Tucker Carlson begins his Twitter endeavor.

Ep. 1 pic.twitter.com/O7CdPjF830

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 6, 2023

This is a 10-minute show, launching straight into the top news story of the day — the Ukrainian dam.

I said out loud at 3:46: "Ew. Creepy."

Carlson went from talking about the news of the day from Ukraine to discussing many aspects of what he presents as propaganda coming from mainstream media. Some of this resonated with something I'd just said IRL this morning: The news has not been flowing in its usual way lately. 

Trying to think of what tags to put on this post, I rediscovered an old one that I wish I'd remembered to use over the years: "shut up and believe."

I hadn't used that tag since 2016, for "Lawprof scholarship examining whether lawprof scholarship is politically biased indicates that lawprof scholarship by liberals slants leftward but lawprof scholarship by conservatives does not slant rightward."

Actually, I'd only used it one other time. Here's the post that caused me to create the tag, from August 2008: "Barack Obama on the Born Alive Infant Protection Act." Obama was running for President,"

He's been asked a civil question by Rick Warren — this is just after the Saddleback Forum — and has an opportunity to reach the very people who are being stirred up by those who are going around saying he voted in favor of infanticide. He should have explained clearly why the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was not what his opponents say it was. I can understand why he's angry at those who present it in a form that makes him look monstrous, but the only workable remedy is to convince us to believe his interpretation of the law — and at least to teach us exactly what it was. He was a law professor. He should be able to bring us along so we can all understand.

In this video clip, all he does is vouch for his own interpretation and demand that we accept it. This is like the way he insists that we not "question his patriotism" when what we're doing — some of us — is trying to learn about and process some things we have questions about. It's delusional to think that millions of people will obey a command to put this behind us. We want to know the details of his relationship with former terrorist Bill Ayers. We want to know the details of the text of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and the politics that surrounded it. The campaign season, for many Americans, is just getting started. It won't do to get pissed off and say that you've already explained this and we need to move on. Move on to what? These are the questions that concern us! And you won't deign to answer.

Actually, shut up and believe worked. He was elected President, and we were trained to believe what we're supposed to believe. And now, here's Tucker on Twitter — reduced to Twitter — pointing it out... and in his own way telling us what to believe.