Good piece. I particularly like "Tucker is like an algorithm, doing a brute-force grid search over the space of things that it’s possible to get people mad about, optimizing for attention and money." Yeah, he is a one-man Twitter.
The whole thing reminds me of Father Coughlin from the 1930s. At one point one-third of America listened to his weekly radio programs, which espoused antisemitism and support for Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Eventually he was forced off the air in October 1939 but it wasn't like American antisemitism disappeared because he was gone.
I think this is the most insightful commentary I’ve read on Tucker Carlson’s firing.
The best way to look at him really is as an entrepreneur working hard to create a product that sells. And he doesn’t particularly care what that product is since the only thing that matters is giving consumers / viewers what they want.
And that’s the really sad part. He’s selling outrage because that what sells. And despite what some seem to hope, his firing won’t make Fox or the media landscape any better. He’ll just be replaced by someone else who will likely be even better at keeping the rage machine going.
And that’s ultimately why he got the boot. His biggest transgression was forgetting he was just another employee in Murdock’s empire. And despite the ratings. replaceable.
Jon Stewart's critique of Crossfire was complete horseshit (as is yours, sorry), and we are now living in the world that demonstrates exactly why. I believe that Crossfire is deeply missed in American life today. The hosts came together as friends and Americans to argue about politics over imaginary beers. And it was clear by the end that they *were* friends, that they might go get a beer when they were done. It was theater, sure, but it was important theater - it illustrated how you should argue politics with your friends and family who disagreed with you.
Now, everyone on TV debates strawmen, and as a result the Americans who consume the most news are the least accurate at describing the political views of the other side. People are disowning family and friends for supporting the wrong candidate. I haven't had a fun political argument with a friend or family member in almost 15 years now. Bring back Crossfire.
> He pushed antivax disinformation so strongly that his own Fox News coworkers had to step in and complain
I read both articles. I couldn't find misinformation anywhere in Carlson's monologue and I followed everything related to the COVID vaccines unusually closely. The CNN story in contrast, says:
> The 15-minute monologue began with an on-screen banner that said “EVERYONE IN AUTHORITY WANTS YOU TO GET YOUR VACCINE,” and it went downhill from there
Implying that the banner was somehow incorrect. That is absurd. How can anyone say it "went downhill from there". Who exactly was in authority and did not want you get your vaccine? Nobody, the powers that be were entirely united in that quest and went to extreme lengths to force people to take the shots over and over.
The CNN article goes on to embarrass itself further. Apparently they're salty that "Carlson routinely and cynically argues that sources like the CDC and CNN cannot be trusted", lol. The rest of the article is quoting random people who had appeared on Fox at some point, most of whom go on to commit logical fallacies of various kinds.
I'm not in the US, don't receive Fox and never watch Tucker Carlson. Everything I know about this man I've read second hand from material at the edges of the US culture war, but if these two articles are representative then no wonder the man has huge audiences. The clarity of thought and accuracy in his monologue is light years beyond anything in the CNN article.
Sean Hannity is another gem. When he broadcast denials that water-boarding wasn’t torture, Christopher Hutchins, who supported the Iraq War, issued a challenge and bet. Both agreed to meet and be water-boarded and the money wagered would go to charity. Hitches showed up. Hannity was a no-show. Hitches went ahead and subjected himself to water-boarding. Hannity and Carlson are cowards.
Tucker may be opportunistic in the positions he is currently advocating. But the idea that until Trump he was a standard Republican is false.
Carlson has always been a bit of a heterodox right-winger.
In 199 he reported, with disgust, George Bush's support for execution of Karla Faye Tucker. Probably as Tucker himself is vehemently anti-death penalty. And repeatedly stated during Bush admin that he disliked the president.
In 2004 he renounced his own support for the Iraq War well before many liberals came around to that position.
Under Carlson, The Daily Wire was a center-right publication but didn't take the standard right-wing lines all the time. They hired people like Mickey Kaus for them.
Glad to see him go, but I’ve always had a hard time with the conventional wisdom that people like him are purely cynical and just exploiting bad feelings for the sake of ratings. I mean, they’re certainly doing that to some degree, but part of me has always thought that deep down they really do feel a lot of the resentment they’re peddling. Maybe it’s because I’ve personally known so many “conservative uncles” in real life who sincerely feel and express that seething anger towards all things coded as “left” or “woke” or “progressive.” Even when Carlson was knowingly distorting the truth, I always got the sense that the hate in his heart was very genuine. Maybe it all started when Jon Stewart humiliated him, maybe before. I just think it’s too easy to write people like that off as cynically selling snake oil to suckers. I think maybe, in a way, that’s easier for liberal-minded people like myself to accept, because how could anyone really feel so much anger towards so many innocuous things? And yet they do.
Why do you think the alteration of Tucker's views on the show were faked? People change over their lives (thank God). I started as a communist, then became a libertarian (in order to be a better communist -- read Marx if you don't know why) before adapting to a Burkean conservative. Countries face different problems at different times; only someone blindly committed to an ideology refuses to change his mind given changing circumstances.
"You tuned in to enrage yourself "
Maybe most Tucker viewers were just trying to enrage themselves (I know a couple who might fall into that category) but I tuned in for the same reason I listened to Rush Limbaugh's monologue: to hear about events that would simply not be covered anywhere else. (And besides: Rush was was funny even if you didn't always agree with him.)
Fooled? I couldn't care less if he comes by his opinions honestly. I disagree with him on just about everything else; but now there is not a single pundit on TV who opposes our never ending stupid wars that we ALWAYS have endless money for. And his criticism of Biden for arresting black socialists for being anti war. We have no national interest in Ukraine. You can think whatever you want about Putin, but if you think, after this, he is somehow going to pose any threat to the rest of Europe much less the US you are not a rational person capable of acting on anything but emotions. Clearly there is a market for anti-war views, what does it say about our supposedly free press that there is literally no one on TV news, no one at NYT, WaPo, Vox, Slate ect who has even the mildest criticism of our stupid endless wars?
Rules based national order? tell that to Kosovo.
Unprovoked war? Tell that to Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
Everywhere we get involved we make things exponentially worse for everyone. We are not a stabilizing force on the world stage.
Rod Dreher (who knows Tucker personally) has confirmed this story. "The most popular news-talk television host on the air, was removed from his job because he gave a talk about good and evil that offended the amoral billionaire who runs the show." (from Rod's paywalled article on this subject)
If you haven't watched the Heritage Foundation speech the article references, you should: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebG2POkoHgU You may disagree, but it will help you understand how hungry Americans are to believe in something beyond themselves.
U.S. population 330 million. So, being generous, Carlson’s audience is 3 million. Wow, that’s 0.009%. Thankfully, Americans have something better to do than consume mainstream media.
A cursory look at mainstream media outlets, be it TV or newspapers, show the numbers aren’t much better. The mainstream media is anything but Main Street. The atomization of media is a plus. No longer are a handful of gatekeepers shifting what information is made available to the public. The mainstream media is a giant Skinner’s box, full of influencers trying to influence other influencers. Twitter, mainstream media’s assignment desk, is a good metaphor for most of media.
As for Carlson: who could forget when he was confronted by an outfitter in a Montana fishing shop. In a hushed tone, he pleaded with the outfitter not to have his daughter hear the verbal criticism. Unlike some of Carlson’s viewers, the outfitter didn’t threaten or assault Carlson but criticized his character. And Carlson immediately wanted to hide behind his daughter’s skirts. One wonders, how many other daughters have heard Carlson’s broadcast bile?
While I am no fan of TC, I was impressed with the balance Noah has shown in getting below the surface on why a phenom like Tucker exists at all. For me the hard question remains: has media (TV, social, podcasts, blogs posts) hijacked our ability to reason for ourselves, replacing thoughtful consideration with emotion-raking clickbait tidbits and is there even a way back, if we acknowledge it? Warhol's 15-minutes of fame idea has been surpassed to become 15 seconds or even nanoseconds of fame -- whatever we can get. Great article, Noah.
Good article but one minor quibble. Brute force grid searches are extremely inefficient. Tucker is too smart for that. Probably better described as a type of importance-sampling search.
Good piece. I particularly like "Tucker is like an algorithm, doing a brute-force grid search over the space of things that it’s possible to get people mad about, optimizing for attention and money." Yeah, he is a one-man Twitter.
The whole thing reminds me of Father Coughlin from the 1930s. At one point one-third of America listened to his weekly radio programs, which espoused antisemitism and support for Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Eventually he was forced off the air in October 1939 but it wasn't like American antisemitism disappeared because he was gone.
I think this is the most insightful commentary I’ve read on Tucker Carlson’s firing.
The best way to look at him really is as an entrepreneur working hard to create a product that sells. And he doesn’t particularly care what that product is since the only thing that matters is giving consumers / viewers what they want.
And that’s the really sad part. He’s selling outrage because that what sells. And despite what some seem to hope, his firing won’t make Fox or the media landscape any better. He’ll just be replaced by someone else who will likely be even better at keeping the rage machine going.
And that’s ultimately why he got the boot. His biggest transgression was forgetting he was just another employee in Murdock’s empire. And despite the ratings. replaceable.
Jon Stewart's critique of Crossfire was complete horseshit (as is yours, sorry), and we are now living in the world that demonstrates exactly why. I believe that Crossfire is deeply missed in American life today. The hosts came together as friends and Americans to argue about politics over imaginary beers. And it was clear by the end that they *were* friends, that they might go get a beer when they were done. It was theater, sure, but it was important theater - it illustrated how you should argue politics with your friends and family who disagreed with you.
Now, everyone on TV debates strawmen, and as a result the Americans who consume the most news are the least accurate at describing the political views of the other side. People are disowning family and friends for supporting the wrong candidate. I haven't had a fun political argument with a friend or family member in almost 15 years now. Bring back Crossfire.
They didn't cancel Crossfire, they incorporated people yelling at each other to score points into every single cable news show.
> He pushed antivax disinformation so strongly that his own Fox News coworkers had to step in and complain
I read both articles. I couldn't find misinformation anywhere in Carlson's monologue and I followed everything related to the COVID vaccines unusually closely. The CNN story in contrast, says:
> The 15-minute monologue began with an on-screen banner that said “EVERYONE IN AUTHORITY WANTS YOU TO GET YOUR VACCINE,” and it went downhill from there
Implying that the banner was somehow incorrect. That is absurd. How can anyone say it "went downhill from there". Who exactly was in authority and did not want you get your vaccine? Nobody, the powers that be were entirely united in that quest and went to extreme lengths to force people to take the shots over and over.
The CNN article goes on to embarrass itself further. Apparently they're salty that "Carlson routinely and cynically argues that sources like the CDC and CNN cannot be trusted", lol. The rest of the article is quoting random people who had appeared on Fox at some point, most of whom go on to commit logical fallacies of various kinds.
I'm not in the US, don't receive Fox and never watch Tucker Carlson. Everything I know about this man I've read second hand from material at the edges of the US culture war, but if these two articles are representative then no wonder the man has huge audiences. The clarity of thought and accuracy in his monologue is light years beyond anything in the CNN article.
Sean Hannity is another gem. When he broadcast denials that water-boarding wasn’t torture, Christopher Hutchins, who supported the Iraq War, issued a challenge and bet. Both agreed to meet and be water-boarded and the money wagered would go to charity. Hitches showed up. Hannity was a no-show. Hitches went ahead and subjected himself to water-boarding. Hannity and Carlson are cowards.
Tucker may be opportunistic in the positions he is currently advocating. But the idea that until Trump he was a standard Republican is false.
Carlson has always been a bit of a heterodox right-winger.
In 199 he reported, with disgust, George Bush's support for execution of Karla Faye Tucker. Probably as Tucker himself is vehemently anti-death penalty. And repeatedly stated during Bush admin that he disliked the president.
In 2004 he renounced his own support for the Iraq War well before many liberals came around to that position.
Under Carlson, The Daily Wire was a center-right publication but didn't take the standard right-wing lines all the time. They hired people like Mickey Kaus for them.
Glad to see him go, but I’ve always had a hard time with the conventional wisdom that people like him are purely cynical and just exploiting bad feelings for the sake of ratings. I mean, they’re certainly doing that to some degree, but part of me has always thought that deep down they really do feel a lot of the resentment they’re peddling. Maybe it’s because I’ve personally known so many “conservative uncles” in real life who sincerely feel and express that seething anger towards all things coded as “left” or “woke” or “progressive.” Even when Carlson was knowingly distorting the truth, I always got the sense that the hate in his heart was very genuine. Maybe it all started when Jon Stewart humiliated him, maybe before. I just think it’s too easy to write people like that off as cynically selling snake oil to suckers. I think maybe, in a way, that’s easier for liberal-minded people like myself to accept, because how could anyone really feel so much anger towards so many innocuous things? And yet they do.
Why do you think the alteration of Tucker's views on the show were faked? People change over their lives (thank God). I started as a communist, then became a libertarian (in order to be a better communist -- read Marx if you don't know why) before adapting to a Burkean conservative. Countries face different problems at different times; only someone blindly committed to an ideology refuses to change his mind given changing circumstances.
"You tuned in to enrage yourself "
Maybe most Tucker viewers were just trying to enrage themselves (I know a couple who might fall into that category) but I tuned in for the same reason I listened to Rush Limbaugh's monologue: to hear about events that would simply not be covered anywhere else. (And besides: Rush was was funny even if you didn't always agree with him.)
Fooled? I couldn't care less if he comes by his opinions honestly. I disagree with him on just about everything else; but now there is not a single pundit on TV who opposes our never ending stupid wars that we ALWAYS have endless money for. And his criticism of Biden for arresting black socialists for being anti war. We have no national interest in Ukraine. You can think whatever you want about Putin, but if you think, after this, he is somehow going to pose any threat to the rest of Europe much less the US you are not a rational person capable of acting on anything but emotions. Clearly there is a market for anti-war views, what does it say about our supposedly free press that there is literally no one on TV news, no one at NYT, WaPo, Vox, Slate ect who has even the mildest criticism of our stupid endless wars?
Rules based national order? tell that to Kosovo.
Unprovoked war? Tell that to Iraq, Libya, and Syria.
Everywhere we get involved we make things exponentially worse for everyone. We are not a stabilizing force on the world stage.
War is a racket, always has been always will be.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/tucker-carlson-fox-news-rupert-murdoch
Rod Dreher (who knows Tucker personally) has confirmed this story. "The most popular news-talk television host on the air, was removed from his job because he gave a talk about good and evil that offended the amoral billionaire who runs the show." (from Rod's paywalled article on this subject)
If you haven't watched the Heritage Foundation speech the article references, you should: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebG2POkoHgU You may disagree, but it will help you understand how hungry Americans are to believe in something beyond themselves.
U.S. population 330 million. So, being generous, Carlson’s audience is 3 million. Wow, that’s 0.009%. Thankfully, Americans have something better to do than consume mainstream media.
A cursory look at mainstream media outlets, be it TV or newspapers, show the numbers aren’t much better. The mainstream media is anything but Main Street. The atomization of media is a plus. No longer are a handful of gatekeepers shifting what information is made available to the public. The mainstream media is a giant Skinner’s box, full of influencers trying to influence other influencers. Twitter, mainstream media’s assignment desk, is a good metaphor for most of media.
As for Carlson: who could forget when he was confronted by an outfitter in a Montana fishing shop. In a hushed tone, he pleaded with the outfitter not to have his daughter hear the verbal criticism. Unlike some of Carlson’s viewers, the outfitter didn’t threaten or assault Carlson but criticized his character. And Carlson immediately wanted to hide behind his daughter’s skirts. One wonders, how many other daughters have heard Carlson’s broadcast bile?
While I am no fan of TC, I was impressed with the balance Noah has shown in getting below the surface on why a phenom like Tucker exists at all. For me the hard question remains: has media (TV, social, podcasts, blogs posts) hijacked our ability to reason for ourselves, replacing thoughtful consideration with emotion-raking clickbait tidbits and is there even a way back, if we acknowledge it? Warhol's 15-minutes of fame idea has been surpassed to become 15 seconds or even nanoseconds of fame -- whatever we can get. Great article, Noah.
Good article but one minor quibble. Brute force grid searches are extremely inefficient. Tucker is too smart for that. Probably better described as a type of importance-sampling search.
Russian state television has already prepared his contract!