Facebook
X
LinkdIn
Copy Link
When Tucker Carlson appeared at the Heritage Foundation’s fiftieth anniversary celebration as a keynote speaker this past Friday, he was in an expansive mood. He reminisced about starting to work at the think-tank’s old publication Policy Review in August 1991, the month that the Soviet Union collapsed. He offered that it had not occurred to him that America would end up succumbing to the very totalitarianism that existed in the USSR, but then proudly noted that there wasn’t any special courage in his own willingness to challenge it. “I’m paid to do that,” he said. “I can have any opinion I want.”
Oops.
Carlson’s sudden ouster at Fox, complete with reports that the network has compiled a secret dossier filled with dirt on him, suggests a rather different verdict. Carlson, often accused of being an adherent of the Great Replacement Theory, is going to be replaced himself. Consternation at home and abroad is widespread. Even Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov weighed in on Tuesday at the United Nations on the brouhaha, calling Carlson’s defenestration a “curious decision” that raised doubts about America’s commitment to freedom of speech. Actually, the real question goes deeper: does it augur stormy weather for the kinds of themes and stands that Carlson tried to promote on the right? Is the right, well, Tuckered out?
With Carlson’s absence, the fusillade of criticism over lawmakers’ support for Ukraine may ebb
Certainly Carlson’s numerous detractors in the GOP are hoping that’s the case. For Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and others, Carlson was a standing thorn in their collective side, a boisterous promoter of Russia. With his absence, the fusillade of criticism over their support for Ukraine may ebb. It was Carlson who declared on air that he didn’t see why he couldn’t support Russia, And it was Carlson who denounced Ukraine as “a colony with a puppet regime essentially managed by the US State Department.”
Another of Carlson’s innovations was to produce a few editions of his show from Hungary and help persuade a number of American conservatives that it could serve as a model for America. He conducted a lengthy interview with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán that focused on family values and immigration. One of his last guests, in fact, was an advisor to Orbán, his namesake Balázs Orbán (no relation), a member of the Hungarian parliament and a political director for the prime minister. Carlson lauded him “as one of the smartest people who has ever talked about politics.” In fact, Balázs Orbán has become a rising star in America, appearing at numerous conservative meetings and functions, including Heritage’s recent event, where he met with an enthusiastic reception as he explained Hungary’s attempts to promote traditional family values.
One of Carlson’s key contributions to the right was, in fact, to act as a kind of talent scout. For many conservatives the opportunity to appear on his show was like being called upon to be one of the twelve Apostles. With his ability to turn on a dime from comedic to earnest host, Carlson, who emerged from the neocon world, was adept at taking ideas that may have initially appeared outlandish and mainstreaming them.
When I spoke with him on Tuesday, Scott McConnell, the former editor of the American Conservative, said that he wonders whether Carlson’s departure will, in fact, make it more difficult for heretical politicians such as Tulsi Gabbard who oppose intervention in Ukraine to win a hearing. He also speculated that Carlson’s firing may enable a neoconservative faction to mount a comeback in the GOP. Now that Rupert Murdoch has defrocked Carlson, a doctrinal struggle over the true conservative faith may well emerge.
