Trial by Tucker: The Intersection of Politics, Fox, and Law
Politics over juries allows the right people to pick the right verdicts.
From The Independent:
On July 25, 2020, [Army Sargeant] Daniel Perry was working as an Uber driver in Austin, during a summer filled with numerous racial justice protests across US cities following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis smothered to death by police officers who knelt on his neck.
Perry, who admitted he had been texting and driving distractedly, ran a red light and drove into the thick of a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators, nearly hitting Whitney Mitchell, a quadruple amputee.
Among the crowd was Mitchell’s husband, 28-year-old Garrett Foster, an Air Force veteran, who was openly and legally carrying an AK-47 rifle.
Witnesses say Foster, who was white, gestured with his gun for the Uber driver to “move on.”
Shaky video of the moment, captured by journalist Hiram Gilberto, shows the car in a crowd of people. Honking can heard. Someone nearby says, “Everybody back up,” then shots from Perry’s .357 revolver ring out, as protesters scream and scatter.
Garrett Foster died at the scene, his body riddled with .357 bullets. He can be seen just prior to his death, pushing his wife’s wheelchair.
In the video below, one gets a sense of the scene, it is distressing to watch:
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Perry had claimed self-defense, reminiscent of Kyle Rittenhouse, saying that he thought Foster would next point the gun at him. The jury rejected that defense due to a lot of video evidence and the introduction of strong evidence of Perry’s state of mind prior to the shooting. Back, briefly, to the Independent, describing what Perry posted on social media a month before.
“I might have to kill a few people on my way to work, they are rioting outside my apartment complex.”
“Can you legally do so?” a friend responded, according to evidence presented in court.
“If they attack me or try to pull me out of my car then yes,” the Army sergeant said.
You will, of course, note - that no one attacked Perry. Indeed Perry admitted to “distracted driving” and “running a red light” into the protest. Additionally, Perry admitted that Foster never aimed the Ak-47 (Fucking Texas) at Perry.
Pay attention. Because the entirety of the issue revolves around Perry’s next admission at trial:
"I believe he was going to aim at me. I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me.”
Texas is an open-carry state. Foster was legally carrying his gun. So, there is something irreconcilable with having a legal “open-carry” law and shooting someone to death because “I believe he was going to aim at me. I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me.”
Making matters that much worse, Texas is a “Stand your ground state” and thus Perry argued he had the right to “stand his ground” not wanting someone to “aim at him.”
An Austin jury heard evidence over a two-week trial and deliberated for seventeen hours, and then convicted Perry of murder just last Friday. The next day, this last Saturday, Governor Abbott was already talking about a pardon for Perry. Abbott did not sit through the trial.
Why would Abbott be talking about a pardon the day after a trial? Because of A) Politics and B) He can.
We’ve seen this play out before, with a different verdict.
Obviously, this is where Tucker Carlson joins the story because we know that a precedent has been set. In a red state, a liberal’s life is less valuable than a conservative’s - even when we exclude race. Fox News and the MAGAs leap to support white men gunning down liberals. Of course, Perry shot in self-defense, they were rioting! Except, if you watch the event in the video there was no riot prior to the gunfire. No, even though Foster was white, he was guilty of supporting Black Lives Matter. Foster is exactly the type of person that good Texans get to “stand their ground” against.
Given that Perry is the “good guy” and the Right Wing media pronounced Perry not guilty long ago, politics dictates that Abbott must step in now and make this “Right.” Indeed, while the jury convicted Perry on Friday, Abbott appeared on Tucker by Monday night.
From Rolling Stone:
Carlson lauded Governor Abbott for proposing a pardon. “That is obviously the right thing to do… George Soros can’t pay people to put his political opponents in jail and then have a Republican governor ignore it,” Carlson said, somehow finding a way to blame Jewish-Hungarian billionaire George Soros for Perry’s conviction.
Bonus anti-Semitism, now normalized, not hidden, nor relevant to this story. Just thrown in because they can.
I could keep sliding more information down the phone at you and yet you see the problem. The Austin jury heard all the evidence and the defenses, stand your ground, self-defense, etc., and handed down a guilty verdict. But conservatives like the idea of being able to shoot liberals at protests. Rittenhouse is now a MAGA prince.
If Abbott knew three weeks ago that Perry should be allowed to shoot someone in his circumstance then Abbott could have saved a lot of time and money by having Perry brought before him for a “Thumb’s Up” or “Thumb’s down.” Fascism’s greatest asset is its brutal efficiency.
Ceasar, playing with lives.
Instead, Abbott has asked the Board of Pardons and Paroles for an expedited pardon recommendation (In Texas, the Governor needs the Board to recommend a pardon. All board members are appointed by the Governor.)
We continue a theme in this newsletter, the abrogation of the rule of law as applied to the far right.
Tucker doesn’t care that a jury found Perry guilty, nor does Tucker need to wait to see what happens on appeal, Tucker, too, knows that Perry should be allowed to shoot people like Foster.
Thus, Tucker and the far right argue that the law should be stripped to its most brutal or singularly powerful underpinnings, impeachments, pardons, etc. to get to a pre-desired result, just as it would be in Russia.
People forget that Russia has a Constitution, laws, courts, and even Tucker on state television. But none of those Russian laws mean anything when the desired result is preordained. Now we see it happening here. And, once again, we see it happening only on one side… the side quickly becoming a minority party.
That side protects its own to an unthinkable degree. Perry stands ready to receive a pardon due to the existence of Fox News and the Right’s newfound pleasure in ruling with an iron fist over liberals. We see the same thing in Wisconsin where a liberal justice was elected by 11 points just last week but the super-majority legislature might impeach her this week.
Because it can.
The willingness to throw out all sense of justice, democracy, and the rule of law, to just “impose” the Right’s agenda is deeply concerning, especially running up to 2024.
Can anyone imagine Joe Biden doing anything remotely like this? Barack Obama? Gavin Newsom? Of course, not. This is not a “both sides” thing. It’s being done by one side, repeatedly, across an entire spectrum of circumstances, strung together by one guiding principle, “use any means, however unusual, to retain raw power, even as a minority.”
Summary:
The dynamic is easily understood. A state drowning in guns has two irreconcilable laws. It is an open-carry state and, Abbott says, has some of the strongest “stand your ground” laws in the United States. The situation is ready-made to allow anyone to shoot anyone in the right circumstances. “I thought he was about to aim at me.” Or, “I stood my ground as a car came through a red light at me…” The outcome will depend on the color of your skin, whether your MAGA bona fides are in order, and how quickly you can get a Fox News editor on the phone.
The other dynamic is also easily understood. The Right is increasingly resorting to quasi-constitutional actions and normalizing them. No one dreamed a president would pardon friends who kept their mouths shut until one just said “Fck you” and did it. No one would dream of expelling two young black men for a silent protest until the legislature said, “Fck you” and did it. And certainly, no one could’ve imagined that a governor might have a convicted murderer pardoned before he spends a full week in jail awaiting sentence.
Now it appears we have one ready to truly hurt the woman above, Foster’s wife, with the unavoidable conclusion; “Your husband’s life is worth less than Perry’s because this is Texas, don’t BLM in Texas. But you knew that and should never have been out that night. It’s your fault.”
The Right’s march is as dangerous as it is certain. We await the next “who could’ve imagined…” and simply pray that it doesn’t involve violence and loss of life. Seems precious little to ask. And yet…
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I am now a part-time editor and writer at Occupy Democrats and Washington Press, most of my work won’t be under my name but there will be some.
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