NEW YORK – Right-wing propaganda network Fox News is tightening its belt after agreeing to pay $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit, and the first unnecessary expense to go is notable white nationalist Tucker Carlson.
“We made the decision to fire Tucker Carlson after realizing that it’s not Carlson himself that the audience responds to, it’s the unending stream of racist and xenophobic content delivered by the kind of weak-chinned man who our audience remembers delivering milk and racist neighbourhood gossip to their homes when they were children,” Fox News said in a statement announcing Carlson’s firing.
“Luckily for us, Tucker Carlson is less of a personality and more of a bland delivery system for the carefully blended reactionary rage we feed our audience like so much grievance pablum.”
Carlson’s salary is reported to have been in the area of $10 million a year, and Fox News is expecting to be able to save 90 to 99% of that amount by hiring a cheaper, younger racist to fill his popular timeslot.
“Finding a replacement for Carlson will not be difficult,” Fox News assured investors and viewers. “We’ve already got a short list of dozens of untalented, resentful white men who are quite angry at the world despite being born into extreme wealth and privilege.”
“Our audience, God love ‘em, is not particularly discerning or detail oriented. Carlson’s replacement will have to be willing to get plastic surgery to make his face more forgettable, and to change his name to Tucker Charlson so we barely have to change the graphics. We think most of the viewers won’t even notice he’s gone.”
“Rest assured, we’ll soon find someone new who can make our audience feel smart by telling them that they’re hating all the right people. It’s really not that hard. After all, Tucker Carlson was able to do it.”
At press time, Fox News was airing a rerun of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” from five years ago, secure in the knowledge that most Carlson viewers were too far gone to be able to tell the difference.
