On Wednesday I joined Tucker Carlson to discuss the so-called storming of the Capitol.
There has been much talk these last two months about the disconnect between Fox and its audience over the events of November 3rd, but they are as nothing to the disconnect between Fox and its audience over the events of January 6th. The media may be sentimental about the Capitol, but in my unscientific survey of my North Country neighbors the people aren't. Congress has an approval rating that falls somewhere between Isis and child pornographers. Pundits and politicians can wax mawkish about "the people's house" but you'd be hard-pressed to find one in a thousand citizens who's ever used those words in a non-contemptuous sense - and most of the other 999 would assume that the phrase referred to some long-term care facility Andrew Cuomo moves the old folks into for his Covid express checkout.
So I found yesterday's coverage somewhat trying:
This is quotable Steyn in rare from:
'People are surprised when a tactic that's proved effective by one group of people, is taken up by another group of people...
'People say "this is not who we are." Have you not turned on the tv since Memorial Day? This is exactly who we are...
'Nancy Pelosi told us she didn't care about old statues. Mitch McConnell said he didn't care about the names of military bases. But suddenly this old building is important now?"
I choke on the sanctimonious drivel of the continuing coverage. The political class (represented by a Speaker who flies home to San Francisco on her own government plane) has been largely insulated from the pathologies they have loosed upon the land. For a few hours yesterday they weren't.
Click below to watch:
During the early evening I found myself wondering why the pundits were so insistent on standing on the Capitol's dignity. The obvious reason is that, for the most lavishly protected legislature in the world (okay, make that "legislature"), it was a total security fiasco - culminating in the murder of an unarmed woman by a (to put it mildly) totally incompetent copper firing into a crowd (which an American couldn't do in, say, Kandahar). The rubbish about the "desecration" of the "sacred" "majesty", etc, etc, peddled by Democrats and Republicans alike is designed to evade the vile reality of that grotesque act.
There will be more on that later today. You can see the full hour of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" here. Members may access the transcript of my remarks here.
There will be more on Friday too, when I'll be back with another Clubland Q&A, taking questions from Mark Steyn Club members live around the planet at 4pm North American Eastern time/9pm Greenwich Mean Time. In political terms, what George W Bush calls the "insurrection" in DC seems to have provided the necessary cover for the GOP's final abandonment of Trump: He is a very lonely man this morning, bereft of even his Twitter feed.
After our Q&A, we'll have a brand new Mark Steyn Show and a Tale for Our Time you won't want to miss.
Tales for Our Time and The Mark Steyn Show are made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club. You can find more details about our Club here - and, if you're seriously late with a Christmas present, we also have a gift membership that makes a terrific post-Twelfth Night surprise.