Tucker Carlson, Nazi Apologist
Like his predecessors, he’s paving the way for authoritarianism by mainstreaming fake views of history.
The 3rd edition of Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide is now available both as ebook and paperback. If you prefer audio, get the 2nd edition with yours truly as narrator as, absent a benevolent supporter, the 3rd edition will not appear in audio for the foreseeable future. Cheers!
The past 150 years are littered with statist apologists serving as enablers of authoritarian movements around the world, both of the fascist/Nazi and communist kind. The latest member of this illustrious group is Tucker Carlson. His qualifications? Attempting to legitimize Darryl Cooper, fake historian and Nazi sympathizer/supporter. In a lengthy interview, Tucker takes seriously Cooper’s claim that, in short, Adolf Hitler was a victim of circumstances, and that Winston Churchill was the chief villain of the Second World War.
Normally, I wouldn’t bother with such nonsense. For instance, Tucker’s Putin interview was pathetic, and his visit to and praise for a Russian supermarket laughable, neither worthy of my time. I’d rather spend it making the positive case for thinking morally Right or Wrong, not politically left or right. But his latest exploration into the murky depths of authoritarianism deserves attention. The superficially likeable guy he is, his millions of followers are likely predisposed to accepting his message. And therein lies the danger. He is sanitizing views that used to be—and ought to stay—fringe, and presenting them as worthy of consideration to his audience. He is legitimizing quacks, in this case Cooper, giving them a platform they don’t deserve. Like all subtle apologist propaganda, this has the potential to take root in the form of increased acceptance of authoritarian views—”it doesn’t sound that bad after all,” “being on Tucker, this guy must have a point,” “Tucker wouldn’t have him on if there wasn’t anything to what he’s saying,” etc. And slowly but surely, like the proverbial frog in the warming water, the American public gets desensitized to and even accepting of the message, paving the way for the hands-on authoritarians who want to exploit it politically.
Rather than restating what others have already expressed, I want to recommend a few sources that pick apart Cooper’s arguments and/or expose Tucker’s moral rot. Niall Ferguson’s The Return of Anti-History takes on and refutes all of Cooper’s main claims, and Victor Davis Hanson in The Truth About World War II gives a succinct summary of what really happened (although I wish both had morally condemned Tucker in addition to Cooper). And in Pseudo-Scholars and the Rise of the Barbarian Right, Sohrab Ahmari alerts us to the dangers of views like Cooper’s going mainstream (I have my reservations about Ahmari as explained here, but this is a good article and it appears Ahmari’s views have taken a turn for the better, at least for now). Finally, for a thorough explanation of Tucker Carlson’s culpability and moral sanction of evil ideas, listen to Hitler, Churchill & Moral Sanction with Yaron Brook (the link goes to YouTube but you can find the Yaron Brook Show on most podcast apps near you).
To my readers on the political right who object to my characterization of Tucker Carlson, who perhaps think he’s a brother-in-arms against wokeism, egalitarianism, progressivism, socialism, and communism: remember that embracing authoritarian ideas on the political right to counteract leftist authoritarianism is fighting fire with fire; it will only move us further towards the evil, fascist, end of the morally Right to Wrong spectrum:
The only solution is standing up for individualism, individual rights, limited government and capitalism, and Tucker won’t have any of it.
History will not be kind to Tucker Carlson. Absent a serious course correction, he will forever be branded a Nazi apologizer, or if continuing his destructive trajectory, a sympathizer or outright supporter. But don’t wait passively for history to play itself out. Condemn Tucker for the evil ideas he’s promoting. Do your part by liking and sharing this article and the sources linked above. If not, the damage may be done before the history books are written.
I listened carefully (in the time I could devote) to the Carlson / Cooper interview to judge as independently as possible. Both seem to embrace a kind of collectivism that I would call Nativist or ultra-nationalist. They identify the fundamental human political unit not as the individual citizen but as membership in a group, a "people," e.g., the "British People," borne of some mythical (almost mystical) origin. To them, the many variants of these defining mythical, nationalistic units are equally legitimate, which leads them to equivocate between leaders like Churchill and Hitler. Both are utterly clueless about the integrative force of reason, individual freedom, and capitalism - the ideological triumvirate that obliterates slavery, class warfare, and destructive nationalism. (By the way, theirs is not a unique view of history.) Their popularity says as much about the mental state of their average listener as it does about them. I believe their erudite superficiality will be their downfall. Your concluding remarks are right on: We must stand up for individualism, individual rights, limited government, and capitalism.
Ah yes, so reassuring to learn that there was no genocide, merely logistical issues which led to merciful euthanasia!