Larry Alex Taunton Profile picture
Apr 25, 2023 • 9 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
1/

TUCKER CARLSON, MARTIN LUTHER, & THE NEW MEDIA: a 🧵

Perhaps I’m the only one who sees @TuckerCarlson’s departure from @FoxNews as good news.

If I’m a Democrat strategist, I want him there so that I can, by applying pressure to Murdoch, at least control him a little…. Image
2/

Carlson, for example, after an initial rollout of the #Jan6th tapes, went silent on the subject.

He also gave no coverage to @DineshDSouza’s 2000 Mules film which exposed massive election fraud. Perhaps these reflect Carlson’s own opinions, but one suspects he was… Image
3/

…receiving pressure from above.

In 1519, Martin Luther was invited to debates Papal representative Johann Eck, a ruthless rhetorician without scruples. Luther, still a naive academic, sought a fair hearing for his ideas. Eck’s goal was to label Luther a heretic.

When Eck… Image
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…asked Luther if he agreed with the ideas of John Hus—who was burned at the stake as a heretic—Luther, taking the question seriously rather than seeing the trap that it was, deliberated and said he agreed with many of Hus’s ideas.

Eck, replied that if Luther agreed… Image
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…with the heretic Hus, then Luther was a heretic.

In strictly debate terms, Luther lost. He left Leipzig shaken. Heretics were burned, and Luther now carried the label. But Leipzig was Pyrrhic victory for the Papacy.

To date, Luther had largely confined his criticism of… Image
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…the Papacy to the sale of indulgences. After the Leipzig Disputation (as it became known), however, Luther had nothing to lose. Henceforth, he’s let them know what he really thought, and the Protestant Reformation began in earnest.

Carlson isn’t Luther, but I think you… Image
7/

…get my point. Media has changed massively in the last decade, and with @elonmusk’s $44 billion Twitter purchase, it has changed yet more in just the last six months.

Carlson’s audience on Fox, the largest in cable television, averaged 3.5 million. @joerogan’s podcast… Image
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…averages 11 million per episode.

Carlson, now free and with nothing to lose, enters into those waters where his potential reach, and thus his influence, would dwarf that of cable television, a rapidly diminishing medium. Image
9/

Add to this that Musk is hinting that he intends to turn Twitter into a media platform that will challenge the space Instagram currently occupies.

So, don’t cry for Tucker Carlson. He can write his own ticket. This was the Left’s Pyrrhic victory and Fox’s suicide.

THE END Image

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More from @LarryTaunton

Dec 2
A Christmas I’ll Never Forget:🧵

I was 21. A truck driver during the day and a student at night, I was asked to teach Sunday school at a little rural Alabama church that met only twice a month.

You see, the membership was old and few in number. Many thought the church…Image
2.

…should be closed. But these ornery old people liked their church and didn’t care what anyone else thought they should or shouldn’t do.

One of the members had heard me speak and asked if I would be their pastor.

Pastor?

I didn’t know anything about that, but I agreed… Image
3.

…to come every other week to teach Sunday school for a couple of months until they could find someone else. Amused by my youth and energy, they had no intentions of replacing me and two months stretched into two years.

On Christmas Eve of 1988, I did something I had… Image
Read 23 tweets
Sep 8
THE APPEAL OF TRASH HISTORY🧵

Carlson’s interview with a revisionist historian rightly caused a firestorm.

The responses to my earlier🧵provide some additional insight to the controversy.

Let’s look at what is going on here….
2.

Let’s consider Cooper’s historical methodology.

I watched the interview multiple times. Watch it. Cooper likes making sweeping, authoritative, controversial pronouncements with Trump-like self-assurance. Unless you’re a specialist, and Carlson isn’t, you might shrink from…
3.

…challenging him.

To wit:

• “Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War.” (45:34ff)

• Holocaust caused by a logistical mistake and a desire to be “humane.” (46:40ff)

• Hitler wanted peace/Churchill wanted war (48:43ff)

• Churchill was “a psychopath.” Image
Read 25 tweets
Aug 26
Would you like a feel-good story about The Rolling Stones?🧵

Well, I’m here for you.

Whenever I’m in London, I use Black Cabs, the best taxi drivers in the world.

The old timers have great stories, and I always ask: “Who’s the most famous person you’ve ever had in your taxi?”
2.

Over the years I’ve heard stories about Laurence Olivier, Charleton Heston, Tony Blair, Judy Dench, Alice Cooper, Mick Jagger, Richard Harris, and many others.

But this is my favorite story.

A taxi driver tells me he picked up an old guy on London’s West End one evening…
3.

…outside of a pub. He doesn’t look in his rear view mirror very carefully, but nonetheless offers a bit of friendly chat chat to his passenger as he might do with anyone:

How are you?

Where to, sir?

Eventually he asks: “So, what do you do for a living?”

The passenger…
Read 9 tweets
Aug 12
READY FOR A CREEPY STORY? 🧵

This is me filming in front of the US embassy in Mexico City last week.

These are all people trying to get into the US via the CBP One App—a program funded by you.

They didn’t want me filming. You’ll hear a Mexican security guard stop me and…
2/

…demand I delete the video.

I had been assured by Mexican lawyers that I could film anything so long as I did not enter the US embassy. As you can see, I did not enter.

The US uses a Mexican security firm outside the embassy and they had clearly been instructed to stop… Image
3.

…me. He spoke a mix of Spanish and English. I refused to give him my phone and, being much bigger than him, I did not let him detain me even though he tried.

He threatens to call the police. I kept walking while my translator distracted him.

About a half hour later…
Read 7 tweets
Aug 8
TIM WALTZ & CHINA:🧵

As a guy who travels A LOT, I’m having a hard time with the fact that Tim Waltz has been in China 30+ times. It smells.

Let me explain to you how this works practically…. Image
2.

China isn’t Canada. Meaning, there’s a visa process for Americans. It’s not visa-upon-arrival as in some Latin American countries. You must apply for entry. It takes time.

Communist states are historically suspicious of Americans, and for good reason. We seldom share…
3.

…their values. In the age of Google, which prioritizes negative results for conservatives, communist states make liberal use of the Leftist search engine.

For example, I slipped into Cuba a couple of years ago with a cigar tour group. The police came to our hotel to… Image
Read 17 tweets
Jul 17
MATT WALSH & AMBER ROSE:🧵

Yesterday @MattWalshBlog got dragged across Twitter concrete for his take on the #RNC platforming #AmberRose.

Judging from the responses, his critics didn’t read what he said, but instead read highly emotional takes on his tweet.

Let’s take a look: Image
2/18

After the tweet above, social media keyboard warriors sprang to Rose’s defense as if Walsh were her verbal assassin perched atop a sloped Twitter roof.

Catturd led the way.

Walsh was an “egomaniac,” he said, who had set himself up as “judge and jury.” Image
3/18

Heidi here unholstered her Twitter prose like a tiny secret service agent in Butler, PA, saying Rose had already done more for the cause than Walsh.

(NOTE: This is a weak argument I often see Christians employ against other Christians: “He’s done more for the Kingdom… Image
Read 18 tweets

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