Phonies
I used to watch Tucker Carlson regularly. This is true!¹ He had a show called Tucker in 2005 on MSNBC. As someone who grew up in a Fox News household in Ohio, I enjoyed it. It leaned conservative, of course, but to the left of many other shows. Fairly center, all things considered. The most frequent regular contributor? A young Rachel Maddow.²
Anyway, I bring this up because Tucker Carlson is quite a different beast these days. Once Bill O’Reilly — a family favorite — was ousted from Fox News, Carlson became the heir apparent. And he has taken the position to new and quite terrifying heights. But he’s also clearly a fraud. Either he was a fraud back when I was watching him on MSNBC or he’s one now.³
Look, we get it. The MSNBC show was cancelled. His approach wasn’t working. He needed something new. And he found what seems to be perfect product/market fit by peddling lunacy on Fox News. He’s just “asking questions” — in the most intellectually dishonest way possible. Jimmy Kimmel made this point on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast the other day:
Now, do I believe that Tucker Carlson believes the things he says? I do not. I think he is a phony in every respect. I think he’s an algorithm. I think his audience created him. I think he started out as a fairly down the middle political broadcaster in a cute little bow tie with polka dots on it. And then Jon Stewart handed him his ass, and he had some kind of Lex Luthor moment where he, little by little, figured out what worked for him ratings-wise, which is primarily speaking to senior citizens like they’re kindergarteners and scaring them with garbage.
And we all know that, I mean, the news back to the 60s, scaring people is a good way to get them to tune in. And they trust him in the same way they either still do or used to trust television evangelists. But the difference is that the evangelists take the money directly from their victims. They don’t create a terrifying fantasy world that hurts the whole country and the world as well. I think he’s like the media version of the Sackler family. He’s knowingly producing this deadly opioid of lies that has a devastating effect on the country. But he’s OK with it, because it’s making him rich.
Having watched Carlson for all those years, he didn’t seem like someone who was insane. It’s possible, of course. But now he runs segments about radiating your balls. And that’s some of the more innocuous fare. It would seem that he’s fully suckled on the popularity teet and there’s no getting him off it. Which would be fine — who cares, he’s just another soulless moron now. Except that people actually listen to and follow him. Including many politicians. It’s totally insane. He clearly doesn’t believe this shit, yet he peddles it. And it moves needles. Ratings and otherwise.
Speaking of politicians, J.D. Vance, currently running for the Senate from my home state of Ohio, is also clearly a phony. He was loudly against Donald Trump, now he’s taking his endorsement after months of groveling and tripping over himself to change his past statements and positions. Does he have a backbone? Survey says: no. Phony.
How about Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy? If reports today are to be believed, they were rooting for the “son of a bitch” Trump to crash and burn during his Capitol riot fiasco. Because of course they were. When he didn’t, they quickly pivoted to get back in line and kiss the ring. But you don’t even need to believe the reports, you can listen to the audio which, yes, Rachel Maddow ran the other night on her MSNBC show. Phonies.
But the biggest one of all is literally the biggest one of them all. Trump is and always has been a loser. He’s made a career taking his father’s dollars and turning them into quarters. All while looking up to and sucking up to famous people and wealthy people. He literally wrote a book about wealth — except, of course, he didn’t literally write it, because he’s a narcissistic moron — to trick people into thinking he was far more wealthy than he was. And it worked! And he got more wealthy as a result! And a TV show. And the rest…
All of these people aren’t who they say they are, or who they portray themselves to be. Big deal, this is basically the history of politics, right? Sure. But the difference is that while many democrats are disingenuous, these people are something far worse: complete jokers who trick their constituents. The people who if you got them in a room, alone, one-on-one, they would admit to you that they don’t believe any of this shit.⁴ And disdain the suckers who do. They’re playing a game and a role.
These people are the worst. Phonies. And while the solution is obvious: to help people to wake up from this bullshit — sadly, the opposite is happening. Tucker Carlson will not be our worst commentator and Donald Trump will not be our worst President. Sounds insane, but an easy bet to make. I believe time will hold these people accountable, eventually. But we all have to live through this.
Published on April 21, 2022 📆Written from Copenhagen, Denmark 🇩🇰Written on a 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 💻Drinking a glass of red wine 🍷
¹ I used to record it each day on my TiVo. Remember TiVo?!
² It is WILD that no one talks about this. She literally got her (television) start on Tucker Carlson’s show. I watched it! She was good! Other regulars? Max Kellerman and Willie Geist.
³ Or back in the days when Jon Stewart went on his show to dunk on him on CNN — remember that?!
⁴ I’m reminded of the people in the tech world who would shit on the iPhone because they worked at a company which competed with Apple. Then as soon as they left said company, they’d be using an iPhone.
