Tucker Carlson Helps Trump's Scum and Villainy Play Victim
Big Right has fully abandoned sane, decent conservatives to the MAGA hijackers.
Tucker Carlson has been a recurring target of Conservative Standards, to the point that I debated whether to run with the subject of today’s column for fear of overdoing the repetition. But I ultimately decided to go ahead with it for a few reasons: because one of the main purposes of this newsletter is to tackle the problems on the Right that the Conservative Infotainment Complex neglects, because the story presents an opportunity to cover a few different bases in one place, and because it’s so hideous that it demands a takedown.
Over the weekend, griftclown freakshow Turning Point USA began its America Fest 2023 event in Phoenix. Among the Mos Eisley Cantina of speakers was of course Carlson, who during an interview or panel of some kind with fellow phonies Tim Pool (more on him in a bit) and Charlie Kirk said the following:
Can I just ask a question since you all are so on the internet and, like I’m not that much...
Just like he did with his Candace Owens interview, Carlson—whose profession is news commentary, remember—prefaces his comments with a claim to be ignorant and/or uninvested in whatever he’s about to opine on, framing himself as some mild-mannered bystander who just happened to notice something unusual he wasn’t looking for. It’s a presentation trick that gives him an air of unearned objectivity, a presumption of reasonableness that has served him well to lure in gullible devotees.
You really get the sense that Ron DeSantis, who I liked as governor, the people who represent him online are the nastiest, the stupidest, and the most zero-sum people I’ve ever seen in my life.
Where did this “sense” come from, Tucker? You didn’t give us any examples to evaluate. You just told us you’re “not that much” on the internet where these nasty idiots are supposedly to be found.
Whatever Tucker would say, the real answer is almost certainly that he became aware that “Ron’s uniquely toxic supporters are killing his candidacy” is a manufactured talking point Trumpworld has been pushing for quite some time (see JD Vance, Mollie Hemingway, Michael Knowles, Candace Owens, Julie Kelly, Nick Searcy, Austin Petersen, Cassandra MacDonald, and Mike Cernovich, for just a few examples), and now that he’s outed himself as an “active Trump supporter,” it’s time to do his part.
The first problem with it, though, is that it’s a lie. Whenever it comes up, it does so in one of three contexts: a snarky swipe at DeSantis without substantiating examples of any kind, heated arguments between anonymous private citizens of the kind every political candidate has had since the advent of the internet, or defensive reactions to valid comments condemning bad behavior from the Trump-aligned (see Hemingway, Kelly, and Searcy’s examples linked above).
Indeed, Carlson himself has committed a number of offenses that would earn reactions he’d no doubt find “nasty.” Like the time he dishonestly insinuated that DeSantis got more incensed by the suffering of Israelis than that of his own countrymen. Or his record of whorishness on the subject of Trump. Or the very next part of these very remarks:
And I don’t think that reflects him, but it’s like, this is kind of [inaudible] and by the way, these purported conservatives, Ron DeSantis changed his view—and I like him, okay, I think he’s been a good governor, I just want to be clear about that, and I know him personally and I like him—but his donor Ken Griffin told him to change his view on Ukraine from ‘it’s a regional conflict we shouldn’t get involved in’ to ‘it’s a super-important thing we should send more money.’ One donor got him to change his view, and all these so-called conservatives just reporting that like it’s the most important thing ever, like who are these people and what is their problem? Like what is wrong with them?
“I like you but now I’m going to smear you” is one of the classic tells of a snake, and few better deserve the label than Tucker Carlson.
What Carlson is actually referring to is that DeSantis initially made the foolish decision to try to appease Carlson and the isolationist types he represents with his first position statement on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March, which played to paranoia about “escalation,” regime change in Moscow, and most recklessly framed the invasion as a mere “territorial dispute.” Days later, DeSantis gave an interview to Piers Morgan, where he clarified that Vladimir Putin was of course the villain and that Russia’s claim to Ukraine is illegitimate, but not changing any of his policy objectives.
That initial decision to try to appease the Right’s isolationist contingent has boxed DeSantis into a corner he still hasn’t figured out how to escape, which deserves its own separate column. But right now, the takeaway is that DeSantis hasn’t been catering to interventionist-minded donors as Carlson says; in fact, the past year has been full of stories about donors souring on DeSantis because he doesn’t cater to him; Griffin in particular is not aligned with DeSantis on abortion or academia.
Indeed, in July DeSantis addressed this at the Iowa Family Leadership Summit...to Carlson himself. From Florida Politics:
DeSantis took issue with Carlson saying he changed his position from telling Carlson that the Russian invasion was a simple “territorial dispute,” rejecting Carlson’s restatement of DeSantis’ position as changing his view “to describe Putin as a war criminal and say that it was central to America’s foreign policy.”
“So the last part I did not say,” DeSantis said, leaving it unclear whether Carlson meant the “war criminal” statement (which he made in March while walking back his statement to Carlson) or the idea that defending Ukraine was “central to America’s foreign policy.”
“You dissent from the DC foreign policy elite, they then try to smear you and say, ‘Oh, you must be for Putin.’ I’ve always thought Putin is a bad guy. I still think he’s a bad guy. But that’s a separate question for a leader who’s got to look at the world in very clear-eyed glasses. You know that it’s not all peaches and cream out there and you have to make a judgment about what’s in America’s national interest,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis reaffirmed the “territorial dispute” framing soon thereafter.
“And the dispute at this point or the war at this point is not whether Ukraine’s government is going to fall. They’re fighting over territory on the far eastern part of the country between Russia and Ukraine. And that’s kind of where this is at. So the question is OK, how do you get that to where we can stop this and also from our national interest,” DeSantis said.
Beyond that, the smear deserves its own wing in the National Hypocrisy Museum for the simple fact that it’s coming from supporters of Donald Trump, whose remaining online advocates are one of the most disturbing and disturbed groups of frothing malcontents you will ever encounter in your life. More importantly, though, there is no honest equivalency whatsoever between the alleged bad behavior of private individuals supporting a candidate on their own time, and the behavior of a candidate’s official campaign employees, high-profile professionals the candidate has personally met with and endorsed, or the candidate himself.
Donald Trump has demonstrably lied about DeSantis's voting record and personally promoted the baseless smear that he “groom[ed] high school girls with alcohol as a teacher”; tried to intimidate him out of running with a threat to “tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering — I know more about him than anybody — other than, perhaps, his wife”; and peddles a juvenile, obviously-fabricated story about DeSantis having “begged me for an endorsement” with “tears coming down from his eyes.”
Trump has repeatedly praised and invited to his golf club Laura Loomer, who has accused DeSantis’s wife Casey of faking her breast cancer and insinuated the 2015 death of his sister Christina was a “shady situation.” Trump’s son Don Jr. has suggested Loomer for White House Press Secretary. Trump has given access to The National Pulse editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam, who defames critics at the drop of a hat, throws sexual slurs at female opponents, calls opponents “faggot” like a middle-schooler, and published a fake story about DeSantis campaign strategists telling donors the opposite of what they actually said about pro-life principles. Notorious Trump ally Roger Stone used a thinly-disguised sexual slur against Casey DeSantis for discussing her children.
Trump 2024 Senior Advisor (and alleged deadbeat dad) Jason Miller has promoted the so-called “Meme Team” of podcaster Brenden Dilley, who told Second Amendment advocate Chris Loesch that his wife Dana “gets railed by other dudes,” defends calling conservative women sexual slurs, and rants about the “bitch mother” of DeSantis’s kids. Trump’s campaign puts out official press releases likening DeSantis to a “thirsty, third-rate OnlyFans wannabe model” and “San Francisco crackhead.”
But we’re supposed to believe that Carlson is oblivious to all of that while somehow acutely aware of all the nasty thing supposedly said and done by random DeSantis supporters not connected to his campaign. Just like we’re supposed to ignore that Carlson said all this while sitting with Tim Pool, who accused DeSantis of negligence for not pursuing legal action over the childhood gender transitioning of Jazz Jennings, who (a) was transitioned before DeSantis became governor and (b) has since become a legal adult, despite (c) Florida not having a law against underage transitions until DeSantis advocated for and signed one.
This is the scale of what sane conservatives are up against. A political campaign packed with the vilest thugs imaginable, faithfully reflecting and blessed by the man at the top. Soulless media mouthpieces who think nothing of projecting their own side’s behavior onto those standing up to them. And a “conservative” media all too happy to look the other way.
Oh, and every last one of them do all of the above while purporting to represent you and me.
God help us.