Tucker: How long will Republican voters put up with this?
Fox News host gives his take on lawmakers in red states going against their constituents on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
When you think of American states that have fallen right off the ledge into the deep end of vacuous lifestyle liberalism, and we do think of them from time to time, you probably think of Vermont. Vermont's a place that banned fracking, despite the fact it has not a single oil or gas well in the state. Or maybe you think of Massachusetts, where virtually all human pleasure has been banned for decades, if not centuries, and of course, you think of California. California, a place where one city is now paying people to be transgender. All of these are famously liberal places, so you're not surprised.
But Utah is not a liberal place. When you think of Utah, you imagine big, happy families and an even bigger salty lake and a couple of very good ski mountains. You think conservatism because Utah is conservative. It always has been. It still is. Utah has the highest rate of church attendance in the country. It has one of the lowest crime rates. The birth rate of Utah families is fully 25% higher than the national average.
In the last presidential election, Donald Trump took nearly 60% of the vote in Utah. So, Utah is definitely not California and yet some of its most prominent politicians would very much like to change that. If you don't believe it, watch them talk some time. They sound like they're running for city council in Santa Monica. That doesn't make sense. Talk about a misalignment, a highly conservative state with extremely liberal leaders. How did that happen?
Gov. Spencer Cox speaks during a news conference on Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021, in Salt Lake City. ( AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
Actually, it's not as unusual as you'd hope it would be. Across the country, some of the most liberal Republicans represent some of the reddest states. Why? Well, maybe it's the result of corporate influence and corrupt party leadership. That's true. Maybe voters in those states don't feel threatened, so they're not paying close attention to who they vote for. Whatever it is, it's very obvious. By contrast, the most energetically conservative governor in the country is not from Alabama, he's from Florida, which to this day is split almost evenly along party lines.
So, Ron DeSantis has to earn every vote and he does that by representing his constituents. It tells you a lot. Meanwhile, bright red Utah is now led by a cut-rate Gavin Newsom imitator called Spencer Cox. Spencer Cox is a former telecom executive who always seems like he's auditioning for the title of "America's guiltiest White guy." He's beyond belief. In one virtual town hall with high school students last year in which Spencer Cox announced his preferred pronouns to a young girl in the audience.
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SPENCER COX: Well, I thank you so much, Gabby, for that, that question, and my preferred pronouns are "he, him and his" so thank you for sharing yours with me.
What a creepy guy! "My preferred pronouns are he, him, his," Cox tells a room full of children. So, we've got that cleared up. Spencer Cox identifies as a male, at least to some limited extent. Now, Cox could have cleared up that mystery a lot more quickly, simply by declaring, "I'm a man." Instead, he went full hostage video, "My preferred pronouns are he, him, his." Just in case you had any doubt that neoliberal interest groups control Spencer Cox's brain. Now, you know, for certain, because it's never about gender. It's always about obedience.
Spencer Cox is obedient, if nothing else, but not obedient to his voters. That's the weird thing. What exactly is the market for superfluous pronouns in Utah? Pretty limited, you would think. Most people in Utah don't need to be told yet, somehow, Spencer Cox is their governor. In a piece today, a really good piece, Nate Hochman of National Review reports that the very first document Cox signed as governor of Utah was something called the "Utah Compact on Racial Equity, Diversity and Inclusion" and it's everything you'd imagine and more.
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The document describes racism as, "more than just an individual character flaw." No, racism instead is a system that you participated in, Mr. and Mrs. racist, a system that can only be stopped with "bold anti-racist actions and policies right now." Whoa, whoa, whoa, you know you're in trouble, Mr. and Mrs. Utah voter. What are these policies? We'll let Spencer Cox explain. Spencer Cox, wearing his little obedience mask during a Zoom interview, explained that he supports excluding White students from an academic scholarship program purely because of their skin color because that's anti-racism. No, it's not racism, it's anti-racism.
CALLER QUESTION: The Utah Jazz is excluding White children from consideration for their scholarship program. Do you think this is racist and what will you do to prevent the Utah Jazz from acting in this racist manner?
SPENCER COX: Well, I don't think it's racist. In fact, I think it's in response to, unfortunately, some very difficult and racist injustices that have happened in our community for a long time.
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The Utah State Capitol building in Salt Lake City. (Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
So, here's this moist, little guy sitting alone in his gilded room with a mask on, telling us it's not racist to exclude people from a scholarship based on their race. Does anyone else in Utah believe this? We'd like to meet them. There can't be many of them. Most people in Utah have more sense than that. Racism was when you hurt people based on their skin color, right? Right.
Most people in Utah, by the way, still believe in biology—also, gravity and photosynthesis. The state of Utah is pro-science and we know this because Utah State Legislature just passed a bill banning men from competing in women's sports because men, it turns out, are not women, but Spencer Cox disagrees. He vetoed that bill. Fortunately, two thirds of the legislature overrode Spencer Cox's veto and finally got the bill passed.
This has been going on for a long time in the state of Utah. Spencer Cox previously threatened to veto a proposed ban on gender transition surgeries for minors, which once again most people in Utah say they don't want.
So here you have a perfectly normal state, filled with perfectly happy normal people, somehow run by a low IQ, weakened MSNBC anchor. That doesn't seem fair to the state of Utah, but it's not just Spencer Cox.
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Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, arrives to watch a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy live-streamed into the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, March 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Utah's junior senator Mitt Romney has also decided he's tired of representing the people of Utah. So instead, he's speaking for his neighbors in the state of California, where he lives a lot of the time. Less than a year ago—this is an amazing example. It was just June of 2021—Mitt Romney voted against the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. OK. He thought she wasn't qualified. Now, this week, Mitt Romney announced that he is supporting the same person's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Huh? She was unqualified for a lower court, but a perfect choice for the Supreme Court? How does that work?
Here's Mitt Romney to explain:
MITT ROMNEY: In the prior confirmation, I was concerned that she was outside the mainstream and as a result of our meeting for an hour together and reviewing her testimony before Congress, I became convinced that she's within the mainstream. She's also highly qualified, intelligent, a people person, and I wish her the very best.
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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on January 11, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images)
Oh, so she's now in the mainstream? She wasn't less than a year ago, but now she's fully in the mainstream. So, here's what it took for Mitt Romney to finally support Ketanji Brown Jackson: He learned, in the course of Supreme Court confirmation hearings, that she gave lenient sentences to child pornographers. Mitt Romney apparently didn't know that last year, hence the vote against her. Now that he knows that Ketanji Brown Jackson has disregarded sentencing guidelines to benefit kiddy pornographers, it's a yes from Mitt Romney. That's the junior senator from the state of Utah and as with Spencer Cox, this is not a one-time aberration.
Reporter Greg Price summarized Mitt Romney's past few weeks this way, "confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson, voted against repealing TSA mask mandate, didn't show up to vote defunding Biden vaccine mandate, accuses Tulsi Gabbard of treason for opposing the war in Ukraine." Amazing. So, Tulsi Gabbard has betrayed her country—in uniform, by the way, she's still serving in the U.S. Army—but BLM? BLM, which torched American cities for nearly a year? They're not treasonous, not according to Mitt Romney.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mitt Romney, of course, did take to the streets there and the first Republican to join thousands of people that were protesting George Floyd's death. The Utah senator marched with a group of evangelical Christians and shared the photo of himself on Twitter, and Romney told the reporter that he was participating in those protests because he wanted to make sure that people understood that Black lives matter.
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U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) listens as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Shalanda Young is testifying before the Senate Budget Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 30, 2022 in Washington, DC. ( Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
MITT ROMNEY: We need a voice against racism, we need many voices against racism and against brutality. We need to stand up and say that "Black Lives Matter."
Oh yeah. "Mitt Romney took to the streets "-- probably the greatest line ever uttered on cable news and like all the great lines, nobody laughed. "Mitt Romney took to the streets"—to watch BLM burn down cities, shoot people and defraud donors to buy $6 million mansions in L.A. Oh, but guess who the traitor is? It's Tulsi Gabbard. That's what Mitt Romney is telling us. And Tulsi Gabbard is a lot worse than Tony Fauci, who funded the production of a virus in China that killed millions of people. Is that treasonous? No, it's not treason. It's not, according to Mitt Romney.
MITT ROMNEY: I do want to point out how much I personally—and I believe the great majority of the people in our country—respect you individually and professionally for the work that you do. You are scientists, not politicians. Nevertheless, you are being made subject to the political whims of various political individuals and that comes at a high cost, which unfortunately I fear will lead some to not want to participate in helping our government make scientific choices.
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Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) walks through the Senate subway during a vote on Capitol Hill on February 16, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
So, that's what Mitt Romney learned. "Back from the streets." So, the concern here, of course, is democracy and that's a word on the lips of every concerned person on television. What about our democracy? Every day you hear that. So, just a quick civics recap. Democracy is a form of government in which elected representatives represent people who elect them. They do what they ask. The people rule.
So, with that in mind, and given our strong commitment to democracy, you have to wonder where Mitt Romney is coming from. Is he participating in the system called democracy? Because the majority of Republicans, the people who put him in office, would like Tony Fauci to leave his job immediately, but not Mitt Romney. He doesn't care at all. Mitt Romney is not alone, of course, neither is Spencer Cox. It turns out a lot of Republicans in red states serially betray their voters, give them the finger day, after day, after day. The question is: How long will Republican voters put up with this?
This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the April 6, 2022 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight.
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