Even more bizarre people
It’s kind of amusing to read about Tucker Carlson’s relegation to being just another talker. Last April
Fox News, after settling a defamation lawsuit for $787m, gave Carlson the boot.
The move was as unexpected as it was sudden, and left viewers and pundits wondering what Carlson, who had used his position to push far-right conspiracy theories and elevate rightwing figures, would do next.
So far, the answer has been: use a new Twitter show to push even more conspiracy theories and give a platform to even more bizarre people, which culminated with a new low this week, as Carlson revived a debunked claim that Barack Obama smoked crack and had sex with a man many years ago.
It seemed to confirm something that many observers had predicted: deprived of the prime time platform of Fox News, Carlson – once seen as a power broker in Republican politics and even a possible presidential candidate – has spiraled into extremism and growing irrelevance.
“He doesn’t have the Fox News bells and whistles anymore. And so the result is that he’s basically just Alex Jones in a jacket and tie, trying to concoct conspiracy theories that he thinks his audience will be interested in,” Gertz said. “He’s really dropped in relevance pretty quickly.”
But he’s been working hard to fix the formula.
Since those early videos, Carlson has shifted tack. Since July his videos have generally consisted of longer-form interviews, apparently with anyone prepared to say yes to a Carlson media request.
The first of Carlson’s new oeuvre dropped on 11 July: a two-and-a-half-hour interview with Andrew Tate, the rightwing misogynist influencer who in June was charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women.
Just the kind of guy you want to listen to for 2.5 hours.
I’m surprised by just how much he dropped in relevance. I suppose I shouldn’t be, as there is precedent (Bill O’Reilly, Glen Beck) for hosts floundering once they lost their Fox News platform.
I am too. I thought his fans loved him specifically.
I wish Trump had dropped in relevance after that stupid tv show ended.
My experience with the Fox News crowd (which is unfortunately greater than I’d like, since many of my family are true believers) is that they are often stay-at-home retirees who turn the channel on in the morning and just sort of let it play all day long. They don’t really care who is blustering, as long as someone is, and they certainly cannot be bothered to change the channel. Probably most of them don’t even know or care what twitter is. Carlson had nothing really innovative to say; you can get the same from Dennis Prager on AM radio. The only difference is that some of them push gold bullion onto their unsuspecting listeners, while others push “emergency telephones not tied to a network”, in between their frothy conspiracy rants. Not a single one of them would be doing it, were it not for the fact that they’re raking in money hand over fist from their willing listeners/watchers and I think that the audience members know that: they know that it’s all a series of flashes in the pan, like Tucker Carlson, and that no single one of them really knows anything or cares about anyone.