on.
That end time prayer shit has got to stop. It's dangerous and ruins dessert.
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