It’s not often I have the occasion to quote myself while boasting about a spot-on prediction, but here is what yours truly posted on Facebook this week, a day ahead of the report that Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News had “parted company” with toxic talk-show host Tucker Carlson.
(I spelled his surname differently because I like to call him Cucker Tarlson, in recognition of what’s happened to the verb “cuck” thanks to racists like him.)
‘Although I like the prediction that Fox will drop him eventually, I’m afraid Tarlson’s next step would be to run for president.’
Right so far. Now that one shoe has dropped, let’s start getting used to thinking about the barely thinkable: A Tarlson presidential run – even a Tarlson presidency.
First, a brief note for readers outside the United States who haven’t paid attention: Tarlson is a Trump pal, an America-first isolationist and white supremacist who has praised the British Raj in India as a golden age and who with constant repetition persuaded his millions of adoring viewers to change their term for Covid-19 to “the Chinese virus.”
Just so you don’t think mistakenly that he hates foreigners uniformly, let’s note that he’s a big fan of Vladimir Putin and an apologist for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
But keep reading for more on that. Let’s talk first about how – very quickly after the Fox firing news broke – political prognosticators more astute than I began claiming to hear the sound of that second shoe dropping.
Rick Wilson, a gadfly and political strategist who is one of the godfathers of the Never Trump movement and remains firmly in the former Republican camp, may have been first off the blocks. Wilson tweeted:
“Many people on the right have adopted a position that may be wishcasting; ‘Tucker will be back on a new streaming channel tomorrow and you’ll rue the day, libtards!’ Maybe not. Fox probably has a pretty stiff noncompete in his contract, so I wouldn’t count on the Tucker Carlson White Power Hour on the Blaze or Daily Wire any time soon.”
Which, Wilson continued,
“leads us to a fascinating prospect … What if he runs? He’s rich enough. He’d instantly have an online fundraising juggernaut second only to Trump, and perhaps surpassing him. He’s polarizing, terrible, and utterly amoral … in short, better than Ron DeSantis for the base.
“I’d argue he’s the only Republican who presents a material danger to Donald Trump in a primary. Celebrity, money, mental acuity, cynicism, pro-Putin isolationism, and an overt love of authoritarianism are a pretty strong secret sauce for the MAGA base.
“Celebrity got Trump the WH. It could certainly do the same for Tucker. And spare me your “That could never happen. Even Trump’s GOP would never vote for a former TV host pushing white replacement theory.” That’s PRECISELY who they’d vote for.”
Others besides Wilson are more inclined to see the former Fox host as Trump’s vice presidential running mate. For that he’d have to beat out Georgia’s equally crazy but dumber Representative Marginal Trailer-Greede. (OK, that also is my idiosyncratic spelling. She claims that her real name is Marjorie Taylor Greene.)
Personally I doubt Cucker would go for the number two job. He’s too arrogant, wants the band to play “Heil to the Chief” just for him. But regardless of the office, if he jumps to politics we’re going to have to worry even more about his policies. There’s still time to do that thoroughly and meticulously before US election day 2024, so let’s just conclude this early warning missive by looking very briefly at his role as a Putin apologist.
Here’s what he said in February 2022 about the overwhelming American revulsion at Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:
“Might be worth asking yourself since it is getting pretty serious. What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist, as he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Does he eat dogs? These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is no. Vladimir Putin didn’t do any of that.”
Tarlson explained:
“The Russians don’t want American missiles on their border. They don’t want a hostile government next door. Ideologues within the Biden administration did not want a negotiated peace in Ukraine. They wanted all along, and it’s very clear now, a regime-change war against Russia.”
Well, no, they didn’t want that. CNN’s Erin Burnett spoke for many of us when she retorted: “Maybe they just wanted no war, right? Just respect the border.” Burnett was moved to comment thanks to another bizarre twist in this story: Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top foreign-policy official, spoke to the United Nations and said, through an interpreter:
“Perhaps it would be useful to consider how things are with freedom of speech in the United States. I’ve heard that Tucker Carlson has left Fox News. It’s curious news. What is this related to? One can only guess. But clearly, the wealth of views in the American information space has suffered as a result.”
Just in case he wants to stay in the business of doing his big-time lying as a media personality rather than as a politician (and can get around any non-compete agreement with Fox), Cuck has what looks like a job offer from his Russian friends:
“Hey @TuckerCarlson, you can always question more with @RT,” Russia Today tweeted.
Japan-based journalist Bradley Martin – who grew up, fascinated by politics, in northwest Georgia – considered returning home to run against incumbent Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene in the 2022 election. Instead he has spent the winter in Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @bradleykmartin.