As if there was any doubt…. Congrats Tucker!
A year ago, Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s January 6 “false flag” conspiracy theories roiled the network. His Patriot Purge special, which portrayed the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol as righteous patriots and the federal government’s response as a pretextual “purge aimed at legacy Americans,” created a media firestorm and had some of Fox’s most high-profile veterans telling executives he had gone too far.
But Carlson won that power struggle: The Fox brass stood by him, and his critics either leftthe network, like Chris Wallace, or quietly submitted, like Bret Baier. And today, Carlson dominates Fox like no on-air personality in its history, replacing former President Donald Trump as the network’s fulcrum.
Carlson is a demagogue who sneers at America’s heritage as a multicultural nation bound by shared principles like liberty, equality, and democracy. He instead embraces the blood-and-soil nationalism of European autocracies. This radical and reactionary philosophy is swiftly gaining power on the American right, thanks to adherents such as the fascist billionaire Peter Thiel and his pet philosopher Curtis Yarvin and hand-picked Sen.-elect J.D. Vance. Carlson is that movement’s accelerant; he is using his weekday program on Fox and regular specials on its streaming platform, Fox Nation, as well as his influence over the Republican Party, to bring it into the mainstream.
In practice, this means Carlson spent 2022 exhorting his viewers to take action against the purported “replacement” of white Americans and the increasing public acceptance of the LGBTQ community and levying inflammatory conspiracy theories sourced from the right-wing fever swamps and Russian propaganda outlets.
A year ago, Fox News star Tucker Carlson’s January 6 “false flag” conspiracy theories roiled the network. His Patriot Purge special, which portrayed the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol as righteous patriots and the federal government’s response as a pretextual “purge aimed at legacy Americans,” created a media firestorm and had some of Fox’s most high-profile veterans telling executives he had gone too far.
But Carlson won that power struggle: The Fox brass stood by him, and his critics either leftthe network, like Chris Wallace, or quietly submitted, like Bret Baier. And today, Carlson dominates Fox like no on-air personality in its history, replacing former President Donald Trump as the network’s fulcrum.
Carlson is a demagogue who sneers at America’s heritage as a multicultural nation bound by shared principles like liberty, equality, and democracy. He instead embraces the blood-and-soil nationalism of European autocracies. This radical and reactionary philosophy is swiftly gaining power on the American right, thanks to adherents such as the fascist billionaire Peter Thiel and his pet philosopher Curtis Yarvin and hand-picked Sen.-elect J.D. Vance. Carlson is that movement’s accelerant; he is using his weekday program on Fox and regular specials on its streaming platform, Fox Nation, as well as his influence over the Republican Party, to bring it into the mainstream.
In practice, this means Carlson spent 2022 exhorting his viewers to take action against the purported “replacement” of white Americans and the increasing public acceptance of the LGBTQ community and levying inflammatory conspiracy theories sourced from the right-wing fever swamps and Russian propaganda outlets.
Misinformer of the Year: Tucker Carlson
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