At Becker's 16th Annual Future of Spine + The Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference June 15 in Chicago, Tucker Carlson, the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight and co-founder of The Daily Caller, explained how Washington leaders have confirmed our country's democracy is "fake" and caused voters to take desperate measures.
Here are five key points from his speech:
1. False information is coming from both sides of the political spectrum.
"The way things are characterized by the people in charge on both sides — Republican and Democrat — are exactly the opposite of what's actually happening," he said. "Everything they say is not just a lie, it is reliably the opposite of the truth."
2. Abysmal leadership was the primary reason behind Trump's win, but the politicians in charge lack self-awareness.
"The people in charge again on both sides — and I say this with some sadness since I mostly vote Republican because I have no option — sincerely believe Russia made the difference in the last election. That is a way of not facing the truth, which is [the election] was a referendum on them," Mr. Carlson said.
3. With the middle class shrinking at an alarming rate, income inequality poses a deep threat to U.S. democracy, yet both Democrats and Republicans have reasons to ignore it.
"There's something very hard for Republicans about the concept of income inequality because it sounds like you're either whining about unfairness, which Republicans loathe to do — I'm loathe to do — or it sounds like one of those ideas thought up by a French intellectual to discredit capitalism," Mr. Carlson said. "On the Democrat side … To note [the middle class was shrinking] would have been to note that somehow Obama presided over an era where the rich got richer and the poor got poorer."
4. Poverty doesn't cause crime; envy does.
"If I think I'm getting shafted because the system is unfair, I can't deal with it. That is what causes crime and social volatility," Mr. Carlson said. "The system is rigged is the truth, and people know that … It makes them angry and it makes them willing to vote for Donald Trump. If you don't fix that — if you don't convince people that the system is actually fair and they have a say in it — who knows what they will do."
5. Democracy calms people down; fake democracy results in chaos.
"Democracy is the pressure relief valve that keeps the population calm because the population believes it, in the end, in charge. If the population starts to believe it's all fake — that they're not really in charge, their votes don't matter – what will they do? Or more precisely, what won't they do?" Mr. Carlson said. "Unfortunately, because the people running the system are so stupid and lacking self-awareness, they just confirmed to everybody watching this is, in fact, a fake democracy."