In the view of Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson, the midterm elections and their results were nothing short of “embarrassing.”
Carlson said as much on Wednesday’s broadcast of his show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, where he gave his take on the midterm elections. Carlson specifically found two different aspects of the midterm elections to be embarrassing: one is the failure of some well-known areas of the country to count votes in a timely manner, and the other is the failure of Republicans to live up to pre-midterm predictions.
“That seems late”
Carlson began by noting that, despite the fact that significant time has gone by, we still don’t know the results of a number of important races.
Carlson put things into perspective by comparing the 2022 elections to those of 1862.
He said:
Officials in Arizona told CNBC today that they are “prepared to work through Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas as well.” That means results by New Year’s in a race that was held in early November. That seems late. How late is it? Well, by comparison, the results of the 1862 midterm elections, which were tabulated by candlelight without machines or even electricity in the middle of a raging civil war, were clear before the end of the week. That was the entire country. Arizona is a single state, which, by the way, is a fraction of the size of Florida, which, as you may have noticed, counted its votes in less than a day—so did Brazil, an entire country.
Carlson added, “that seems embarrassing, if not like a full-blown emergency.”
You can say that again.
From there, Carlson went on to talk about the results of the midterm election that we actually do know. And, these, too, Carlson found “embarrassing.”
“Republicans swore they were going to sweep, a red tsunami,” Carlson said. “That’s what they told us, and we, to be honest, cautiously believe them, but they did not sweep, not even close to sweeping.”
Carlson suggested that part of what makes this embarrassing is the fact that it should have been easy for Republicans to win big considering all of the factors going against the Democrats, including “an unpopular president, a faltering economy, an open border, the looming risk of nuclear war,” and so on.
Carlson then suggested that what makes this doubly embarrassing is that the Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, are now rubbing the Republicans’ noses in it, boasting of their midterm success.
Where to go from here?
As for what caused the poor midterm result for the Republicans, Carlson suggested that it’s too early to tell. But, he did reject many of the common theories out there, such as that it was former President Donald Trump’s fault, or that the GOP candidates were bad. Carlson, though, did suggest that the Democrats’ control of the “election machinery” and the mainstream media likely played a big role.
As for where the GOP goes from here, Carlson said, at the very least, “the people whose job it was to win, but did not win should go do something else now.” Carlson made it clear that he is referring to “Republican leadership of the House and the Senate and of the RNC.” Carlson said:
No one should ever be rewarded for failure. If there’s a truly conservative principle in life, it’s the principle of the meritocracy. You reward excellence. You do not reward mediocrity and when you do, things fall apart.