Cancelling Tucker Carlson was the business equivalent of throwing all your husband’s clothes out the window and setting fire to his car. There's no going back now.
The “left” is now nothing but a billionaire-club owned social vise. Truth has literally no value - what Tucker Carlson *actually* says is immaterial - the sheep are not allowed to watch him anyway.
Why have you never seen his show? It’s not that you’re not interested in politics and culture - obviously. I’d posit it is because the rules are so universally imposed, so ingrained, so fraught with staggering punishment, that not only do you not watch, but you also feel the pressure to publicly state up front (in an article about his show) that you’ve never watched it.
This is not a criticism of you; it’sa commentary on the Borg that has taken over the world. CONGRESSwoman (as in Congress shall make no law) AOC was publicly calling for him (and anyone who dares to question the Uni party narrative) be silenced. (Ever-so-coincidentally, immediately prior to his ouster at Fox.).
If someone as monetarily valuable as Tucker Carlson is expendable, none of us are even remotely safe.
These people are insidious and obvious at the same time. They’re incredibly dangerous.
I've never seen his show because I've tried but I couldn't watch the full thing without a Fox subscription, which I have zero interest in paying. So I make do with the clips, and interviews he's done with others. I listen to the podcast versions of several other third rail unmentionables, like Bannon and Megyn Kelly, because they are much easier to find in the whole show format, which is my preference.
You are correct, though, that admitting such things publicly is fraught with staggering punishment, as you say. Or at least online hate, which I have received. And it's unpleasant, but not world-ending. However, you can trust that any liberal blue-anon reading my article would 100 percent skip breezily over my caveat of not being a regular Tucker viewer and go straight to calling me a far-right extremist, because I quote him extensively and approvingly, in the article.
Especially in this media environment, I feel like my brain and my allegiance and my attention is a highly sought after space -- not because I'm special, but because we are all targets in the psy war. So I don't want to be a pawn by uncritically ceding my independence, even to someone I admire like Tucker.
That's all a bit high-minded. Really, I'm in the tank for him. And I chose to remain optimistic, because if there wasn't real opposition, then they would not have to cancel so many people. And they don't have nearly as much market share as they used to -- their market of real people is shrinking. Literally one of the best defences against the Borg is to refuse to let it convince you that it has already won. It might be the only one left soon.
Thanks for this - you’re truly one of the best examples of reasons to be optimistic. Thanks for having the amazing courage to be honest in public - one of the bravest things a person can do these days.
Tbh, I've never seen his show, either. But now I want to, just to see why he's so vilified! I did check him on wiki, and some descriptions of him (from other media) include 'far right' 'racist' and 'nationalist' - Yet he insists he isn't racist and that he agrees with MLK's views on race (judging people based on their character, not colour) I'd have to watch some shows to really make up my own mind, but honestly, I'm really skeptical of the MSM. Anyone who doesn't toe the liberal woke line is usually labelled as 'far right' or worse. This whole thing seems to be a character assassination. Googling him now, I saw that every single article about him was negative and inflammatory. I also like Megyn Kelly, and have watched her a few times, but have no idea how she is viewed by the media. Given that she also has the guts to go against the orthodoxy, I'm guessing she gets the usual labels (far right, etc) as well.
I know!! Anyone who generates that much ire from the godawful media must be doing something right! So much of it also feels like pure resentment that he has a bigger fan base than they do.
Still politically homeless, me, with recent announcements of Biden and Trump both running for president in '24. Love this clear take on Carlson and the faint reminder one gets when you hear him or others speak truth. The truth will set you free, not hobble you, control you like a lie will. Thank you Jenny
Any regular watcher of Tucker Carlson knows that he is the opposite of a "racist", but many believe this untruth because they find it convenient (then they don't need to bother to evaluate his views, which are often, albeit not always, very insightful). There are many rumors swirling around about exactly why Tucker was fired, one of which alleges that Rupert Murdoch disliked Tucker because of his willingness to express his religious convictions (who knows, obviously it can't be helping the bottom line to lose so many viewers). Tucker will resurface in some form and continue to speak the truth as he sees it (some powerful people may want the truth repressed, but Scripture tells us to speak the truth in love).
Eh, he values "truth" as much as he values Trump, or conspiracy theories. Which is to say, they are useful appeals to his audience that he must wield whether he actually enjoys it or not.
Tucker says what he thinks in a courageous manner. If he agrees with somebody, he says so. If he disagrees with somebody, he says so. Those who have seen countless hours of his programs know this. Those who have been conditioned by leftist media to have contempt for him based on fantasies do not.
It’s certainly possible that you’re right, but not likely. TV personalities hone their persona to appeal to the audience, and Tucker has been honing his for many years.
If you look at his early stuff, he was an overgrown frat boy. Now he’s the reasonable dad.
He’s a Trump cheerleader who actually detests him. He doesn’t say what he really thinks about Trump, does he.
In the end it doesn’t really matter, since the left is giving him so much material to work with that he doesn’t need to act in order to come across as reasonably outraged, any sane person would be.
Millions of people have complex views about Trump. They think he was an excellent President (far better than what we have now) but they don't like his nasty insults, so there is nothing unusual if Tucker praises Trump one moment and doesn't sound enthusiastic about him the next. I agree that the left is giving Tucker plenty to be legitimately outraged about. And people may look like an "overgrown frat boy" when young and like a "reasonable dad" when middle aged. Nothing unusual there either.
Thanks Jenny for your thoughts. I am daily amazed at what they've done to the country. I suspect that if millions of normal (non-woke, non-authoritarian) Americans knew what the Govt/Corporations/Media are actually up to with spying, censoring and cancelling, the J6 rally would be tiny in comparison to the furious march on DC. Which is why they have to lie all the time, in lockstep, in case the real news spreads beyond Subtack & Carlson.
Yes, I agree. I tend to be ridiculously optimistic and often wrong, but I think their increasing levels of derangement is due in part to the fact that more and more people are suddenly like, 'WTF??' Because the news is spreading.
If you haven't already and have the chance to, check out Naomi Wolf's interview with Jordan Peterson on the Daily Wire platform. The entire interview is interesting but the last 30 mins is alarming. Maybe not a calm Sunday listen.
Thanks for keeping the dialoque going for us that are rational, common sense, truth and freedom loving...I just want to hear the truth and not continue to watch my country and the world be preyed upon and treated like slaves.
And thanks for the McKenna quote. His insights, in this current geopolitical war we find ourselves in, are sorely missed.
"Corporate America, on the other hand, would rather distract us with Dylan Mulvaney pretending to be a woman who drinks Bud Light."
This is a great article, but this line is way funnier to me than it has any right to be. The inference that there could be women pretending to drink Bud Light will make me smile for days now.
It really was one of the more preposterous things I've ever seen. Have you seen the movie Death of Stalin? It's kind of like that, but with some 18th century courtier vibes plus a dystopian sci-fi subplot.
I really enjoyed that. I've not tended to be a huge fan of Carlson, as I think he's kinda' sloppy and brash in the way he covers things. I do not claim to know whether he rationalizes away his contribution to the general rise in resentment and hysteria surrounding certain issues, or cynically eggs it on for the sake of ratings. But I wish he offered a bit more epistemic humility and that he presented "the truth" with a touch of circumspection. However, calling the man a racist is ridiculous. He's going to be fine, though. The way Fox kicked him to the curb (I heard he only found out 10 mins prior to airtime that his show was cancelled! see latest episode of The Fifth Column), and the dishonest slander published in the Times has probably just added a few additional zeros to what he will soon be raking in from his huge audience, who will follow him to whatever he sets up on his own (a la Bari Weiss).
He's definitely brash, and that is why I like him. It's a personality thing, I like a certain amount of strident (though there is definitely a line.) The thing that makes me pro-Tucker and anti-liberal media, is that he is no where near as offensive and polarising as say, Joy Reid, but she gets carte blanche to spew the most insanely divisive, unhinged, purely false narratives. Tucker actually did reporting, and gave his platform to those the mainstream media only wanted to vilify. That was so, so important, and no doubt was the reason he was canned. Those they seek to silence are most likely the ones who are armed with the truth.
True, whatever examples of Tucker behaving irresponsibly I might be able to point out, the list of despicable moves by characters like Joy Reid will be longer by yards. It's hard to know whether that's down to one possessing more virtue than the other, or simply the fact that one is currently subject to fewer constraints (Sooner or later, Reid will suffer the intrusion of reality into her ideological bubble). I do, however, remember a few occasions witnessing Tucker getting carried away with himself in a way that fed the beast of Righteous Outrage. If you spend a little time listening to others in the trade who have been paying attention to the skuttlebutt within the world of corporate media (the guys on The Fifth Column podcast is a great place to start), I think there's room for some doubt that Tucker's allegiance to "the truth" was the sole (or even primary) reason for his being kicked to the curb. I'm learning to be more careful about who I rely on to be a hero . . . This is an era of technologies that amplify our all-too-human errors and blindspots in alarmingly rapid and large scale ways.
There's a yawning void facing us everyday consumers of news and analysis, as the traditional institutions upon which the public used to rely on for information have destroyed the trust that used to be fairly evenly distributed throughout the population. I think we need a rebirth of the journalism class, a sort of priesthood devoted to epistemic humility and letting the facts lead. And it cannot involve setting oneself up as some unbiased paragon of omniscient virtue either. Rather it should be a universal devotion to best practices and procedures designed to protect the individual journalist from his or her inescapable blind spots which are driven by human passions and cognitive limitations. Perhaps the idea of a single reporter researching a story (with the guardrail of an editor perhaps, but without much in the way of pushback from someone else who holds a diametrically opposing worldview when it comes to whatever issue is being addressed) should be discarded; and all good-quality reporting should be the product of an exhaustive dialogue between at least two reporters holding different worldviews. (And I understand the financial impracticalities of this in the current state of the newsmaking market - but at a certain point, there has got to be a demand for a high-quality product by a sufficiently large customer base to make this possible. Plus, we've got new forms of labor-saving technologies that can aid us, so long as they are used wisely to augment human talent, not substitute for it. I'm talking AI, like ChatGPT) Perhaps the better direction for our energies is to build new trustworthy sources of accurate and nuanced information, rather than searching for yet another figurehead to lead us into battle "on the side of the angels"?
Spot on! The lack of trust many of us now have in the media is very destabilising. I have zero trust in the institutions I once trusted. Ideology has replaced facts. But researching stories and getting to the truth is exhausting and time-consuming. We need a complete overhaul!
Jenny, you're equating the media with "corporate America" and leaving out the advertising industry, who are the real culprits. Journalism and information academia went far to the left a long, long time ago. Corporations hire ad companies to hawk their wares, and ad companies have been using advertising to push a "woke" agenda for years. General mills and Campbells Soup are famous for ads featuring interracial families - using a white woman with a black man - then they moved to "non-traditonal" families of lesbians and gays. Bud tried to ingratiate themselves with the LGBT community - and got slapped for it.
As for Tucker, just why FOX fired him is not clear, but I suspect it has a lot more to do with FOX attempting to move away from the right and more toward the left, perhaps with a stop in the center, to become another MSNBC. Murdoch is an old, old man. His children, who harbor leftist views, are running the show now. Disney went Left after Walt died and his nephew took over. This kind of thing is happening all over the world, not just the United States. The Left is winning the battle but they're going to eventually lose the war.
Corporate America is all about making money, but they put Leftists on their boards and hire leftist ad agencies, who push their own agenda.
As for the New York Times, they've been a shill for the Democratic Party since the Sixties.
I've seen lots of reporting on how Tucker's show was not a big money spinner because of advertiser (ie corporate) boycotts, so while he was the biggest name is was not the biggest earner. What's interesting about that comment you linked to is that it draws attention to the fact that there was the "old" way -- ie straight up profit for shareholders -- and whatever we have now. Which, like the comment says, I suspect is a lot more nefarious and serves a different agenda. Hence why the Blackrock investment becomes interesting.
On a related note, I suspect a lot of nonprofit membership organizations such as the ACLU have become less dependent on membership revenue and/or donations and more dependent on outside funders but I haven't researched that in depth.
the left used to consist of "classical liberals" . They are no longer "liberal" but are actually "progressives" which, is another word for radical Marxists.
At first blush you will say "but why would corporate Amerika buy into this"? The answer is clear, these marxists are gutless, weak, cretins, who hide behind the anonymity of a corporation or, in the case of governement, a bureaucracy . The people at the top of these organizations are, in all likelihood narcissists (with a smattering of psychopaths thrown in). They have no soul, and the corporation (being an inanimate entity) has no morals or soul to speak of.
It is a recipe for disaster.
Rupert Murdoch cancelled Tucker because Rupert is a giant A**H*** and a narcissistic psychopath.
It’s easy really. Bosses either follow Twitter trends. Twitter being very left if you follow the celebs and stuff.
You also have younger generations entering these companies and have an extreme left viewpoint of the world. They then tell the bosses that this is what everyone wants. The bosses believe them.
Excellent essay as usual, with many brilliant observations that feel like cold water to a person dying of cultural thirst...wait for the big but... I sense Jenny has a visceral aversion to the dreaded C word (Conspiracy) and so her talents are spent weaving wonderful analyses carefully and/or semi-consciously bracketing out conspiracy in order to grapple with the comprehensive breakdown we are all experiencing with our civilization.
Actually, i really like listening to conspiracy theorists, you always learn stuff from them. I have often been called one! 🤣🤣 My main issue with them, though, is that I am wracked with doubt on most things, where they are prone to a certainty I just do not share. My brain just does not stretch that far. Also, I notice a similar pattern with the conspiracy types as I do with whatever you call people on the other side -- Blue Anon? They repeat the same phrases and just adopt wholesale the worldview, and then purity test each other, checking for adherence to each point. I am very temperamentally unsuited to that, because I just cannot commit. 🤣
I feel the same way, even though I consider myself a conspiracy theorist (I've been thinking of getting business cards made). As with theism and/or Christianity, I don't think a person needs to be dogmatic & apodictic about it in order to have faith. Quite the opposite in fact, as Miguel de Unamuno said: "Faith that does not contain doubt is a dead faith indeed." Because of my style of conspiracy theory, I feel quite lonely, as pretty much every CT out there I've encountered not only has too much certainty in general, but also about details. On top of that, their theory tends to have a never-ending voracity swallowing up nearly everything in politics, society and history as part of the Conspiracy. So one of my principles for what I call a "rational conspiracy theory" is to factor in what is likely to be NOT a conspiracy -- which includes weakness in the conspirators (i.e., their relative inability to machinate everything, what obstacles prevent them? etc.)
At any rate, during Covid there was too much international coordination among too many professionals and institutions and sectors of society throughout the West for the whole shitshow to have been merely an organic concatenation of bureaucratic group-think + garden-variety greed. Whatever fails to plausibly explain that coordination becomes what we reasonably infer is a conspiracy. From there, we try to piece together who's behind it and what their intermediate motives & ultimate goals might be. But all along, we try to keep a level head about it.
I find this attitude to be totally boring and defeatist, as well as intellectually dishonest. I'm not sure what he was like on his show, as I only watched clips therefore i wasn't getting the whole context, and I guess it being a Fox show was pretty punchy and showman-like. But the way he comes across in other forums, which are far less formal, he is just not in any way a carnival barker. He's thoughtful and humble and willing to admit where he's wrong. It's like calling a dog a cat -- or a girl a boy. Just not accurate, a category error. As i said above, not liking him, hating him personally or for his politics, is a legit position, but what this comment does is it attempts to discredit him by using the same kind of mischaracterisation that the MSM does. And that's a pity, because as far as I can tell he was one of a tiny number of big media figures who was willing to take on the trans ideology. If we can't see past these labels slapped on effective dissenters by cynical power-mongers then there will be no chance of a restoration of sanity.
The MSM is a lot harder on Carlson than “carnival barker”. You and I don’t know what he is like personally, we only know his public persona.
Media figures and politicians can be really useful if we can get them on our side, I agree. But let’s not forget that they are opportunists at heart. Setting them up as heroic figures is a mistake.
You are totally correct that we should not set anyone in the public eye as a hero. I strongly agree with that.
When it comes to Tucker, I do know people who know him personally, and the hearsay is that he is totally genuine and decent. His recent speeches/interviews (the ones I cited above) really show a man who is capable of introspection and admitting his own flaws -- that does go hand in hand with the more fratty aspects to his personality, but it tempers them greatly. He's a very, very interesting figure.
I have no reason to disagree with you, and I have already awarded him Hero-Host status. I hope he continues to host GCs and detransitioners in whatever new outlet he chooses.
Generally speaking I am in favor of Hero Values, like Accountability or Individual Responsibility, which are perfect and pure.
Unlike many people in public life who need not be named, there are countless stories of people who know Tucker personally and who basically say that he is a nice guy, decent, kind, and caring of people. He has flaws like all human beings, but I think what you see is what you get. He doesn't have an affectation of having been a rich WASP preppy. He was a rich WASP preppy. He is who he is, take it or leave it.
Countless public stories, published or posted in public outlets. Please don’t confuse such material with what people actually think.
Hero figures are a childish crutch that we need to grow out of leaning on. We can appreciate his contributions to the debate without putting him on a pedestal.
The real heroes are those who speak up knowing it will make their lives a really difficult, not the ones with multi million dollar parachutes.
Sure, it's possible that somebody might be trying to brown nose, but a lot of these people had no reason to do so. I agree that Tucker would be even more heroic if he spoke the truth while making minimum wage and worrying about where his next meal was coming from, but he is heroic now as is anybody who speaks truth to BS.
Carlson has a large enough body of work that you can find enough evidence for pretty much any position you want to take on him, if you want to do the work to dig it up.
I doubt that the NYTimes columnists feel the need to make an entire case from scratch against Carlson at this point. They know the vast majority of their readers already get it.
Carlson got dropped because he cost Fox a shitload of money and was apparently showing no willingness to rein himself in. They'd rather have lower ratings and fewer lawsuits and fewer hosts who flip them the bird on the regular. They're getting tired of being the bomb-throwing network, and apparently figure there's still plenty enough of a market for them shifted a bit centerward.
You are probably right that they are tired of the "bomb-throwing network" thing. But isn't that a big screaming red flag to you? Do you really think the centre still exists, and they just want to serve that market? Because I think it's the opposite, we are dividing ourselves up into 2 camps which are fundamentally oppositional: in one camp, castrating teen boys is great and should be celebrated, and middle school children should definitely read books about oral sex between adults and children. In the other camp, children cannot change sex and nor should they be exposed to it in schools. I think that camp will grow over time, as the harms spread. If I am right, then Fox has decided it will turn down the customers in the second camp, then who are they aiming to serve? The crazy gender ideologues? They will never watch Fox.
Also, there is not consensus on whether Tucker cost them money in that lawsuit, i've heard a lot of good reporting that indicates he was not the biggest problem they had on that front.
And finally, I do not want a corporation to "rein in" commentary, nor do I want journalists that allow themselves to be reined in. I want the opposite. Because I want to live in a world where children are not mutilated and poisoned and lied to, and that requires a lot of very plain, very blunt, very forceful language.
I agree with you about the split and the center being depopulated but I think that Fox is still firmly in your second camp. I don’t think Carlson’s coverage of the gender issue had anything to do with him being fired.
The only thing that I could imagine might turn Fox on the issue is lawsuits. I forget where their headquarters are located, but if it’s in a blue state and they have employees that come out as trans and sue, I suppose that could scare them away from the issue.
I don't think that the gender stuff got him fired, either. But the J6 tapes and the RFK stuff? And the Ukraine war stuff? (Especially in context of reporting that Rupert and Lachlan had a long chat with Zelensky recently?) Those probably did. Fundamentally, I'd rather the media corporations be beholden to their audiences rather than their boards, their governments, or whomever is pulling strings behind the scenes.
The “left” is now nothing but a billionaire-club owned social vise. Truth has literally no value - what Tucker Carlson *actually* says is immaterial - the sheep are not allowed to watch him anyway.
Why have you never seen his show? It’s not that you’re not interested in politics and culture - obviously. I’d posit it is because the rules are so universally imposed, so ingrained, so fraught with staggering punishment, that not only do you not watch, but you also feel the pressure to publicly state up front (in an article about his show) that you’ve never watched it.
This is not a criticism of you; it’sa commentary on the Borg that has taken over the world. CONGRESSwoman (as in Congress shall make no law) AOC was publicly calling for him (and anyone who dares to question the Uni party narrative) be silenced. (Ever-so-coincidentally, immediately prior to his ouster at Fox.).
If someone as monetarily valuable as Tucker Carlson is expendable, none of us are even remotely safe.
These people are insidious and obvious at the same time. They’re incredibly dangerous.
I've never seen his show because I've tried but I couldn't watch the full thing without a Fox subscription, which I have zero interest in paying. So I make do with the clips, and interviews he's done with others. I listen to the podcast versions of several other third rail unmentionables, like Bannon and Megyn Kelly, because they are much easier to find in the whole show format, which is my preference.
You are correct, though, that admitting such things publicly is fraught with staggering punishment, as you say. Or at least online hate, which I have received. And it's unpleasant, but not world-ending. However, you can trust that any liberal blue-anon reading my article would 100 percent skip breezily over my caveat of not being a regular Tucker viewer and go straight to calling me a far-right extremist, because I quote him extensively and approvingly, in the article.
Especially in this media environment, I feel like my brain and my allegiance and my attention is a highly sought after space -- not because I'm special, but because we are all targets in the psy war. So I don't want to be a pawn by uncritically ceding my independence, even to someone I admire like Tucker.
That's all a bit high-minded. Really, I'm in the tank for him. And I chose to remain optimistic, because if there wasn't real opposition, then they would not have to cancel so many people. And they don't have nearly as much market share as they used to -- their market of real people is shrinking. Literally one of the best defences against the Borg is to refuse to let it convince you that it has already won. It might be the only one left soon.
Thanks for this - you’re truly one of the best examples of reasons to be optimistic. Thanks for having the amazing courage to be honest in public - one of the bravest things a person can do these days.
Tbh, I've never seen his show, either. But now I want to, just to see why he's so vilified! I did check him on wiki, and some descriptions of him (from other media) include 'far right' 'racist' and 'nationalist' - Yet he insists he isn't racist and that he agrees with MLK's views on race (judging people based on their character, not colour) I'd have to watch some shows to really make up my own mind, but honestly, I'm really skeptical of the MSM. Anyone who doesn't toe the liberal woke line is usually labelled as 'far right' or worse. This whole thing seems to be a character assassination. Googling him now, I saw that every single article about him was negative and inflammatory. I also like Megyn Kelly, and have watched her a few times, but have no idea how she is viewed by the media. Given that she also has the guts to go against the orthodoxy, I'm guessing she gets the usual labels (far right, etc) as well.
I know!! Anyone who generates that much ire from the godawful media must be doing something right! So much of it also feels like pure resentment that he has a bigger fan base than they do.
Still politically homeless, me, with recent announcements of Biden and Trump both running for president in '24. Love this clear take on Carlson and the faint reminder one gets when you hear him or others speak truth. The truth will set you free, not hobble you, control you like a lie will. Thank you Jenny
I saw a great meme, with a quote attributed to Terence McKenna, that said: "The truth does not require your participation to exist. Bullshit does."
Any regular watcher of Tucker Carlson knows that he is the opposite of a "racist", but many believe this untruth because they find it convenient (then they don't need to bother to evaluate his views, which are often, albeit not always, very insightful). There are many rumors swirling around about exactly why Tucker was fired, one of which alleges that Rupert Murdoch disliked Tucker because of his willingness to express his religious convictions (who knows, obviously it can't be helping the bottom line to lose so many viewers). Tucker will resurface in some form and continue to speak the truth as he sees it (some powerful people may want the truth repressed, but Scripture tells us to speak the truth in love).
I found his Heritage speech and his Monday night broadcast to be quite uplifting -- did you see them? There was a lot about truth.
Yes, Tucker values the truth which is why leftists can't stand him. He will not parrot the woke orthodoxy that they want everybody to recite.
Eh, he values "truth" as much as he values Trump, or conspiracy theories. Which is to say, they are useful appeals to his audience that he must wield whether he actually enjoys it or not.
Tucker says what he thinks in a courageous manner. If he agrees with somebody, he says so. If he disagrees with somebody, he says so. Those who have seen countless hours of his programs know this. Those who have been conditioned by leftist media to have contempt for him based on fantasies do not.
It’s certainly possible that you’re right, but not likely. TV personalities hone their persona to appeal to the audience, and Tucker has been honing his for many years.
If you look at his early stuff, he was an overgrown frat boy. Now he’s the reasonable dad.
He’s a Trump cheerleader who actually detests him. He doesn’t say what he really thinks about Trump, does he.
In the end it doesn’t really matter, since the left is giving him so much material to work with that he doesn’t need to act in order to come across as reasonably outraged, any sane person would be.
Millions of people have complex views about Trump. They think he was an excellent President (far better than what we have now) but they don't like his nasty insults, so there is nothing unusual if Tucker praises Trump one moment and doesn't sound enthusiastic about him the next. I agree that the left is giving Tucker plenty to be legitimately outraged about. And people may look like an "overgrown frat boy" when young and like a "reasonable dad" when middle aged. Nothing unusual there either.
Thanks Jenny for your thoughts. I am daily amazed at what they've done to the country. I suspect that if millions of normal (non-woke, non-authoritarian) Americans knew what the Govt/Corporations/Media are actually up to with spying, censoring and cancelling, the J6 rally would be tiny in comparison to the furious march on DC. Which is why they have to lie all the time, in lockstep, in case the real news spreads beyond Subtack & Carlson.
Yes, I agree. I tend to be ridiculously optimistic and often wrong, but I think their increasing levels of derangement is due in part to the fact that more and more people are suddenly like, 'WTF??' Because the news is spreading.
If you haven't already and have the chance to, check out Naomi Wolf's interview with Jordan Peterson on the Daily Wire platform. The entire interview is interesting but the last 30 mins is alarming. Maybe not a calm Sunday listen.
Thanks for keeping the dialoque going for us that are rational, common sense, truth and freedom loving...I just want to hear the truth and not continue to watch my country and the world be preyed upon and treated like slaves.
And thanks for the McKenna quote. His insights, in this current geopolitical war we find ourselves in, are sorely missed.
I watched that Wolfe/Peterson interview on your recommendation - thank you, it was great.
This didn't go over well, at least on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1651773745336295425?fbclid=IwAR32486FibqPs-xR462mi85QqVw9Sq3FNCJnIrQWQHr9KNNXHU0o_jLySmo
"Corporate America, on the other hand, would rather distract us with Dylan Mulvaney pretending to be a woman who drinks Bud Light."
This is a great article, but this line is way funnier to me than it has any right to be. The inference that there could be women pretending to drink Bud Light will make me smile for days now.
It really was one of the more preposterous things I've ever seen. Have you seen the movie Death of Stalin? It's kind of like that, but with some 18th century courtier vibes plus a dystopian sci-fi subplot.
I really enjoyed that. I've not tended to be a huge fan of Carlson, as I think he's kinda' sloppy and brash in the way he covers things. I do not claim to know whether he rationalizes away his contribution to the general rise in resentment and hysteria surrounding certain issues, or cynically eggs it on for the sake of ratings. But I wish he offered a bit more epistemic humility and that he presented "the truth" with a touch of circumspection. However, calling the man a racist is ridiculous. He's going to be fine, though. The way Fox kicked him to the curb (I heard he only found out 10 mins prior to airtime that his show was cancelled! see latest episode of The Fifth Column), and the dishonest slander published in the Times has probably just added a few additional zeros to what he will soon be raking in from his huge audience, who will follow him to whatever he sets up on his own (a la Bari Weiss).
He's definitely brash, and that is why I like him. It's a personality thing, I like a certain amount of strident (though there is definitely a line.) The thing that makes me pro-Tucker and anti-liberal media, is that he is no where near as offensive and polarising as say, Joy Reid, but she gets carte blanche to spew the most insanely divisive, unhinged, purely false narratives. Tucker actually did reporting, and gave his platform to those the mainstream media only wanted to vilify. That was so, so important, and no doubt was the reason he was canned. Those they seek to silence are most likely the ones who are armed with the truth.
True, whatever examples of Tucker behaving irresponsibly I might be able to point out, the list of despicable moves by characters like Joy Reid will be longer by yards. It's hard to know whether that's down to one possessing more virtue than the other, or simply the fact that one is currently subject to fewer constraints (Sooner or later, Reid will suffer the intrusion of reality into her ideological bubble). I do, however, remember a few occasions witnessing Tucker getting carried away with himself in a way that fed the beast of Righteous Outrage. If you spend a little time listening to others in the trade who have been paying attention to the skuttlebutt within the world of corporate media (the guys on The Fifth Column podcast is a great place to start), I think there's room for some doubt that Tucker's allegiance to "the truth" was the sole (or even primary) reason for his being kicked to the curb. I'm learning to be more careful about who I rely on to be a hero . . . This is an era of technologies that amplify our all-too-human errors and blindspots in alarmingly rapid and large scale ways.
There's a yawning void facing us everyday consumers of news and analysis, as the traditional institutions upon which the public used to rely on for information have destroyed the trust that used to be fairly evenly distributed throughout the population. I think we need a rebirth of the journalism class, a sort of priesthood devoted to epistemic humility and letting the facts lead. And it cannot involve setting oneself up as some unbiased paragon of omniscient virtue either. Rather it should be a universal devotion to best practices and procedures designed to protect the individual journalist from his or her inescapable blind spots which are driven by human passions and cognitive limitations. Perhaps the idea of a single reporter researching a story (with the guardrail of an editor perhaps, but without much in the way of pushback from someone else who holds a diametrically opposing worldview when it comes to whatever issue is being addressed) should be discarded; and all good-quality reporting should be the product of an exhaustive dialogue between at least two reporters holding different worldviews. (And I understand the financial impracticalities of this in the current state of the newsmaking market - but at a certain point, there has got to be a demand for a high-quality product by a sufficiently large customer base to make this possible. Plus, we've got new forms of labor-saving technologies that can aid us, so long as they are used wisely to augment human talent, not substitute for it. I'm talking AI, like ChatGPT) Perhaps the better direction for our energies is to build new trustworthy sources of accurate and nuanced information, rather than searching for yet another figurehead to lead us into battle "on the side of the angels"?
Spot on! The lack of trust many of us now have in the media is very destabilising. I have zero trust in the institutions I once trusted. Ideology has replaced facts. But researching stories and getting to the truth is exhausting and time-consuming. We need a complete overhaul!
Jenny, you're equating the media with "corporate America" and leaving out the advertising industry, who are the real culprits. Journalism and information academia went far to the left a long, long time ago. Corporations hire ad companies to hawk their wares, and ad companies have been using advertising to push a "woke" agenda for years. General mills and Campbells Soup are famous for ads featuring interracial families - using a white woman with a black man - then they moved to "non-traditonal" families of lesbians and gays. Bud tried to ingratiate themselves with the LGBT community - and got slapped for it.
As for Tucker, just why FOX fired him is not clear, but I suspect it has a lot more to do with FOX attempting to move away from the right and more toward the left, perhaps with a stop in the center, to become another MSNBC. Murdoch is an old, old man. His children, who harbor leftist views, are running the show now. Disney went Left after Walt died and his nephew took over. This kind of thing is happening all over the world, not just the United States. The Left is winning the battle but they're going to eventually lose the war.
Corporate America is all about making money, but they put Leftists on their boards and hire leftist ad agencies, who push their own agenda.
As for the New York Times, they've been a shill for the Democratic Party since the Sixties.
More commentary on the financial side: https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/big-pharmas-destruction-of-american/comment/15252356
I've seen lots of reporting on how Tucker's show was not a big money spinner because of advertiser (ie corporate) boycotts, so while he was the biggest name is was not the biggest earner. What's interesting about that comment you linked to is that it draws attention to the fact that there was the "old" way -- ie straight up profit for shareholders -- and whatever we have now. Which, like the comment says, I suspect is a lot more nefarious and serves a different agenda. Hence why the Blackrock investment becomes interesting.
On a related note, I suspect a lot of nonprofit membership organizations such as the ACLU have become less dependent on membership revenue and/or donations and more dependent on outside funders but I haven't researched that in depth.
On today's Dark Horse they discuss the Tucker dismissal in relation to ESG. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvHvV1hsRlk
The "reader added context" here is hilarious: https://twitter.com/TheChiefNerd/status/1652002473010245645
the left used to consist of "classical liberals" . They are no longer "liberal" but are actually "progressives" which, is another word for radical Marxists.
At first blush you will say "but why would corporate Amerika buy into this"? The answer is clear, these marxists are gutless, weak, cretins, who hide behind the anonymity of a corporation or, in the case of governement, a bureaucracy . The people at the top of these organizations are, in all likelihood narcissists (with a smattering of psychopaths thrown in). They have no soul, and the corporation (being an inanimate entity) has no morals or soul to speak of.
It is a recipe for disaster.
Rupert Murdoch cancelled Tucker because Rupert is a giant A**H*** and a narcissistic psychopath.
That is all you need to know .
It’s easy really. Bosses either follow Twitter trends. Twitter being very left if you follow the celebs and stuff.
You also have younger generations entering these companies and have an extreme left viewpoint of the world. They then tell the bosses that this is what everyone wants. The bosses believe them.
Excellent essay as usual, with many brilliant observations that feel like cold water to a person dying of cultural thirst...wait for the big but... I sense Jenny has a visceral aversion to the dreaded C word (Conspiracy) and so her talents are spent weaving wonderful analyses carefully and/or semi-consciously bracketing out conspiracy in order to grapple with the comprehensive breakdown we are all experiencing with our civilization.
Actually, i really like listening to conspiracy theorists, you always learn stuff from them. I have often been called one! 🤣🤣 My main issue with them, though, is that I am wracked with doubt on most things, where they are prone to a certainty I just do not share. My brain just does not stretch that far. Also, I notice a similar pattern with the conspiracy types as I do with whatever you call people on the other side -- Blue Anon? They repeat the same phrases and just adopt wholesale the worldview, and then purity test each other, checking for adherence to each point. I am very temperamentally unsuited to that, because I just cannot commit. 🤣
I feel the same way, even though I consider myself a conspiracy theorist (I've been thinking of getting business cards made). As with theism and/or Christianity, I don't think a person needs to be dogmatic & apodictic about it in order to have faith. Quite the opposite in fact, as Miguel de Unamuno said: "Faith that does not contain doubt is a dead faith indeed." Because of my style of conspiracy theory, I feel quite lonely, as pretty much every CT out there I've encountered not only has too much certainty in general, but also about details. On top of that, their theory tends to have a never-ending voracity swallowing up nearly everything in politics, society and history as part of the Conspiracy. So one of my principles for what I call a "rational conspiracy theory" is to factor in what is likely to be NOT a conspiracy -- which includes weakness in the conspirators (i.e., their relative inability to machinate everything, what obstacles prevent them? etc.)
At any rate, during Covid there was too much international coordination among too many professionals and institutions and sectors of society throughout the West for the whole shitshow to have been merely an organic concatenation of bureaucratic group-think + garden-variety greed. Whatever fails to plausibly explain that coordination becomes what we reasonably infer is a conspiracy. From there, we try to piece together who's behind it and what their intermediate motives & ultimate goals might be. But all along, we try to keep a level head about it.
Am I missing something?
Nope. Jenny doesn't like being reminded that her favorite carnival barker is just a carnival barker like all the other lying carnival barkers.
I find this attitude to be totally boring and defeatist, as well as intellectually dishonest. I'm not sure what he was like on his show, as I only watched clips therefore i wasn't getting the whole context, and I guess it being a Fox show was pretty punchy and showman-like. But the way he comes across in other forums, which are far less formal, he is just not in any way a carnival barker. He's thoughtful and humble and willing to admit where he's wrong. It's like calling a dog a cat -- or a girl a boy. Just not accurate, a category error. As i said above, not liking him, hating him personally or for his politics, is a legit position, but what this comment does is it attempts to discredit him by using the same kind of mischaracterisation that the MSM does. And that's a pity, because as far as I can tell he was one of a tiny number of big media figures who was willing to take on the trans ideology. If we can't see past these labels slapped on effective dissenters by cynical power-mongers then there will be no chance of a restoration of sanity.
The MSM is a lot harder on Carlson than “carnival barker”. You and I don’t know what he is like personally, we only know his public persona.
Media figures and politicians can be really useful if we can get them on our side, I agree. But let’s not forget that they are opportunists at heart. Setting them up as heroic figures is a mistake.
You are totally correct that we should not set anyone in the public eye as a hero. I strongly agree with that.
When it comes to Tucker, I do know people who know him personally, and the hearsay is that he is totally genuine and decent. His recent speeches/interviews (the ones I cited above) really show a man who is capable of introspection and admitting his own flaws -- that does go hand in hand with the more fratty aspects to his personality, but it tempers them greatly. He's a very, very interesting figure.
I have no reason to disagree with you, and I have already awarded him Hero-Host status. I hope he continues to host GCs and detransitioners in whatever new outlet he chooses.
Generally speaking I am in favor of Hero Values, like Accountability or Individual Responsibility, which are perfect and pure.
Unlike many people in public life who need not be named, there are countless stories of people who know Tucker personally and who basically say that he is a nice guy, decent, kind, and caring of people. He has flaws like all human beings, but I think what you see is what you get. He doesn't have an affectation of having been a rich WASP preppy. He was a rich WASP preppy. He is who he is, take it or leave it.
Countless public stories, published or posted in public outlets. Please don’t confuse such material with what people actually think.
Hero figures are a childish crutch that we need to grow out of leaning on. We can appreciate his contributions to the debate without putting him on a pedestal.
The real heroes are those who speak up knowing it will make their lives a really difficult, not the ones with multi million dollar parachutes.
Sure, it's possible that somebody might be trying to brown nose, but a lot of these people had no reason to do so. I agree that Tucker would be even more heroic if he spoke the truth while making minimum wage and worrying about where his next meal was coming from, but he is heroic now as is anybody who speaks truth to BS.
Carlson has a large enough body of work that you can find enough evidence for pretty much any position you want to take on him, if you want to do the work to dig it up.
I doubt that the NYTimes columnists feel the need to make an entire case from scratch against Carlson at this point. They know the vast majority of their readers already get it.
Carlson got dropped because he cost Fox a shitload of money and was apparently showing no willingness to rein himself in. They'd rather have lower ratings and fewer lawsuits and fewer hosts who flip them the bird on the regular. They're getting tired of being the bomb-throwing network, and apparently figure there's still plenty enough of a market for them shifted a bit centerward.
You are probably right that they are tired of the "bomb-throwing network" thing. But isn't that a big screaming red flag to you? Do you really think the centre still exists, and they just want to serve that market? Because I think it's the opposite, we are dividing ourselves up into 2 camps which are fundamentally oppositional: in one camp, castrating teen boys is great and should be celebrated, and middle school children should definitely read books about oral sex between adults and children. In the other camp, children cannot change sex and nor should they be exposed to it in schools. I think that camp will grow over time, as the harms spread. If I am right, then Fox has decided it will turn down the customers in the second camp, then who are they aiming to serve? The crazy gender ideologues? They will never watch Fox.
Also, there is not consensus on whether Tucker cost them money in that lawsuit, i've heard a lot of good reporting that indicates he was not the biggest problem they had on that front.
And finally, I do not want a corporation to "rein in" commentary, nor do I want journalists that allow themselves to be reined in. I want the opposite. Because I want to live in a world where children are not mutilated and poisoned and lied to, and that requires a lot of very plain, very blunt, very forceful language.
I agree with you about the split and the center being depopulated but I think that Fox is still firmly in your second camp. I don’t think Carlson’s coverage of the gender issue had anything to do with him being fired.
The only thing that I could imagine might turn Fox on the issue is lawsuits. I forget where their headquarters are located, but if it’s in a blue state and they have employees that come out as trans and sue, I suppose that could scare them away from the issue.
I don't think that the gender stuff got him fired, either. But the J6 tapes and the RFK stuff? And the Ukraine war stuff? (Especially in context of reporting that Rupert and Lachlan had a long chat with Zelensky recently?) Those probably did. Fundamentally, I'd rather the media corporations be beholden to their audiences rather than their boards, their governments, or whomever is pulling strings behind the scenes.