Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show was basically the audio book version of the ‘Turner Diaries’, the infamous white supremacist novel that has become a playbook of sorts for the violent, right-wing extremist militia movement.
It was a primary text for Timothy McVeigh and the assorted Neo-Nazis at Elohim City that helped him carry out his awful deeds.
The impact Carlson has had on white nationalism in the USA and promoting the ‘Great Replacement Theory’ cannot be overstated.
Add to this his attempted whitewashing (pun intended) of the January 6th attacks on the US Capitol (which was prophesied in ‘Turner Diaries’) and it’s truly alarming that he was the number one show on Fox News.
The appetite for his toxic and twisted theories has been stimulated and cultivated by corporate media for decades.
Both sides of Sixth Avenue played along in certain respects because even left-leaning mainstream media like MSNBC realized you can’t have a hero without a heel.
I believe Tucker’s contributions to the tumult we now face will be studied for generations to come by students of authoritarianism and fascist dogma.
Assuming our republic does not succumb to it first.
The fact that a sniveling, bow-tied, prep school jerk who was kicked out of a Swiss boarding school before he landed at the posh St. George’s on a rocky cliff above the Atlantic Ocean in Rhode Island, held such a sway over red state, rural and exurban, working-class white America is mind-boggling.
How many of his followers even know what a squash racquet is, let alone spent their college years at Trinity, after stealing the heart of the headmasters daughter at St.George’s (who later became his wife).
You cannot have a more privileged or protected upbringing than Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson.
He wasn’t just born on third base he was inches from home.
Though an estranged relationship with his mother certainly seems to have fueled his legendary misogyny and excessive use of the ‘c-word’ around newsrooms to describe women he disagreed with, or who challenged his smug sense of superiority.
That Tucker was able to seamlessly blend his Nantucket Red roots into MAGA-hat red, and succeeded in mainstreaming radical racism, folding it into the patriotic branding and iconography of red state America is in fact quite stunning.
It is also quite reminiscent of the pampered and privileged scion of a real estate fortune who sat in his penthouse perch, on a golden toilet, while branding himself some sort of working man’s savior to the NASCAR and pickup truck crowd.
These ideological grifters seem to unintentionally illuminate how malleable and easily duped extremist Republicans have become.
This dynamic should be viewed as a bit of a warning sign, much like the ticking of a bomb before it explodes.
As a nation, we need to prioritize defusing the hate speech and rancor before its incendiary nature consumes more swaths of our democracy and civic life.
The NRA, well-funded attacks on LGBTQ rights and the xenophobia of GOP rhetoric all work against the common good; as a people we suffer accordingly, while men like Rupert Murdoch reap the financial rewards of elevating fools and tyrants.
Hate is such a galvanizing force - and outspoken racism became so tantalizing and attractive to the perpetually aggrieved - that this snippy weirdo with the cackling laugh became a hero to millions.
A laugh that seemed more spasm than expression of emotion or amusement, not to mention anything approaching frivolity.
It smacked of the evil cacophony of a Batman villain and rang in the ears like a warning, or the repeat of a canon aimed at its own people.
It seemed reflexive: whenever he was confronted with the truth or an inconvenient fact, it would appear.
Instant and jarring, as if to signal to the viewer to disregard the contrarian evidence that he had just heard, and realign their thoughts with the all-knowing host.
An instant reboot for the minds Tucker had melded. The aural equivalent of one of those flashlights in ‘Men In Black’ or a hypnotist’s code word.
This reactionary parlor trick had real world consequences, especially when it came to shaping the narrative around geo-political events, at least to his viewers.
Most recently, the war in Ukraine and the unlawful invasion of Putin and his troops, which had the full support of Tucker Carlson from the moment the first missile landed on innocent women and children.
He seemed to enjoy denouncing US opposition to Putin’s aggression - and became a hero on Russian propaganda media outlets.
Sergey Lavrov himself (Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and the man who can make Trump smile like no other) used his visit at the U.N. this week to bemoan Carlson’s firing.
Tucker became such a vital mouthpiece to Russian State media that clips from his Fox Show were played nightly on Moscow’s news outlets.
Especially in response to the protests breaking out amongst Russians in opposition to the war, bravely in defiance of the autocratic ruler and his crack-downs on free speech.
Carlson cheered on the aggressor and attempted to poison the well in the US concerning the US’s support of Ukraine.
Cowards abhor bravery - and Zelensky had obviously been a foe in the MAGA universe for quite some time.
Tucker’s full-throated support of Putin’s war crimes can be viewed as a sort of payback for Trump’s first impeachment. (Which was an attempt to shake down Zelensky and clear the battlefield for Putin’s invasion).
They both failed (MAGA often does) but the simple fact that Tucker & Trump attempted to make defending Ukraine harder is an affront to democracy itself - and anyone amongst us that truly understands the meaning of the word freedom.
Tucker served as a useful idiot for Putin’s aggression; his snarky visage of perpetual constipation and parroted talking points were used to sow confusion and doubt - and not only undermine the US’s resolve but skewed the Russians’ perceptions of the views held by Americans themselves.
I cannot speak to how effective any of this was in Russia itself, of course, but it certainly should be viewed as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
It’s also infuriating to Ukrainians who are bravely defending their homeland against barbarism and continued atrocities.
And maddening to any of us aware that the war crimes that Putin and his troops are committing continue on a daily basis, over a year into the war.
The Russian military used residential areas as targets for missile strikes and tortured women and children, while a smarmy little punk who was an heir to a fish-stick fortune mocked their suffering and pain from his redoubt in Maine.
An appetite for destruction indeed - let’s hope red state Americans move on to more nutritious meals - and leave the ‘Hungry Man’ TV-dinner scion to sip his bitter bouillabaisse alone in obscurity.
You certainly have a way with words..
Well done👍
The few snippets of Tucker's Show that I saw made me think of a sick ,twisted, racist Pee Wee Herman.