It is not for nothing that Jason Zengerle came to write the biography of Tucker Carlson, Hated by all the Right People, once he realized that none of Trump’s subordinates – not Ted Cruz, nor Josh Hawley, nor Ron DeSantis – could replace Trump. “The only person who can pull that off is Tucker Carlson,” said Zengerle. Today, Tucker Carlson has gained a mass audience among the disaffected at both ends of the political spectrum. It may be a minority now, but events are driving increasing numbers in his direction. Carlson often speaks in dog whistles; what some hear in his words is very different from what others hear, and Carlson is well aware of this. Also, throughout his career, Carlson has demonstrated a keen sense of how the mood is developing and how to speak to that mood. That is why it’s important to understand him.

Is it true that Tucker Carlson could be the replacement for Trump? And if so, what does Carlson really represent? Part of the answer to that question can be found in his history, and we will start there – with a review/summary of Jason Zengerle’s biography of him. In the second part of this series, which will be a second article, we will discuss Tucker Carlson today and give some analysis and historical context of what he stands for today.

Tucker Carlson’s early career
The Tucker Carlson of today is not the Tucker Carlson of the 1990s. Back then he was a mainstream young conservative journalist, but one with a keen sense of how to play to the mood that was developing. Understanding his evolution also means understanding the consciousness that developed and – more important – what he is sensing today. Carlson started his career working for a series of mainstream print journals like Policy Review. Early in his career he opposed the ethno-nationalist, racist and isolationist Pat Buchanan, who challenged George Bush for the 1992 presidential nomination. Carlson’s idol was John McCain, who among other things favored the US wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and military involvement in Syria and Libya.

Carlson was also one of the first print journalists who recognized the coming trend of cable TV and he put a lot of energy into appearing in that medium. As opposed to print journalism, TV ratings immediately showed the popularity of the newscaster and their show, and Carlson was highly sensitive to those ratings and to the response to him in general. For example, he learned from his experience speaking at the 2009 convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), when he praised the “professionalism” of the NY Times and was booed as a result. This was around the time of the rise of the Tea Party, and Carlson had his own online web site called “The Caller”, for which he made a hard right turn. He explained that the Caller would be “a website… less about facts and more about feelings, less about analysis and more about provocations…” At that time, Carlson saw his main competitor as Breitbart, and he moved to outflank Breitbart to their right. He hired reporters like Scott Greer and Jonah Bennett, both of whom had backgrounds in the racist and fascist movement.

By 2016 Carlson was working for an upstart TV channel – Fox News. When Trump first announced his run for the Republican nomination, the entire Fox staff, Carlson included, was highly skeptical. However, Carlson saw which way the wind was blowing and switched sides before the rest of the staff. By the time Trump took office, Carlson had become aware that Trump was following his broadcasts closely and he started directing his monologues to an audience of one – President Trump, who actually shaped much of his policy based on what Carlson had had to say.

The pro-Nazi Daily Stormer. Carlson was a big hit with them.

Even in those early days, Carlson was taking on a populist anti-Semitic slant, much of it in dog whistles. For example, he complained about how venture capitalism “creates nothing. It destroys entire cities” and then goes on to blame much of it on Republican donor Paul Singer, who happened to be Jewish. In another segment he praised the notoriously anti-Semitic Henry Ford. Carlson increasingly developed a base among fascists like those who published The Daily Stormer, which mentioned his show in 265 articles over a two-year period from 2016-2018. As one article in that journal said “Tucker Carlson is basically the Daily Stormer.”

Carlson had a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward Trump in the 2020 election, and following the election he dismissed the fraud claims. He still retained some of his background as a serious reporter. “I hate him (Trump) with a passion,” Carlson wrote in a private email. He called Trump a “disaster” and said there was no “upside” to him. However, he and Fox in general continued to air Trump’s conspiracy theory lies about the outcome of the election. They did it because they feared losing their listener base.

January 6 insurrection shocked the entire political establishment, including Carlson. But he recovered once he found he was losing his audience by criticizing it.

Then came January 6 and nearly the entire political establishment of both parties was shocked. That included Carlson, who wrote in a private email: “Trump has two weeks left. Once he’s out, he becomes incalculably, less powerful, even in the minds of his supporters. My view is that the most important thing we can do, maybe the only thing we can do, is try to save the things that make America worth living in.” He then in an exchange continued “he’s a demonic force, a destroyer. But he’s not going to destroy us. I’ve been thinking about this every day for four years.”

However, the more he distanced himself from Trump, the more he lost his audience.

At first Carlson started to boost Ron DeSantis as a substitute for Trump, but experience proved that DeSantis simply lacked the appeal that Trump has. Carlson kept his audience by, among other things, defending QAnon and also proposing the white replacement theory. Zengerle describes that theory: “a tenet of the far right, white nationalist, racist, fringe, replacement theory holds the liberally elites, typically at the behest of Jews, seek to increase the number of non-white immigrants to the United States so they can ‘ replace’ and disempower white Americans at the ballot box. Carlson gave it a full hearing on his show.” He started referring to “legacy Americans”, which is a term coined by the Daily Stormer.

Tucker Carlson with Viktor Orbán in Budapest

Turn to Viktor Orbán
Carlson also started attacking establishment Republicans like Liz Cheney while simultaneously defending the fascist connected Vladimir Putin. Zengerle explains that “Carlson was no longer just a cable host. He was a movement leader, and he worked to bring the GOP in line with his views. For guidance and inspiration, he looked overseas,” in particular to Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who had made Hungary something of a mecca for the far right National Conservatives.In August of 2021, Carlson made his pilgrimage to Hungary. On his first broadcast from there, he said “if you care about western civilization and democracy and family and the ferocious assault on all three of those things by the leaders of our global institutions, you should know what’s happening here right now…. There are no tent cities of drug addicts, living in the parks here. There isn’t garbage and human waste littering the sidewalks. People don’t get beheaded at intersections. BLM is not allowed to torch entire neighborhoods in Budapest.” He praised Orban’s closed border policy and after interviewing him, Carlson said “you don’t have to watch your country collapse. You don’t have to have leaders who hate the population or divide their own people against each other, who make the country worse, who opened the borders, who increased crime, who encourage people to live on the sidewalk, and do drugs. If there’s any lesson in talking to Victor Orban, maybe that’s it.”

In the weeks and months that followed, Carlson also changed his tune about January 6 and attacked the arrest of the insurrectionists. Regarding those arrests, Carlson claimed the FBI had “begun to fight a new enemy in a new war on terror…. Hunting down American citizens, purging them from society, throwing some of them into solitary confinement…. They’re pushing you toward violence and they’re doing it on purpose.”

During the 2022 midterm elections, Carlson basically transformed his show into a campaign platform for Republican candidates. Among others, he had as frequent guest the noted white nationalist candidate for House of Representatives Joe Kent. (Yes, that Joe Kent.) Kent lost as did a series of other candidates Carlson promoted, including Kari Lake, Mehmet Oz, and Blake Masters. One candidate Carlson promoted who did win was JD Vance, and Carlson was central in convincing Trump to nominate Vance for Vice President two years later. Significantly, Vance was an isolationist.

Tucker Carlson with rape apologist and accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate.

Now operating on his own, Carlson has gone even further. For example, he hosted the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones as well as ex-con Larry Sinclair, who claimed that he had smoked crack and had sex with Barak Obama. He traveled to Romania to interview rapist sex trafficker Andrew Tate, whom he claimed was “set up” (by whom?)

Zengerle concludes: “there was a through-line in many of Carlson‘ s most unhinged and conspirator musings: a deep antipathy toward Jews, and a visceral loathing of Israel. Attacking Ukraine’s Jewish president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Carlson employed classic anti-somatic tropes in describing Zelenskyy as ‘prosecutor of Christians.’ In the midst of the Israel-Hamas war he accused Israel of ‘blowing up churches and killing Christians’” He accused Ben Shapiro of being “focused on a conflict in a foreign country as their own country becomes dangerously unstable.” Contrasting himself to (Jewish) Ben Shapiro he said “ I’m from here, my family’s been here hundreds of years. I plan to stay here. I’m shocked by how little they care about the country.” He hosted Nazi apologist Darryl Cooper, whom he called “the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” In other words, as Zengerle says, “he’d come a long way from the days when he described himself as a pro Israel, Episcopalian, and neocon.”

Today, Carlson “has the ears of heads of state and billionaires. He is selling out basketball arenas and constantly streaming onto our phones. He has descended into madness, but he is speaking to millions.”

There are several questions regarding the present day Tucker Carlson and where he’s headed: what exactly are those millions hearing and how are they being influenced? In what direction is Tucker Carlson driving them? What historical tendencies does Tucker Carlson represent? And how do the interests of the working class – as a separate class – figure into all of this? In the next section on the topic of Tucker Carlson we will discuss these issues. Take a free subscription to Oaklandsocialist to be sure not to miss it.