The case of Tucker Carlson

In his 2019 review/essay on Tucker Carlson in the Claremont Review of Books, Michael Anton reasonably assessed: “Tucker Carlson has become the de facto leader of the conservative movement—assuming any such thing can still be said to exist. He didn’t seek the position. I doubt he wants it. He’d probably disclaim it, in fact. But the mantle settled on him nonetheless…” Perhaps without his show on Fox News, which Anton cites, Carlson is no longer the leader, but I think it would be a mistake to ignore his journey down the path of Charles Lindbergh (to put it charitably).

That is why I have followed Carlson’s descent, however, discreet, into old fashioned anti-Semitism. It is a matter of moral and political hygiene of the kind that William F. Buckley, Jr. undertook in days of old in founding the modern conservative movement and later in book form in In Search of anti-Semitism (1992). He sought to purge the conservative movement of its historical association with anti-Semitism.

What happens when the leader of the movement — de facto or otherwise — reveals himself to be part of the problem? Buckley is gone and greatly missed. It seems to me incumbent on admittedly lesser men and women to speak up.

Tucker’s promotion of alleged “historian” Darryl Cooper and his allegedly pathbreaking interpretation of World War II presents another occasion for me to call out Carlson’s descent. Knowing many would not have heard of Cooper, Carlson presented him “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.” If Carlson still had a grip, that proposition might have elicited one of his bouts of hysterical laughter.

According to Cooper, Winston Churchill is “the chief villain” of World War II and much more in the way of Nazi apologetics. I thought that serious historians would rise to inject the reality principle into the Cooper/Carlson phantasmagoria and real historians have done so: Victor Davis Hanson here at the Free Press (behind its paywall) and here in accessible form at his own site and Andrew Roberts here in accessible form at the Free Beacon. These are gloriously lucid columns that deconstruct Cooper’s teaching.

Niall Ferguson is another such serious historian who tuned in to assess Cooper. Ferguson reported back in the Free Press column “The return of anti-history” (also posted in accessible form here). Ferguson pierces the fog: “Cooper offers a series of wild assertions that are almost entirely divorced from historical evidence and can be of interest only to those so ignorant of the past that they mistake them for daring revisionism, as opposed to base neo-Nazism.”

Cooper’s teaching sounds somewhat familiar to Ferguson: “The last time I heard this kind of thing was when the full extent of the Wehrmacht’s complicity in mass murder was being exposed in the 1980s and 1990s. The people who made these arguments were old Nazis, making excuses. And that is what we have here, reheated and served up to an American audience: Nazi excuses.” He bluntly finds Cooper to be “a nasty little Nazi apologist.”

But what about Carlson? He declares Cooper to be “the most important historian working in the United States today.” He has introduced him to his large audience. He promotes his views. He finds Cooper compelling. He wants his audience to lap them up.

To return to Anton for a moment, writing in early 2019 (emphasis in original): “The ruling class and its social-media-mob bodyguard hates Tucker Carlson not simply because they know he’s right, but because they know he’s effective. The greatest danger to the ruling class is that his message spreads: to other hosts, other shows, other networks, other media and—most dangerous of all—more people.” As of today, without his Fox News show, Carlson wields less sway, but the point remains. He is an effective advocate. In this case, he advocates Cooper’s noxious views.

Again, writing in 2019 in the essay linked at the top, Anton observed: “Carlson keeps a respectful distance from Trump, praising the president when and where he thinks warranted while remaining unafraid to criticize.”

More recently, however, Carlson has closed his distance from Trump. He sat with Trump during the convention. He reportedly pushed for the selection of Senator Vance as Trump’s running mate. He was a prime-time speaker on the convention’s last day.

“I saw him yesterday,” said former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on Wednesday before Carlson’s speech. “Tucker was Tucker.” Asked to elaborate, Carson added: “Tucker has many opinions that sometimes are in advance of society still catching up.” Or falling back, as the case may be.

However, Vance is scheduled to catch up with Carlson on Carlson’s first-ever Tucker Carlson Live tour in Hershey, Pennsylvania on September 23. Asked about Carlson’s promotion of Cooper, a Vance spokesman responded: “Senator Vance doesn’t believe in guilt-by-association cancel culture but he obviously does not share the views of the guest interviewed by Tucker Carlson.” As anyone who takes in Carlson’s interview with Cooper will learn, however, Carlson wasn’t simply “associating” with Cooper. He was promoting Cooper and his views. He was disseminating them to a wide audience while expressing his approval.

The Vance statement went on: “There are no stronger supporters of our allies in Israel or the Jewish community in America than Senator Vance and President Trump. As Senator Vance and President Trump stand steadfastly in support of our allies in Israel, radical Kamala Harris continues to cater to the antisemitic Hamas wing of her party.” Carlson too is catering to an audience. One wonders whether Vance is “afraid to criticize,” to borrow Anton’s formulation. The least Vance can do is say it out loud, call him out, and skip the party on September 23.