'Shut up and take it, America': Tucker Carlson uses Elmo as example of left guilting conservatives into silence

Elmo, the children's television icon, is trying to rewrite American values to teach young people that all white people have made the United States a "bad" place, says one Fox News personality.

Tucker Carlson has used the death of George Floyd and the subsequent protests across the country to dive into the deep end of America's culture war pool. He says some on the left tried recently to force Fox executives to cancel his Monday-Friday nightly program "for good," but failed.

Mr Carlson appeared to object to those involved in and supporting what he called "left-wing mobs" and what he described as their thirst for "power." He appeared, without saying it directly, to object to their calls for white people to reject an alleged "white privilege" or feel bad that they might possess it.

"You don't have to apologise for crimes you did not commit. You have the absolute right to say exactly what you believe is true," the Fox host said. "That is your birthright."

He decried "decades of relentless propaganda" from left-wing groups that he contends has made conservative Americans fearful.

"All of it designed to make us feel that we have no right to stand up for ourselves, to stand up for our country," Mr Carlson said as he opened his Tuesday night show. "We are too sinful to resist, we deserve whatever we get. Shut up and take it, America."

As what he dubbed the "latest example," he played a clip from a weekend special CNN broadcast last weekend in partnership with "Sesame Street," the wildly popular PBS children's show.

The clip portrayed a video chat between Elmo and his father, Louie, in which the latter shows his son a "Love, Justice, Peace" sign he said he would take to a protest later in the day. Elmo asked his father if protesters outside were "sad."

"Across the country, people of colour ― especially in the black community ― are being treated unfairly because of how they look, their culture, race and who they are," Louie told Elmo. "What we are seeing is people saying, 'Enough is enough.' They want to end racism."

"On Sesame Street, we all love and respect one another," Louie said.

But love had nothing to do with it. At least according to Mr Carlson, long a leading voice in the American conservative movement.

"Got that, Bobby?" Mr Carlson said, addressing a seemingly fictional young person. "America is a very bad place, and it's your fault. So no matter what happens, no matter what they do to you when you grow up, you have no right to complain. That's the message and it starts very young."

Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned what he has dubbed a politically correct element on the left since becoming president.

Though Mr Carlson has at times – and as recently as last week – criticised the GOP president, Mr Trump has praised his prime time show and echoed the Fox host's conservative and hard line views on all sorts of matters.