Tucker Carlson’s Depressing Realization
The fired propagandist has had an epiphany about bullshit.
MEDIAite (“Tucker Carlson Drops First Video After Fox News Ouster“):
Tucker Carlson released a video on Wednesday addressing his firing from Fox News several days prior.
During the video, which was published to Carlson’s Twitter account, the former Fox News host said he realized after stepping “outside the noise for a few days” how “unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are,” arguing that they were “completely irrelevant” and “mean nothing.”
“In five years we won’t even remember that we had them,” he said, adding, “Trust me as someone who has participated.”
Carlson went on to criticize cable news for ignoring the “undeniably big topics” which will “define our future,” such as “war, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power” and “natural resources,” and claimed that “debates like that are not permitted in American media.”
“Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. Suddenly the United States looks very much like a one party state,” Carlson suggested, before saying that while it was a “depressing realization,” it would not be permanent as the “current orthodoxies” would not last.
This is rich coming from Carlson, of course, given his leading role in all of this. And, of course, this is pretty much what Jon Stewart famously proclaimed almost two decades ago now as a guest on the Carlson co-hosted Crossfire.
Writing at The Atlantic, Tom Nichols proclaims “Tucker Carlson Is the Emblem of GOP Cynicism.”
Carlson joined this attention-seeking conservative generation and tried on various personas. At one point, he had a show on MSNBC that was canceled after a year. I never saw it. I do remember Carlson as the co-host of Crossfire; I didn’t think he did a very good job representing thoughtful conservatives, and he ended up getting pantsed live on national television by Jon Stewart. He was soon let go from CNN.
When Carlson got his own show on Fox News in 2016, however, I noticed.
This new Tucker Carlson decided to throw off the pretense of intellectualism. (According to The New York Times, he was “determined to avoid his fate at CNN and MSNBC.”) He understood what Fox viewers wanted, and he took the old Tucker—the one who claimed to care about truth and journalistic responsibility—and drove him to a farm upstate where he could run free with the other journalists. The guy who returned alone in his car to the studio in Manhattan was a stone-cold, cynical demagogue. By God, no one was going to fire that guy.
What concerned me was not that Carlson was selling political fentanyl; that’s Fox’s business model. It was that Carlson, unlike many people in his audience, knew better. He jammed the needle right into the arms of the Fox audience, spewing populist nonsense while running away from his own hyper-privileged background.
[…]
Every night, Carlson encouraged American citizens to join him in his angry nihilism, telling his fans that America and its institutions were hopelessly corrupt, and that they were essentially living in a failed state. He and his fellow Fox hosts, meanwhile, presented themselves as the guardians of the real America, crowing in ostensible solidarity with an audience that, as we would later learn from the Dominion lawsuit, they regarded with both contempt and fear.
An especially hateful aspect of Carlson’s rants is that they often targeted the institutions and norms—colleges, the U.S. military, capitalism itself—that help so many Americans get a chance at a better life. No matter the issue, Carlson was able to find some resentful, angry, us-versus-them angle, tacking effortlessly from sounding like a pompous theocrat one day to a founding member of Code Pink the next. If you were trying to undermine a nation and dissolve its hopes for the future, you could hardly design a better vehicle than Tucker Carlson Tonight.
I would also commend to your attention an October 2022 essay by Jon Askonas at something called The New Atlantis titled “How Stewart Made Tucker.” It’s too long to do justice by excerpting but is a thoughtful look at how Stewart and his Daily Show staff revolutionized the infotainment industry by its pioneering use of video clips and associated technologies. It’s worth your time to read in full but this point stood out to me:
What had created a culture of “just talking on TV without any accountability,” as one Daily Show writer put it, was not only the sheer volume and speed of the news. It was this true fact that will sound insane to anyone under the age of thirty: People on television reasonably assumed that no one would hear what they had said ever again.
[…]
As essayist Chuck Klosterman records in The Nineties: A Book, the key characteristic of twentieth-century media was its ephemerality. You experienced it in real time and internalized what was important and what it felt like. Then you moved on. “It was a decade of seeing absolutely everything before never seeing it again.”
[…]
And so, if you were a pundit or a commentator or a “spin doctor” PR flak, you could say whatever suited your needs at the moment, or even lie with impunity — as long as your lie did not become its own pseudo-event. Your lasting impact was whatever stuck in viewers’ heads and hearts. And if you changed your tune in the months or years afterwards, who would remember?
[…]
Against spin and vacuity in political journalism, Jon Stewart harnessed the past as a weapon. It was The Daily Show, more than any other factor, that began the disciplining of American political culture with perfect digital memory.
There was something to this accountability, of course. Politicians and pundits could no longer get away with dishonestly saying something different to different audiences. But it had the real downside of forcing that foolish consistency that heretofore been the hobgoblin of little minds. That’s actually a problem for those doing their best to be honorable, as changing one’s mind as one learned new information or gained other perspectives would now be derided as hypocrisy or worse.
Like Nichols, I’ve seen the different personas of Carlson over the last quarter century or so from a lightweight George Will wannabe to a lightweight Rush Limbaugh clone to arguably the most powerful white nationalist demagogue not named Donald Trump. I don’t think Stewart is to blame for that, of course, but it may well be that the pressure to present a consistent brand exacerbated the awfulness.
What exactly are the two competing “undeniably big” propositions we’re to be considering in a debate over “demographic change”?
Tucker who?
Those trying to be honorable would say that their change in position was based on sober reflection and/or new information. And then they would describe those changes. This is not hard. The fact that so most don’t do this indicates that those majority of politicians are being less than honest.
That Stewart essay was remarkably lame. Not surprised the author is some guy from the Catholic University of America desperate to pretend that the mass lies of the Bush admin and the War on Terror are kin to the corporate plot of M&Ms going queer. What Stewart went after were wars. What Carlson goes after are niche things for a niche racist audience in a niche world. And I don’t think Carlson has changed at all in his life–he was a homophobe in prep school who founded the Dan White Society in honor of the man who killed Harvey Milk and lo and behold decades later he’s targeting trans people.
The weird thing is that his audience is like 3 million and yet every GOP candidate is dancing to the same insane and offputting tune. Bush had two planes going into building. Tucker has stuff for divorced dads angry about their child’s pronouns.
@Stormy Dragon: Presumably, establishment of permanent Master Race (dressed up in some transparent disguise) versus “whatever” – something of rerun of Protestant Ascendancy panic of 19th century.
That’s a very good paragraph from Tom Nichols there and the drug analogy is apt for the effects of Trump and Tucker on the right. Drug highs are fleeting, so you are going to keep hitting the needle. And the effects weaken over time, so stronger stuff is increasingly needed to get back to the happy place.
So Carlson is saying he’s been cancelled for supporting Russia on the war, wanting to deny civil liberties, lab origin, “great replacement”, hating on woke corporate marketing, and AGW denialism? So he’s making the standard conservative argument, “Muh free speech rahts have been taken away by people saying the stupid stuff I said is stupid.”? Does he really think he got fired by Rupert Murdoch for being his version of woke? Rhetorical questions. He’s apparently trying to play to some hypothetical future MAGA audience by pretending he’s being put down by the man
Cool, an entirely new definition of chutzpah.
Chutzpah used to be killing your parents and then pleading for mercy because you’re an orphan.
But that’s topped by bemoaning the destructive shallowness of cable news arguments after spending your career screaming about how woke ideology has led to a candy company changing one of its cartoon mascots so you don’t want to have sex with it as much.
Let he who is not guilty of M&M lust cast the first stone.
Oh wait…that was the Salisbury Steak heir, himself.
Never mind.
@Lounsbury:
That was a rhetorical question. ;P I just wanted to point out the dog whistle.
If I were watching WWE, I’d recognize his statement right away–it’s the “face turn” promo where the heel who’s always been contemptuous of the fans “comes to Jesus” and realized the importance of “the WWE (or TNA or AEW or…) universe” and pledges to be their guy from now on.
Alas, this isn’t WWE and will only work for the erstwhile frozen dinner pseudo heir to the extent that some outlet, somewhere will see a need for a centrist demagogue.
Meh… not seeing it.
I still think this is the paradigm, even with the fact that things are far less ephmeral. It is the sportstalk model. You can rant and pontificate abut this week’s games but whatever you say will be forgotten when you are ranting about next week’s games.
How many mock drafts and “what if?” pieces have been written the last couple of months that will mean absolutely nothing once they start making picks tonight?
Plus, the great thing about cable news talking heads is that they don’t really need to know jack about what they are talking about.
Tucker Carlson was fired because he communicated, in writing, some apparently really awful sh!t.
Full stop. Fox didn’t come to terms with his awfulness and decide that they’d had enough. They are scared that whatever TF it is that Carlson said is going to eventually come out and make them look even worse than they actually are already.
On Eve of Trial, Discovery of Carlson Texts Set Off Crisis Atop Fox
[…] Private messages sent by Mr. Carlson that had been redacted in legal filings showed him making highly offensive and crude remarks that went beyond the inflammatory, often racist comments of his prime-time show and anything disclosed in the lead-up to the trial.
Despite the fact that Fox’s trial lawyers had these messages for months, the board and some senior executives were now learning about their details for the first time, setting off a crisis at the highest level of the company, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
The discovery added pressure on the Fox leadership as it sought to find a way to avoid a trial where Mr. Carlson — not to mention so many others at the network — would be questioned about the contents of the private messages they exchanged in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. […]
Speaking, BTW, to the issue of bullshit.
There’s an element of solipsism in the assumption that if something is not covered in cable news, it’s not covered at all anywhere ever.
@Steven L. Taylor:
But this is just what every race-science guy says. The ‘real’ debate is too transgressive for liberal sensibilities and that’s why Charles Murray isn’t being taught in universities. If it’s impossible that you’re wrong about hierarchies, then clearly They are keeping the truth under wraps.
I think the majority of conservatives, Republicans, and probably mainstream Democrats believe a weak version of this–that deep down there are real truths that liberals can’t dare say because of wokeness.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Rush Limbaugh’s stint as a sports commentator was short lived. You can say what you want, but come the weekend they will play the game and the fans can see if you were right.
Do tax cuts help the economy? One can manage to argue forever.
Will the Eagles win the Super Bowl? No, Chiefs 38-35.
@Jen: I would think Smartmatic could still subpoena Carlson and FOX has sacrificed any control over him.
Long ago I read about some key aid to Reagan being fired. The gist was that the guy regarded himself as the indispensable brains behind Reagan. But he was just the most recent of a string of indispensable brains. He may have been the star quarterback, but Reagan was the franchise. And there was a ready supply of quarterbacks.
I’ve read some commentary, which I can’t quickly find, that Carlson was getting too big for his britches and felt himself to be above guidance or control by the Murdochs. Now Rupert still owns the franchise and everyone else has been reminded of that fact, and can cat fight for Carlson’s slot.
Stewart (and others) manage to maintain a consistent brand without turning into mindless parasites and while maintaining the ability to acknowledge new realities. I’d argue you have done the same, actually. And yes, being derided for hypocrisy or worse just because you have contact with reality sucks, the testicle tanner being unable to do so is on him, no one else.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I can’t even recall how this happened, or what the issue was, but MSNBC reached out to me eons ago to come on air and pontificate on something. I declined on the grounds that I didn’t actually know much about the topic.
Cannot imagine what I was thinking.
Watch for his upcoming campaign announcement when/if GA or DOJ sends up and indictment of Trump.
@Modulo Myself:
I largely agree. That said, I think there is a case to be made that Carlson did seek to become a sort of bizarro, evil-twin version of Stewart. I think it’s possible to recognize that fact without engaging in false equivalence.
And no, it has nothing to do with the “format” of either of their shows. It has more to do with what you’re saying. Before Stewart’s gig on TDS, most political comedy was very safe. It didn’t challenge institutional power. And maybe that’s still the case to a large degree, but Stewart defied it, and so do some of his proteges/alums (especially John Oliver).
During that legendary confrontation on Crossfire, Stewart’s basic criticism was that the show was “safe”–it was just career liberals and conservatives reciting their partisan talking points, without any serious engagement. I think that criticism resonated with Carlson to some degree. He was at that point just a bland conservative pundit, and whatever else you can say about the direction he took later, he definitely stopped being bland.
In no way am I suggesting that he actually began speaking truth to power. But he definitely wanted to make people think that’s what he was doing. The result was the child-brain version of speaking truth to power–namely, conspiracism. We’ve spoken before about the conspiratorial they. I saw a compilation the other day of various clips where Tucker made use of that device on his show. He was constantly saying “they” are coming for “you”; “they” are lying to “you.”
It’s important to keep in mind the #1 goal of Fox News, which is to trick gullible people into voting for politicians who will make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else. It all comes back to money in the end, which is the real reason he was let go. But his contribution while he was there was to sow fear and distrust in the institutions. It’s very different from what Stewart was doing on TDS back in the day, but it’s easy to lull a lot of people into thinking the two are the same, and that’s why it’s such a seductive tactic.
BTW I have solved the mystery of the edit button. If you are the last comment: no edit button. But if another comment has been entered after yours: edit button.
Cue the chorus of, ‘we knows!’
Right. And you can usually post a new one word comment, get the edit function for both it and your previous, edit the previous and delete the latter.
@Kylopod:
The central problem is that Stewart was funny, and he had funny writers and comedians working for him, and his audience was looking for a joke. Whereas Tucker Carlson isn’t funny. So I get the sense that the writer of that essay was kinda traumatized by The Dailly Show and has remembered it like a guy in a cell remembers a captor who treated him better than the others.
And I feel like the truth-telling that Carlson engaged in was aimed at people who found Jon Stewart problematic because he made sense while being a liberal. It’s like a conservative Christian trying to figure out how that gay couple is more middle-class and nuclear that his family. Same with Obama: how did this black man with a nice family act so normal? He even killed Bin Laden!
The entire reason for Trump comes out of 2003-2015 making no sense to conservative and moderate whites. That’s why they elevated normal stuff (Obama, diversity, a comedy show) to the status of an intense potentially-traumatic experience They are doing to divide Us. All of these ding-dongs going on about in-groups/out-groups come from that same core experience. And Tucker figured that out, to his credit–probably because he felt the same.
@Michael Reynolds:
If you just hit refresh it works…
One more thing about The Daily Show: it was very light-hearted and did not take itself that seriously. It only looked serious because 9/11 made the establishment media lose its mind.
Re: Tucker being influenced by Jon Stewart–it’s like tracing Father Coughlin to vaudeville.
@Modulo Myself:
There I slightly disagree. Tucker isn’t being intentionally funny. Or perhaps I should say he doesn’t want his audience to think he’s being funny. I actually think there’s a very high chance he was struggling to keep a straight face whenever he did segments about evil M&M’s, or about how Jill Biden going by “Dr.” would risk lives during a medical emergency. He may think what he’s saying is hilarious, but either way he definitely doesn’t want his core viewers thinking so.
Still, I think all this is a side point, because I think we can agree that Stewart’s role was never just about being funny.
Also, isn’t that essay referencing Jon Stewart just a variation of, “If it wasn’t for those dirty liberals, conservatives wouldn’t be in the mess they find themselves in…damn those liberals?”
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Oh, contraire…MAGA is indeed the WWE…the political version of WWE. The owners and the entertainers are in on the schtick. (witness the texts and emails from the Dominion Discovery phase) Only the poor viewers are not. They believe it is absolutely real.
@daryl and his brother darryl: But the world at large isn’t. And that’s where his problem comes in. He has no place to land where he isn’t just another voice on the margins.
The comparison Between Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson couldn’t be more Stark. If Tucker Carlson ever does actual comedy it’s conservative comedy.
There are, in fact, three rules for “conservative comedy” that render it devoid of Anything in the same galaxy as funny.
The first rule is: It has to be conservative before it’s funny.
The second rule is: Lowbrow humor. Always punch down.
The final rule is: Never ever, in any circumstance, use conservatives or conservatism as the butt of the joke.
Even liberals are better at lampooning liberals than conservatives are (think Portlandia)
An example, John Stewart did a segment on The Daily Show where he was talking about a memoir that was written by Bill Clinton about his time in the White house. He played a video clip of Clinton answering questions at a press conference. The question that was asked by the journalist in the clip was, “ What is your favorite memory from your time in the White House?”
At that point, Clinton thinks about it for a moment and a wry smirk comes across his face and he lets out an almost sub-audible giggle. Right there Stewart stops the clip.
The camera pulls out a shot of Jon Stewart’s big smiling face. Then he says, “Now you know … the very next thing that the former president says is going to be a lie.
At that point he goes back to the clip and whatever Clinton said after that I can’t remember Because I was laughing so hard.
Liberals can laugh at themselves, conservatism can’t. That is why you can’t do a “conservative” political humor show that is actually funny.
@Stormy Dragon: Yes, I understood, but felt the desire to add…. althoughI missed panache on that one. Needed someting snazzier as a follow-up, feels half done just Master Race evoc. Needed more panache.
@Rick DeMent: Don’t overly flatter yourselves. It’s true US Right/conservatives is an odd combo of prissy and vulgarian with rather vulgarian petit bourgeouis humour , but that is hardly universal feature of conservative and ideological humourless the Lefties are fully capable of. However it is true at this moment for your case.
@Kylopod:The No. 1 goal of Fox News was and is to serve Fox News ratings relative to its chosen niche, actual electoral results being distinctly secondary as the last electoral cycle rather showed and this upcoming one is more than likely to show. What serves the niche in its Pavlovian response is not itself vote maximising for the overall political agenda.
@Lounsbury:
I don’t, I have just never heard a truly funny conservative nor one that used self depreciating humor. I’m open to examples 🙂
@Modulo Myself: Sometimes. Maybe even most times. But not all times.
@Modulo Myself: Negative I’ve hit refresh, f5 and ctrl+f5 without ever getting the edit button. Other times I get the edit button in the first refresh…
A vid with survivalist ads and hints of grand conspiracy. Tucker’s going for the Alex Jones business model, a splendid business decision. He’s more than qualified to take the reins of that buggy. He knows what he is.
@Rick DeMent:
There are many funny conservatives—just not in America. In America, conservativism is based on not getting things, which includes why things are funny. Jokes are formal and play with logic and expectations, and even offensive humor does this. Deep down, they don’t get why Richard Pryor’s imitations of white people are hilarious but blackface and minstrel shoes and a joke about what do you call 1 white guy with 10 black guys aren’t. Rush Limbaugh’s ‘humor’ is essentially what do you call 1 white guy.
@Argon:
“The fact that so most don’t do this indicates that those majority of politicians are being less than honest.”
Oh my. I think you’re giving politicians way too much credit. Most politicians are just too stupid to know what they’re doing. One of the top senators in the country peaked out with a BA in Phys Ed. Is this person balancing the various concerns and coming to sensible conclusions? My god, she probably only had one – and one of the easiest – science classes in her entire education. Rocks for jocks?
This is the level that most politicians are functioning at. Their political “practitioning” is equivalent to being a “physician” practicing homeopathic medicine.
@Modulo Myself: @Kylopod: @Thomm: As hinted at in the OP, I don’t know Askonis or the magazine in question. I stumbled on the essay via a Facebook thread and really liked the insights into how radically the media climate changed and the role Stewart and his team played in it. I don’t think the piece is arguing that this somehow absolves Carlson of his sins.