On Tuesday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson warned about three long-term threats America will face after the immediate coronavirus crisis subsides. In a very real sense, life may never truly return to normal even after the lockdowns end.
Tucker zeroed in on three large problems that he warned might be the “biggest threats America is likely to face once this is over.”
First, he warned about a global depression, which will require hard work to “save the middle class.”
“The finance moguls will be fine no matter what happens to the economy. Not much will likely for poor people, either. They will remain poor. But the middle class? The middle class could be wiped out by what we are watching right now,” Tucker warned. “The service industry, middle management, small business, the independent contractors, people like those make this country work, and more importantly, they keep it stable — they are the ones in deepest peril tonight.”
The Fox News host said that a lasting hit to the middle class could leave America “impoverished” with “a thin layer of rich people at the top. That’s a recipe for suffering and for never-ending political volatility … and suddenly, for the first time ever, it’s a possibility here. Our first priority has to be preventing that.”
Carlson next warned about China’s economic might. The coronavirus has highlighted just how vulnerable America’s medical supply chain is to the Middle Kingdom. Tucker warned that the coronavirus crisis may push China ahead of the U.S. in terms of economic dominance.
“China ultimately is responsible for this virus. The threat extends far beyond the current pandemic. It’s entirely possible that the Chinese coronavirus makes China stronger in the end, even as it weakens us in America,” Tucker warned. “China already has a deeper manufacturing base than we do and has a far larger population. Soon it will have the biggest economy on earth.”
Chillingly, Carlson declared, “It’s entirely possible that we could wake up a few years from now and find China in charge.”
“Now, we’ve been headed to this place for a while. The crisis that we’re currently going through could be enough to push us,” he warned. America must prevent China “from taking advantage of the chaos they that have unleashed and [that] we are suffering through.”
Finally, the Fox News host warned against threats to the freedom of conscience. The coronavirus may drive fearful people into the arms of Big Tech companies. In some countries, the government uses technology to track those with the virus, warning other citizens to avoid them.
“As we do all we can to fight this pandemic, we should make sure we don’t lose the most important part of our birthright as Americans, and we know what that is: it’s the right to think and say what we believe is true,” Tucker said. “Freedom of conscience may be undervalued right now, but it underpins everything that we have. It is the foundation of a free and a decent society.
“It’s under attack by politicians, but most dangerously, it’s under attack by multinational tech monopolies,” Tucker warned. “Twitter has decided to control what you’re allowed to know about the coronavirus.”
Indeed, on Wednesday, Twitter temporarily suspended The Federalist’s account after the website shared an op-ed advocating for a “controlled infection” to the virus. While most Americans would rightly react in horror to such an idea, they might not think it is Twitter’s role to silence even so dangerous an opinion.
“It’s not a small thing. It’s a trend, collusion between big multinationals and authoritarian governments to make you obey,” Carlson concluded. “It’s not paranoid talk. It’s real. And you should worry about it.”
Carlson’s concerns are well-founded. The middle class will indeed suffer through the recovery after the coronavirus, although I doubt this will prove to be an existential threat. Perhaps ironically, the coronavirus may highlight China as a threat, spurring America on to face and combat it. The threat to freedom of conscience, however, is hard to overstate. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) arguably represents a nexus in the assault on that fundamental freedom, and it enjoys immense sway in Big Tech, corporate America, the media and government. My book Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center explains the nature of this threat and why the corrupt SPLC still enjoys such tremendous influence.
Right now, America is in the throes of fighting this coronavirus day by day. Eventually, the current crisis will pass, be it in a few weeks, in a few months, or even in a year. When it does, these other threats will remain.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
