Tucker Carlson Makes His First Post-Trump Play. By Curt Mills.
In less than two days’ time, the most powerful Republican, conservative or merely Democrat-skeptical venue in the United States, will no longer be the White House, nor the defunct Twitter account of the executive mansion’s most recent occupant.
It will quite likely be the marquee television show of Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight. …
Carlson tried his first hand at the role, on Monday night. “Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight,” he said. “Our capital city is under military occupation tonight. There are now 26,000 armed federal troops in Washington.”
Several elements of Carlson’s monologue — which was swiftly lapped up by the faithful on social media — distinguish him from his forebears. He’s also drawn lines for potential rivals to cross, if they dare.
Here it is again (we ran it yesterday):
First, and strikingly, is Carlson’s pronounced willingness to strike out against Conservative, Inc., and the small government apparatus that funded much of the early opposition to the last Democratic president. “Members of the media call for a secret police agency. This is the stuff of libertarian nightmares,” Carlson said. “It’s what they claim to hate. Where are they now? Why isn’t billionaire libertarian man of principle Charles Koch spending billions of dollars to stop this?” …
Second, Carlson has declared war on the neocons. He has tacitly endorsed the line of longstanding critics of the war on terror, … that vicious American policies abroad, borne of extraordinary circumstances, may eventually be visited on those at home. …
Third, and perhaps most notably, Carlson has rejected “whataboutism,” perhaps the watchword of the moment. He has denounced efforts to compare the government reaction to last summer’s riots …
“They don’t blame entire groups for the crimes of a few,” Carlson inveighed. “Bigotry is immoral. So is collective punishment. There’s nothing more un-Amercian.”
Carlson’s approach is not universal, even on the right. There will be those who argue, potentially forcefully, that the government should take an uncompromising line against all violence and rioting, and spare little in its prevention. …
Even if Carlson, once derided as America’s bow-tie-wearing reactionary par excellence, is now the monopoly man’s enemy, the old anti-socialist line isn’t totally going away.
Invoking the people’s republics of China and North Korea, Carlson said: “‘Domestic spy agency’ is a not-very-subtle euphemism for ‘secret police.’ That’s what they’re calling for.” Drawing on circumstantial evidence, Carlson previewed the previously unthinkable. “Democrats in Congress support a new secret police agency. Why wouldn’t they support it? What better way to protect your own power than funding a quote, ‘domestic spy agency to fight extremists at home’?” He said: “Those ‘extremists,’ needless to say, will be your political opponents. You won’t have to worry about them any more. They’ll be in jail.” …
If Carlson is a messenger of the right, he is like Trump, or even Ronald Reagan before him, an eclectic one. With a toehold in the entertainment world, he is a performer with a wide friend network, and a bespoke ideology that he means to popularize.
hat-tip Stephen Neil
