Tucker Carlson Follows the Herd Onto the Trump Train

AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File

For the perspective he offered on Fox News, Tucker Carlson was praised by many, even on the far left, who credited him with being a fearless and independent thinker.

Longtime progressive gadfly Glenn Greenwald has devoted considerable energy toward paying compliments to and defending Carlson as a result of their shared “hatred for Western wars, the US Security State, and corporatism,” while ubiquitous podcaster Joe Rogan proclaimed that conversations that occurred on Carlson’s show were “some of the most nuanced.”

“I think that’s very important in this time that you have people like him,” added Rogan.

But the events of the last year or so have not substantiated this view of Carlson’s work. In fact, what private communications made public over the course of Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against Fox and Carlson’s charm offensive aimed at former President Donald Trump prove beyond all doubt is this: Tucker Carlson is a follower.

The words Carlson chose to describe then-President Trump in a text to his producer on January 6, 2021 — “a demonic force, a destroyer” — were hardly those of a momentarily disgruntled fan; Carlson had expressed similar sentiments the month before. They were the considered opinion of a man paid millions of dollars to express his opinion.

Two days before, Carlson had denounced Trump as an incompetent whom he despised covering. “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” he told a staffer. “I truly can’t wait.”

“I hate him passionately,” added Carlson bluntly.

And yet, none of those opinions ever made it to air. On the night of the Capitol riot, Carlson issued no sweeping condemnation of the commander-in-chief who lied to his own supporters about his own shortcomings, sent a mob to the Capitol Building, and egged it on as it threatened his own vice president with a summary execution.

No, instead, he mused that “in the face of dissent, the first instinct of illegitimate leadership is to crack down on the population, but crackdowns never make it better. They always make the country more volatile and more dangerous.”

Why was Ashli Babbitt, a rioter shot and killed by a police officer even at the Capitol that day, wondered Carlson. “We ought to think about that. If you want to fix it, you have to think about that,” he counseled, suddenly and blissfully unaware of the “demonic force” he condemned in private that same day.

After Carlson’s spiritually-tinged fear of Trump was revealed to the world earlier this year, he began an ongoing charm offensive aimed at the former president. Keenly aware that his great hope of being able to ignore the ex-president was gone now that Trump was again the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Carlson went to work repairing the damage that his thoughtcrimes had done to his reputation with his Trump-loving audience.

“I spent four years defending his policies and I — I’m going to defend them again tonight. And actually, and I’m pretty straight forward, I’m — I love Trump. Like, as a person, I think Trump is funny and insightful,” insisted Carlson during an interview with conservative radio host Bo Snerdley before providing an incoherent explanation for his previous unflattering commentary behind closed doors.

The string of indictments against Trump this year — which have seemingly rendered Trump untouchable in the Republican presidential primary — have provided Carlson with the perfect cover for his suddenly fervent support for him.

“I became an active Trump supporter when they raided Mar-a-Lago last summer,” revealed Carlson last month. “That can’t stand. And I agree with Trump on a lot, but even if I disagreed with Trump on a lot, I’d still be a Trump supporter, because you cannot allow that.”

“So I’m voting for Trump, and if they convict him, I will send him the max donations and I will lead protests,” he said.

Despite having supposedly made the decision to do so last year, Carlson had not previously endorsed Trump’s third presidential bid.

Why? The obvious answer is that it wasn’t Trump’s legal troubles that compelled Carlson to hop back onto the Trump Train. It was the skyrocketing poll numbers that have accompanied them and the commentator’s realization that it was in his own interest to ride the wave rather than try to swim against it.

Prior to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump in the spring, it appeared as though Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was gaining on Trump and even besting him in some states. But immediately after the indictment, Republican voters rallied around their former standard bearer in an act of defiance. His standing among them has only been further bolstered by three subsequent indictments.

The lengths to which Carlson is willing to go to demonstrate that he is with the majority on this question was most recently exemplified on Monday, when he blasted DeSantis — with whom he’s previously been friendly — for having supposedly altered his position on the war in Ukraine to satisfy a donor.

“His [DeSantis’s] donor, Ken Griffin, told him to change his view on Ukraine from, ‘It’s a regional conflict we shouldn’t get involved in,’ to, ‘It’s a super important thing, we should send more money,'” asserted Carlson.

There’s essentially no evidence to support that claim. Griffin has not yet decided who to back in the Republican primary, and has slammed DeSantis over his ongoing with Disney, but DeSantis has adamantly stood his ground on that front.  Moreover, there’s little substantive daylight between the view of the conflict DeSantis expressed to Carlson in a written answer earlier this year and the ones he’s offered at the Republican primary debates.

Still, Carlson knows that the man in Mar-a-Lago, a destroyer, is watching.

“He’s not going destroy us,” declared Carlson after laying into Trump behind the scenes on January 6. It sounds like a defiant vow to rise above Trump, but it turned out to be an acquiescent acknowledgment of his own reliance on him.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.