‘No Embarrassment, No Shame’: Charlie Sykes Explains Why He Thinks Tucker Carlson Delights in the New York Times Calling Him Racist
The Bulwark’s Charlie Sykes weighed in Monday on the recent series from the New York Times on Fox News’s top-rated host Tucker Carlson and offered his take on why Carlson seemed to delight in the Times calling him a “racist.”
Sykes noted, both in his newsletter and his podcast, that the Times pulled no punches in calling Carlson the “R-word” – a racist. Sykes quotes one of the three articles published over the weekend, noting, “The Times bluntly declared that the Fox News host ‘has constructed what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news — and also, by some measures, the most successful.’”
“No embarrassment, no shame, no chagrin at being accused of the vilest sort of racist demagoguery,” wrote Sykes of Carlson’s response to the Times article, arguing his response was indicative of a trend on the right.
Sykes argued on his podcast, in a conversation with Will Saletan, “What is really striking about it … he [Carlson] tweeted out a picture of himself with the headline, with him on the front page of the New York Times, with this big shit-eating grin like he is just freaking loving it.”
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 1, 2022
Sykes went on to note “there once was a time when Republicans and conservatives did not like to be called racist, when it was a real stigma and they were worried about it and that shit-eating grin from Tucker Carlson says they just don’t care anymore.”
“Fox News is not going to be embarrassed by all of this, they are just eating it up,” the former conservative radio show host concluded. Justin Wells, Sr. Executive Producer on Tucker Carlson Tonight did address the Times articles in a statement, saying:
“Tucker Carlson programming embraces diversity of thought and presents various points of view in an industry where contrarian thought and the search for truth are often ignored. Stories in Tucker Carlson Tonight broadcasts and Tucker Carlson Originals documentaries undergo a rigorous editorial process. We’re also proud of our ongoing original reporting at a time when most in the media amplify only one point of view.”
Sykes went on to detail what he believes has happened on the right to possibly explain why the “R-word” no longer has any power as an insult.
Sykes wrote:
“There are lot of explanations for what’s happening here, and most of them are not mutually exclusive, but we have to reckon with the fact that for much of the Carlson-esque right, ‘racism’ no longer carries any stigma. They literally no longer give a shit.”
Sykes, in his newsletter, offered a specific explanation for what he believes has happened to the right and quoted from his own 2018 book: How The Right Lost Its Mind.
“Crying wolf had serious consequences for both sides, because over time our audiences shrugged off the charges, responding to accusations of racism with an eye roll and ‘Not this again,’” Sykes wrote, later citing various articles noting how George W Bush and Mitt Romney were regularly being called racists by the left.
“By the time the real thing came along, the Left had used up its rhetorical ammunition, and the Right had become numb to the realities of the bigots around them,” argued Sykes, referring to the rise of Trumpism and the rhetoric espoused in 2015 and the following Trump years. Sykes went on to add that becoming “numb” to the accusation had progressed on the right to it becoming a kind of badge of honor in certain circles.
“But this does not let conservatives off the hook,” Sykes concludes, arguing that conservatives still must hold themselves accountable for not standing up against the rise of white nationalism.
“For years, we ignored the birthers, the racists, the truthers, and other conspiracy theorists who indulged fantasies of Obama’s secret Muslim plot to subvert Christendom, or who peddled tales of Hillary Clinton’s murder victims,” Sykes writes, he concluded:
“We treated them like your obnoxious uncle at Thanksgiving. Rather than confront them, we changed the channel because, after all, they were our friends, whose quirks could be indulged or at least ignored.”
Listen to Monday’s full Bulwark Podcast here
