Best diagnosis of Carlson I've read so far. One could tell he didn't believe the substance of the lies and conspiracies he mouthed on air, but he believed their allegorical message: "they" took away what's mine, so they deserve anything bad that comes their way.
TNR article is excellent. A question for your mailbag is how do you tie this many threads together when doing such a story? The narrative is primo as are the details. It's fascinating to hear about the networks that form between these people, just in terms of social psychology, and how they influence each other in tone as much as in ideas.
One thing that unnerved about Carlson was the faux economic populism, since that's very potent stuff. I don't know Schmitt well enough to know what role, if any, this played in his thought. Naturally, the anti capitalist overtones were all merely antisemitic for the fascists of yore. I read someone on Twitter quoting someone else that antisemitism is Marxism for stupid people. Carlson was explicitly antisemitic at various points (as explicit as anyone ever is...since it only works if you insinuate it). I got kind of freaked out when Naked Capitalism (the blog, which has gone downhill fast since Trump was elected) praised him. As we see, some on the left are willing to praise him. I said in a comment 'he's being antisemitic here' and a commenter said 'so what?' This shift --where Carlson was posed by people as an enemy of neoliberalism therefore good was one of the creepiest aspects of his ascendancy...though how could that be surprising when the same sometimes praised Trump for being anti war & whatnot (which was equally ludicrous)?
Anyway, I am so curious about your research methods because the TNR story is very fine-grained--but also curious about WHO on the right got the bright idea to genuinely triangulate by appearing i.e., PRETENDING to be anti capitalist. The American Conservative magazine used to have this strain. I confess I thought they occasionally put out some damn fine writ.ing. They hook me in with their tone of high moral seriousness. Ultimately, a right wing anti capitalism is stupid as hell. They always fall back onto culture, they rarely have the first mother effing clue how our material lives are built up--yet it is nevertheless sincere for some (not this dude, obviously). It's a major element in his appeal, I believe. And yes, it helps to be preppy, and rich because the various emotions that attract people--even leftists--to this theme is a sense of inferiority or having been cheated, which involves a kind of buy-in that means the preppy asshole or some other incongruous character is seen as more credible.
one aspect of carlson's brand less talked about but more legitimately and dangerously fascist was his third positionism and hitlerite overtures to the stalinist left, an attempt at a molotov-ribbentrop 2.0
Worth noting re Father Coughlin. To me it's clear his yearning for "social justice" was justce limited to white Catholics, who really were still sort of second-class citizens in the U.S. in the 1920's and 30's when he got started.
“The snottiness was the point.” This seems right, and another example of how this whole right wing freakout might be characterized as the “farce” part of the tragedy of American white exceptionalism.
The farther we get from Carlson's 1999 profile of George W. Bush where he incredulously reported on Bush's nasty-minded mockery of the woman he executed, the harder it is to believe he actually wrote it.
Thank you for writing this, because looking over the number of ostensibly "left-wing" voices (plus Ross Douthat) defending, if that's the word for it, it Tucker are making me damn-near blow a gasket. There's literally nothing "anti-elitist" about this shit, the idea is that existing elites aren't doing a good enough job of preserving existing hierarchies. He supported Elizabeth Warren's "Two Income Trap" because it undermines the dominion that me have over women, and is against the war in Ukraine because we're supposed to be allying with and supporting a fellow ethno-nationalist. Dunno what to say here, except more people need to read your shit, and I'm glad you're out there, throwing elbows.
Good stuff. Behind every malignant narcissist and psychopath, there’s a story of the shitty parenting that made them.
Just wrote about psychological parallels between families and nations in regards to abusive/autocratic tendencies and some of the recent research documenting autocratic tendencies being linked to dark triad features - narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Check out my free blog:
Tucker will always get a break from me for talking Trump out of a planned, in-progress bombing of Iran in 2019 after the Iranians shot down a Global Hawk drone, which may or may not have strayed into Iranian airspace. The jets were already in the air when Tucker talked to Trump. He got Trump to refute his own NSA, Bolton!
With the potential for escalation bombing Iran would have had, eg retaliatory missile strikes on US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq, antiship missile attacks in the Gulf, this might be the most consequential thing a journalist has done in recent history. Not to mention saving the lives of the estimated 150 victims of the planned bombing. Story is here:
After visiting Iraq in November 2003, Tucker renounced his support for the war, and has been vocally antiwar since then, really he was the only strong antiwar voice on cable or network news.
I'm old enough to remember that when Fox News settled the Dominion lawsuit for $787 million, the journalism buffet brought out steam trays of hot takes that Fox was "winning."
About one week later, Rupert Murdoch apparently drew the long knives himself and took out the No. 1 host of the No. 1 network on all of cable television.
Now with _ucker gone, I hope the genre of "winning" takes goes along with him.
Best diagnosis of Carlson I've read so far. One could tell he didn't believe the substance of the lies and conspiracies he mouthed on air, but he believed their allegorical message: "they" took away what's mine, so they deserve anything bad that comes their way.
TNR article is excellent. A question for your mailbag is how do you tie this many threads together when doing such a story? The narrative is primo as are the details. It's fascinating to hear about the networks that form between these people, just in terms of social psychology, and how they influence each other in tone as much as in ideas.
One thing that unnerved about Carlson was the faux economic populism, since that's very potent stuff. I don't know Schmitt well enough to know what role, if any, this played in his thought. Naturally, the anti capitalist overtones were all merely antisemitic for the fascists of yore. I read someone on Twitter quoting someone else that antisemitism is Marxism for stupid people. Carlson was explicitly antisemitic at various points (as explicit as anyone ever is...since it only works if you insinuate it). I got kind of freaked out when Naked Capitalism (the blog, which has gone downhill fast since Trump was elected) praised him. As we see, some on the left are willing to praise him. I said in a comment 'he's being antisemitic here' and a commenter said 'so what?' This shift --where Carlson was posed by people as an enemy of neoliberalism therefore good was one of the creepiest aspects of his ascendancy...though how could that be surprising when the same sometimes praised Trump for being anti war & whatnot (which was equally ludicrous)?
Anyway, I am so curious about your research methods because the TNR story is very fine-grained--but also curious about WHO on the right got the bright idea to genuinely triangulate by appearing i.e., PRETENDING to be anti capitalist. The American Conservative magazine used to have this strain. I confess I thought they occasionally put out some damn fine writ.ing. They hook me in with their tone of high moral seriousness. Ultimately, a right wing anti capitalism is stupid as hell. They always fall back onto culture, they rarely have the first mother effing clue how our material lives are built up--yet it is nevertheless sincere for some (not this dude, obviously). It's a major element in his appeal, I believe. And yes, it helps to be preppy, and rich because the various emotions that attract people--even leftists--to this theme is a sense of inferiority or having been cheated, which involves a kind of buy-in that means the preppy asshole or some other incongruous character is seen as more credible.
one aspect of carlson's brand less talked about but more legitimately and dangerously fascist was his third positionism and hitlerite overtures to the stalinist left, an attempt at a molotov-ribbentrop 2.0
Worth noting re Father Coughlin. To me it's clear his yearning for "social justice" was justce limited to white Catholics, who really were still sort of second-class citizens in the U.S. in the 1920's and 30's when he got started.
“The snottiness was the point.” This seems right, and another example of how this whole right wing freakout might be characterized as the “farce” part of the tragedy of American white exceptionalism.
I believe that a noticeable chunk of the FoxNews demographic felt Carlson would be their ideal son[-in-law].
The farther we get from Carlson's 1999 profile of George W. Bush where he incredulously reported on Bush's nasty-minded mockery of the woman he executed, the harder it is to believe he actually wrote it.
https://archive.org/details/TuckersFirstInterview/Image3.jpeg
Thank you for writing this, because looking over the number of ostensibly "left-wing" voices (plus Ross Douthat) defending, if that's the word for it, it Tucker are making me damn-near blow a gasket. There's literally nothing "anti-elitist" about this shit, the idea is that existing elites aren't doing a good enough job of preserving existing hierarchies. He supported Elizabeth Warren's "Two Income Trap" because it undermines the dominion that me have over women, and is against the war in Ukraine because we're supposed to be allying with and supporting a fellow ethno-nationalist. Dunno what to say here, except more people need to read your shit, and I'm glad you're out there, throwing elbows.
Good stuff. Behind every malignant narcissist and psychopath, there’s a story of the shitty parenting that made them.
Just wrote about psychological parallels between families and nations in regards to abusive/autocratic tendencies and some of the recent research documenting autocratic tendencies being linked to dark triad features - narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Check out my free blog:
https://radmod.substack.com/p/dynamic-coalitions-to-unmask-the-444
Tucker will always get a break from me for talking Trump out of a planned, in-progress bombing of Iran in 2019 after the Iranians shot down a Global Hawk drone, which may or may not have strayed into Iranian airspace. The jets were already in the air when Tucker talked to Trump. He got Trump to refute his own NSA, Bolton!
With the potential for escalation bombing Iran would have had, eg retaliatory missile strikes on US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq, antiship missile attacks in the Gulf, this might be the most consequential thing a journalist has done in recent history. Not to mention saving the lives of the estimated 150 victims of the planned bombing. Story is here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/us/politics/trump-iran-strike.html
After visiting Iraq in November 2003, Tucker renounced his support for the war, and has been vocally antiwar since then, really he was the only strong antiwar voice on cable or network news.
I'm old enough to remember that when Fox News settled the Dominion lawsuit for $787 million, the journalism buffet brought out steam trays of hot takes that Fox was "winning."
About one week later, Rupert Murdoch apparently drew the long knives himself and took out the No. 1 host of the No. 1 network on all of cable television.
Now with _ucker gone, I hope the genre of "winning" takes goes along with him.