The nation had the opportunity Tuesday to hear eyewitness testimony from four police officers who spent January 6th fighting off Trump supporters who were storming the U.S. Capitol. Two of the officers were severely injured during the attack. Two were accused of being un-American, or not American at all, and another was subjected to racial slurs.
But that didn’t stop intellectual sellouts Laura Ingraham, originally from Glastonbury, and Tucker Carlson, who went to Trinity College in Hartford, from mocking those officers and the work of the select committee – a committee necessitated by Republican resistance to a non-partisan investigation.
“Intellectual sellouts” is tough language for The Laurel, but let’s face it, Ingraham and Carlson know better. They began their careers as legitimate journalists/commentators, but in recent years have gone all in peddling conspiracy theories and pro-right rhetoric, because that’s where the money is. These are two smart people, who know exactly what happened on January 6th and how damaging the results could be to the country, but they have decided, for financial reasons, to narrowcast to a part of the audience that wants to hear that they are the victims in an America that doesn’t look like the one they grew up in.
In the debate vernacular of the day it would be appropriate to simply end this post with the word:
SAD!!
But what’s really sad is that these two high-paid media stars, with roots in Connecticut, are at the tip of a disinformation spear that is hurting the country – they know it – and they are fine with it. They even find humor in it. Their right to be irresponsible is protected by the Constitution, but they would never fight for the Constitution. They would never put their lives on the line the way the police and the National Guard did on January 6th, but their language helped create the conditions for what happened that day and put the lives of others at risk. Three people died as a result of the riot, two police officers killed themselves in the immediate aftermath, and many more were injured. Real deaths. Real blood. Real injuries. Real trauma.
