Bite the hand that feeds: Tucker Carlson edition
No matter where you look on the political spectrum, extreme views are easy to find. Social media echo chambers are nothing new. But it is unusual for the White House to call any one specific person uncredible, but it did just that on Mar 8th, when press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre condemned Tucker Carlson’s cherry-picked coverage of the Jan. 6th insurrection.
The most notable thing that Tucker Carlson does is commentate on far-right politics, and bring them into the mainstream through dog whistle arguments. His show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight” started airing in 2016 on Fox News, and since then, his influence in conservative communities has increased exponentially. Carlson is great at manufacturing a fear that his viewers are addicted to.
Many public figures, like former President Donald Trump have had a history of expressing their love for “Tucker Carlson Tonight”. That is not unusual in any sense, but it is rare for a mainstream political commentator to be praised by someone like David Duke, a former Klu Klux Klan (KKK) leader. According to an episode of Duke’s podcast, Carlson has started to promote white
supremacist rhetoric, including the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. This theory claims that the Democratic party, in Carlson’s words, “[Is conducting] the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from faraway countries.” While there is no valid proof of this theory, it is a major reason why so many conservatives who would not identify themselves as a white supremacist watch “Tucker Carlson Tonight’’. Carlson has denied being a white supremacist, but in his eyes everything he says is true, so he isn’t a white supremacist.
Carlson is talented at wording his arguments in a way that protects his intentions. He can allude to a far-right, KKK level conspiracy theory without his audience hearing it as racist, and leaves them with no doubts that what he is saying is true. While Carlson insults the sheep of the left, he actively places himself on a pedestal that creates its own herd of sheep. He tells his viewers to bite the hand that feeds when Joe Biden is president, when in actuality they should be biting Carlson’s hand. It’s about time that both sides, left and right, begin to leave their dopamine echo chambers of “people who think differently than me are automatically evil” and instead listen to the other side carefully.
