RIP Tucker Carlson's Career
RIP Tucker Carlson's Career
FOX News fired Tucker Carlson, hopefully ending the career of a particularly nasty far right propagandist.
On Monday morning, right wing propagandist and frozen food heir Tucker Carlson was fired by FOX News. Exact reasons were not given, though, in the wake of the announcement, speculation swirled about the recent success of the Dominion suit against FOX News as well as Carlson’s treatment of colleagues. Reasons aside, this is undoubtedly a huge blow to his career, which is a huge win for those of us who care about equality, acceptance, and truth.
Carlson was more than a far-right propagandist, as bad as that is in of itself. He represented the nexus of “red-brownist” propaganda in the American media. Over the years, many ostensibly progressive, left-wing people went on his show, often repeatedly, willing to blur the lines between the far left and right to go against the “elites” of the establishment – though such a strategy only winds up benefitting fascism. His claims often aligned with the official line of the Russian government, unsurprising, given their heavy meddling in far-right and red-brownist activity worldwide.
In recent years, much like the rest of the right, Carlson has had a particular obsession with trans people, pushing the “groomer” narrative – a turn of events deeply alarming to me as a trans woman. Even if Carlson often toned down his rhetoric when interviewing people of interest to progressives, his show has always seeped with bigotry of all types, seeking to scapegoat marginalized groups of every sort to advance a reactionary agenda.
Though the death of one man’s career is not enough to stop the ideas that they spread, Carlson’s influence on the right-wing media landscape was immense, with his show Tucker Carlson Tonight one of the cable shows that consistently attracted the largest audiences. Thus, it is an immense relief that someone of his level of danger is now effectively deplatformed.
While it is important for our news media to show a variety of perspectives, the level of straight-up disinformation peddled by Carlson was deeply inexcusable, such as being one of the main popularizers of the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen and various conspiracy theories around the COVID-19 pandemic.
Carlson seems not to be a true believer in his own bullshit either. FOX News policy meant he had to get the vaccinations he decried as dangerous. Even more scathingly, court documents show he was deeply critical of people like Donald Trump that he hyped up as part of the far right propaganda machine.
Even if his style of hateful garbage masquerading as news will undoubtedly continue, today represents a big blow against dangerous propaganda cynically peddled by an already immensely wealthy man. Nothing of value was lost. We are all at least a little better off in his absence.