Mother Tucker Would Be Proud… If She Spoke Russian

"You have our admiration and support in any endeavor you choose for yourself next, be it running for president of the United States (which you should totally do, by the way) or making an independent media project. We'll happily offer you a job if you wish to carry on as a presenter and host.”

Vladimir Solovyov — Russian TV host, “Russia’s Hannity” and one of the Kremlin's most prominent propagandists – in an April 25th note to Carlson

Tucker Carlson has a lovely home in Florida, piles of cash and investments, and never needs to work another day in his life to support whatever lavish lifestyle he might want. Seemingly antisemitic, he has a Jewish lawyer to fight in his obvious legal quest to pry even more money out of Fox News. Whether he works again, runs for office or just enjoys his riches, Carlson is extremely popular with White Christian nationalists/”they shall not replace us” White supremacists. That is his base. Those Capitol Hill violent insurrectionists on January 6, 2021, have been clearly depicted in his documentary on point as peaceful patriots. He says he hates Trump but probably has done more than any other face on Fox News to promote Trump and his agenda.

Bottom line: Carlson is most popular with those who wish to tear down the American “equal protection under law” democracy, both domestic and foreign. Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, and most of the MAGA faithful worship Carlson. In recent litigation against Fox and Carlson, court papers reveal a startling admission: Carlson is not a “journalist” but a “host” that no “reasonable man” could ever believe. Dominion is just one plaintiff using Carlson’s words as evidence of Fox’ ignoring the truth and telecasting what its faithful want to hear instead.

Carlson has criticized American support for Ukraine, bashed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as a fraud, railed against “George Soros” supporting “whatever” (using Soros name, whether he is involved or not, is shorthand for “Jews”) and complained about “replacement” theory, from immigrants to Jewish money: that Dems want to have more people who can dilute the traditional mainstream White Christian vote.

But if you think Tucker is popular here, he is a downright hero to America’s primary foreign antagonists… and our rather obvious enemies. Particularly China… and, most of all, Russia. When Tucker was fired from Fox News, the support he instantly received from Russian politicians and media (government controlled) depicted him as a superhero.

Take for example a statement by Russian Foreign Secretary, Sergey Lavrov, speaking at an April 25th press conference in New York, “during which he bashed Western journalism… He cited Carlson's departure from Fox as an example of what — according to him — is the deterioration of press freedom in the US… ‘The First Amendment of the United States Constitution apparently means nothing in practice,’ Lavrov said. The First Amendment does not protect journalists from being fired by their employers… ‘I heard that Tucker Carlson has left Fox News. It's curious news. What is this related to? I can only guess,’ he said. ‘But clearly, the wealth of views in the American information space has suffered as a result…

“Lavrov's comments about Carlson were brief, but he isn't alone in the Kremlin's praise for the right-wing TV figure… Evgeny Popov, host of the Russian TV show ‘60 Minutes,’ in January 2022 called Carlson one of the ‘voices of truth and reason,’ and lamented that Carlson was being ‘silenced and marginalized’ in the US, reported The Daily Beast's Julia Davis.

“That was a month before the war in Ukraine began, but it was also when Russia was amassing troops at its borders. Carlson said at the time that he was rooting for Russia, then backpedaled and said he was joking... And when Carlson suggested without evidence in October that the US was behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, Russian state TV replayed his commentary at least 12 times in a single day... It got to the point where the Kremlin told state media it was ‘essential’ to feature Carlson ‘as much as possible,’  per a leaked memo obtained by Mother Jones in March 2022.” Matthew Loh for Business Insider, April 27th.

Want more? Writing for the April 26th Puck.com, journalist Julia Ioffe had her take on Russia’s reaction to Carlson’s firing: “Of course, the reaction was largely what I expected: Kremlin media is rending its clothes for Carlson, celebrating his ostensible journalistic integrity and portraying his dismissal as an indictment of liberal media groupthink. Naturally, the reasons that it’s citing for his exit are not only at odds with all the reporting that’s emerged here in the U.S.; they also line up neatly with conspiracy theories one often hears on the American far right—and the far left.

“One anchor admiringly referred to Carlson as ‘Joe Biden’s main critic’ and praised Carlson for slamming Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky for ‘panhandling on an especially large scale.’ One so-called expert, speaking to a reporter from [Russia’s] Izvestia, suggested that Carlson was fired as part of a ‘conspiracy’ between Rupert Murdoch and ‘the Democratic establishment.’ (‘If Carlson wasn’t fired,’ this person said, ‘then the [Dominion settlement] would’ve had to be even bigger.’) Carlson’s interview with R.F.K., Jr., whom the paper describes as a real threat to Biden, didn’t help. But the real reason for his removal, Izvestia supposes, is that Carlson was so adamantly against the war in Ukraine. He had denounced a U.S. establishment that was hellbent on war—people like the Kremlin’s bogeywoman Victoria Nuland, who, in Izvestia’s opinion, is committed to dragging out the conflict in Ukraine. This was why the establishment had to remove Carlson and his uncomfortable criticisms from the air.

“[Olga Skabeeva, who co-hosts a popular political talk show on the Kremlin-controlled Rossiya1], who speaks in a tone I like to call ‘the condescending cashier,’ announced the ‘sad news’ on her show and sneered at the firing in a country ‘that likes to call itself the freest and fairest in the world.’ Carlson, Skabeeva declared, wasn’t fired for his lack of professionalism or for his ratings. ‘Tucker was fired because he was perhaps the only journalist in the U.S.A. who spoke the truth—and, even more frequently, he criticized Biden and his entire L.G.B.T. administration,’ Skabeeva told her millions of viewers. ‘And of course, he criticized Ukraine. Tucker called it a corrupt black hole for American taxpayers and described Zelensky as a thief.’ And he had paid for it with his job.”

As I have blogged repeatedly over the past few years, beware of Americans who call themselves patriots by supporting the ultraright. They are almost always anything but. And to them, Tucker is a hero and an American patriot. Conspiracy star Tucker Carlson would have many more options if he just spoke Russian.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the number of democracy bashers in rightwing media, Congress and in state governments is rising, but at least one false voice has left the building… likely to be replaced by a clone.