Insanity Wrap: Fox News Is Officially Dying Without Tucker Carlson

Fox News committed corporate seppuku when they fired Tucker Carlson, and I’ve got the flatlining numbers to prove it. That’s the big crazy on today’s Insanity Wrap — an entire week’s worth of nuttiness wrapped up in one easy-to-swallow medicated news capsule.

Plus:

In the Navy?
Everybody needs to talk about Oakland Fight Club.
Vigilantism is going to be the new normal.

Before we get to today’s big story, here’s a short video to make you lose whatever little faith you might still have in humanity.

This Is Not a Sane World, Exhibit #1,000,006

The U.S. Navy hired this non-binary drag queen as a “digital ambassador” to try to recruit people pic.twitter.com/l3LIEtndVD

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) May 2, 2023

While Winston Churchill was serving as Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty (their Secretary of the Navy, more or less), he was accused by one admiral of impugning the traditions of the Royal Navy. And what are those traditions, Churchill asked rhetorically. “They are,” he said, “rum, sodomy, and the lash.”

And that’s as much as I’m going to say about that today.

Fox News Underwent a Tucker-ectomy But Didn’t Survive the Procedure

“Young people have abandoned Fox News in primetime,” according to the latest numbers surmised by A Newsman on Twitter.

How bad is it, really?

Tucker Carlson had 270,000 viewers in the 25-to-54-year-old demo on his last night at Fox News and the top-rated cable news show. One week later, his (temporary?) replacement, Fox News Tonight, had just 110,000 demo viewers and had dropped to 16th place. The numbers got worse as the week dragged on for the once-mighty 8 p.m. Fox time slot.

But wait, as the TV pitchman used to say, there’s more!

Sean Hannity has apparently been relying bigly on Carlson’s lead-in audience for his 9 p.m. show. “Hannity now below 100k in the demo,” warned A Newsman, “and Tucker’s old time slot losing more than 70% of its young audience. Catastrophic.”

Ratings rebounded somewhat on Monday and Tuesday after Friday night’s NFL draft pulled eyeballs away from their (formerly?) favorite cable news shows. But they didn’t rebound high enough to avoid this embarrassing headline: Cable News Ratings Monday May 1: MSNBC Tops Fox News in Prime Time.

Ouch.

The ratings don’t tell the real story of Fox’s troubles, however. The Five and Gutfeld! are still doing great, MSNBC’s appeal remains focused entirely on hard lefties, and CNN has been a zombie news network for years. Maybe they should rebrand as ZNN.

When Tucker lost his show, it dawned on me that even at $35 million, his salary was probably too low. If someone like Steven Crowder could afford (or so it seemed at the time) to turn down a $50 million web deal, then clearly Tucker could get bigger bucks going indy. Essentially, he was Fox News primetime. Fox can’t replace their star, but their star can take his viewers elsewhere.

Whenever we do find out where Tucker lands, if I were someone like Greg Gutfeld or any one of The Five, I’d have my agent paying very close attention.

Fox News hasn’t been the star, so to speak, with its conservative viewers since the network called Arizona early on Election Night in 2020. They threw away their brand that night and have since relied on genuinely conservative personalities like Tucker to maintain primetime dominance.

If the talent is forced out or leaves for more modern platforms, where does that leave Fox?

Bleeding out on the floor from self-inflicted wounds, that’s where.

Before We Continue, Here’s a Short Video to Restore Your Faith in Everything…

Wait til the kittens get adopted and the dog's moping — until he gets more foster kittens 💗 pic.twitter.com/rO9Skg1O0F

— The Dodo (@dodo) May 2, 2023

I’m not crying — you’re crying.

Your Weekly Dose of Mostly Peaceful Protest

Man throws a bucket at a car trying to stop a street takeover and gets Savagely Beaten into a Coma in Oakland, California… pic.twitter.com/Oj8IvUGT4x

— Fight Haven (@FightHaven) May 2, 2023

Oakland Refuses To Go After Attackers In Violent Sideshow Beat Down Caught On Video

The video isn’t easy to watch. The story isn’t easy to read:

A man frustrated by a sideshow in Oakland lunged at a car spinning donuts around him and was then attacked by the crowd in an incident that was captured on video.

The incident happened at 34th and Adeline streets on Sunday. Videos posted on social media show the man hitting a careening white car.

Several people then go after him, kicking and punching him repeatedly, even as he’s on the ground. At one point, the man appears to go unconscious. The sound of screeching tires can still be heard as he lies motionless on the sidewalk.

I hate to get so serious in an Insanity Wrap column, but I’ve got to say this: My hope is that Americans win our cities back; my concern is how bloody it might prove. I’d like to see a return to decent policing and prosecution. In their absence, we’ll get a real-life return of Dirty Harry and Paul Kersey.

The Craziest Person in the World (This Week)

(I have no idea why this clip is age-restricted.)

Case in point on that last item from Mira Loma, Calif., where a customer decided to stop shoplifters because the police won’t and the employees aren’t allowed to.

And this guy is our Craziest Person of the Week for taking such a risk in California, where he might be the “criminal.”

Previously On Insanity Wrap [VIP]: McDonalds Wants HOW Much for a Big Mac?

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