Tucker’s demon goes after Chabad – and Trump finally disowns him
For those of you who haven’t followed much of the Tucker Carlson story and wonder why I’m paying attention to him at all – and/or who wonder what I’m referring to by “demon” – a little intro is in order.
Tucker’s been around a long time in the news/pundit business, but he didn’t really become a phenomenon till he got his own show at Fox in November 2016. Then he became something of a star in the news commentary world and got a huge following, plus a reputation for fearless hard-hitting truth-telling. Whether or not that reputation was deserved, that was how he was perceived by millions. When Fox fired him in April of 2023 I assume he was angry at them, but also happy because he realized he could use his fame and reputation to launch his own podcast and that it would be popular and lucrative.
And he would no longer be bound by Fox’s constraints. He’d be completely his own man.
I wrote a series of posts about Carlson’s motives and evolution (devolution); you can find them here, here, and here, with more about Carlson here. So I won’t go into all of that again. The point is that, although some of Carlson’s following now is undoubtedly leftists, Islamists, and bots, there are still many people formerly on the right who follow him, and some of them believe what he says. I don’t know the numbers, but his podcasts draw a huge amount of traffic, and he is trading on his former reputation as well as the distrust of so many people towards more conventional sources of information.
Regarding the demon – Tucker himself has said he was attacked by a demon. Make of that what you will.
If you believe in demons, you might think the demon was the ghost of Goebbels, because that’s the sort of thinking Carlson has been channeling lately. His modus operandi is different – the thoughtful furrowed brow and then the maniacal laugh, and the “just asking questions” pose as he gives fawning softball interviews to those who accuse Israelis and Jews of persecuting Christians and being vicious child-killing warmongers, as well as extolling Arab countries such as Qatar and promoting conspiracy theories such as the preposterous idea that Israel assassinated JFK (see this). In contrast, he is very hard on anyone who defends Israel, such as in his recent interview with Mike Huckabee. The contrast is stark.
Now Carlson has gone after Chabad (as has Candace Owens, by the way), a group of Orthodox Jews around the world who basically provide outreach to Jewish students on college campuses, do charity work, and have a presence in many places in order to provide a safe and welcoming atmosphere for Jews. They are peaceful, they don’t proselytize, and they basically stay away from politics:
Carlson claimed that Chabad is orchestrating a religious war aimed at destroying the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem’s Old City so that the Third Temple could be rebuilt in its place.
“This has been going on a long time in public through, in part, the efforts of a group called Chabad. C-H-A-B-A-D,” Carlson said.
Chabad, a sect of Hasidic Judaism known for its global religious outreach and houses on hundreds of college campuses, does not function as a political advocacy organization. Its teachings describe the rebuilding of the Third Temple as part of a future messianic redemption achieved through acts of mitzvot — not a project to be advanced through modern warfare or the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
“To blame it on a Hasidic movement based in Brooklyn that just goes around the world, spreading Judaism, spreading love, spreading kindness, it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Yossi Farro, a member of the Chabad movement known for wrapping tefillin with celebrities, told the Forward in a phone interview. “He’s appealing to people that have never heard of Chabad and now, their first opinion is, this is horrible, these people are warmongers — which is the exact opposite of what we represent.”
The right-wing podcaster Candace Owens amplified the claim, posting to X, “Tucker is telling the truth about the Chabad Lubavitch.”
This group is intensely vulnerable because they are visible and operate – often just a married couple in each venue – all over the world. They have already experienced attacks, such as the terrible one in Bondi Beach, Australia, during a Chanuka celebration. Tucker is trying his hardest to ensure there will be more.
One interesting thing is how Tucker uses the old trick of reversal. What he says about Chabad is untrue, but strangely enough it is true of the mullahs of Iran, who really do want to spark a war in order to bring about the coming of the Mahdi (see this). What Tucker says Israelis do to Muslims and Christians is not true either, but that sort of persecution is what Muslims have done and still do to Jews and Christians.
Meanwhile, Trump has chosen to condemn Tucker outright – and adds the insult that Tucker’s not smart enough to realize how lost he is:
“Tucker has lost his way,” Trump told me. “I knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
And this:
Chabad’s spokesman reponded:
Carlson’s @TuckerCarlson claim about Chabad and the Temple Mount is a slanderous lie. His implication that Chabad is behind the war in Iran is a dangerous blood libel.
Chabad’s focus is on encouraging mitzvos—good deeds—to bring more goodness into the world and hasten the coming of the Messiah, while living responsibly in the present. The Messianic vision is one of peace and harmony for all.
He is also wrong about the Temple patches. They did not come from Chabad. Had he done even basic research, that would be clear. It would also show that many who wear the Temple patches see them as symbols of faith and hope for peace, and a yearning for the day when there will be no more war.
Carlson doesn’t care about truth, so doing research will not change anything. He is putting a target on Chabad’s backs all over the world, a message to leftists, Islamists, white supremacists, and odd assorted lunatics.
Yes, it would be nice to ignore Tucker and the other people spreading these vicious lies. I hope their followers become fewer and fewer. But they do have followers. There are a lot of young people with few anchors and a lot of anger combined with a great deal of distrust of conventional sources of information, and they are ripe for believing the sort of vileness Carlson and his fellow-travelers spew out.
[ADDENDUM: A more detailed description of what Carlson has been doing lately and how truly pernicious it is can be found here (hat tip: commenter “om”). It is long, but excellent.]
“Regarding the demon – Tucker himself has said he was attacked by a demon. Make of that what you will.”
Carlson related, “I had a direct uh experience with it in my bed at night and I got attacked while I was asleep with my wife and four dogs in the bed and mauled physically by a demon or by something unseen that left claw marks on my sides.”
Setting aside the possible relevance of Carlson and his wife sleeping in bed with four(!) dogs…
Given his behavior since he was fired from FOX, perhaps consideration should be given to the demon having successfully invested his body, heart, mind and soul with the “claw marks” being evidence of Carlson’s investiture as one of Satan’s minions.
Neo writes:
“I wrote a series of posts about Carlson’s motives and evolution (devolution);”
I am curious why you are spending so many pixels on him? I decided a long time ago that he is a despicable psychopath so I spend my energy ignoring him. I have mostly succeeded.
I decided to read your article to see if I could find out why I should care about him. I failed. The point of your article seems to be to tut-tut about him.
OK, you don’t like him. So what? By writing about him, you are actually helping him and enriching him.
So this is your blog and you write what you want. As a gentle suggestion, how about writing about ways to help Chabad? Do they have a website where we can contribute to them? Perhaps they can use the funds to arm themselves?
Take this in the spirit it is presented. I will ignore your articles about Carlson, Fuentes, Owens, and Kelly etc. I hope you don’t have too many of them so there is more signal than noise on your blog.
I’m pretty sure the claw marks had something to do with the dogs and I imagine alcohol played a role. I know if I were attacked by demons in my sleep I’d never spend another night in that house again. I’d probably never sleep again period.
I’d certainly not continue to waste my time on a stupid podcast yammering on about silly politics when I was almost killed by a demon.
I don’t know how much Tucker actually believes in what he says or why he is saying it. He doesn’t need the money. He would seem to have the perfect life but there is something very wrong with him. Perhaps he just gets a thrill out of the attention he gets and the influence he wields. JD Vance needs to follow Trump’s lead and distance himself from Tucker ASAP. If he doesn’t, he needs to go. We can’t have a friend of Tucker as the GOP nominee in 2028.
Well, now JD Vance has cover to repudiate Tucker, or will it just be a ghosting of Tucker by JD?
Will Meghan get the message too?
Bob Wilson doesn’t seem to grasp that the principal danger of the Tucker loons and assorted anti-semites is J D Vance’s silence.
Bob Wilson, I think Neo is correct to say that lunatics like Carlson and Owens have followers who just might do something violent to a Chabad house somewhere. Chabad can be found all over the US in small, undefended houses and compounds. I drove past one in Raleigh often, and there’s one in Asheville, not too far from where I live now.
In my opinion, Owens has few, if any, core beliefs and is in it for the clicks and the money. I think Carlson may actually be mentally ill (but that’s no excuse).
I wonder if Tucker’s wife agrees with him.
Or listens. Or worries about his “leanings”.
( I have no idea what she’s like. )
Marlene, if my husband suddenly, unreasonably, began contradicting everything he used to believe so blatantly, I’d be talking to his doctor.
Bob Wilson:
This is called a clue:
https://www.meforum.org/mef-online/tucker-carlson-has-become-tehrans-most-effective-english-language-propagandist
Bob Wilson:
He’s trying to get people killed. He has followers and a big megaphone. He’s spreading Jew-hatred and America-hatred, both. He has influence from his former reputation. If you don’t see the danger there, then you are an ostrich with its head in the sand.
To call what I’m saying “tut-tutting” is to trivialize it.
And wow, you can’t find Chabad’s website on your own?
I am publicizing the danger. I don’t have to add something like “write to your Congressional representatives, J. D. Vance, Christian pastors, whomever” – it should be quite obvious. It is difficult to fight propagandists. I do it by writing, because as a blogger that’s what I do – publicize things.
And it’s a falsehood to say that by calling someone out I am helping him and enriching him. That is absurd. I’m not linking to him or recommending him. He has millions of followers; I have at most a couple of thousand. Anyone who reads what I wrote and thinks “wow, that Tucker guy sounds great!” is already very far gone.
Many years ago, I stopped watching him. I told my Wife that he was antisemitic and an Isolationist, with little real knowledge of how the world works. Some of his guests then were “retired” Military, one in particular an LtC. He too was the same. Retire as Ltc, who did he piss off.
Tucker is a loon, but as Neo says, dangerous. JD better get his act together.
Right now, I think Rubio would be the better choice.
I wish the concerned would call for the denunciation of radical islam as much as they do for the denunciation of Tucker Carlson. I wish there was a purity test for righty politicians that required them to denounce loudly and proudly radical islam. But there won’t be, because that is where the very real danger lies. Charlie Hebdo showed us what happens to people who piss off radical islam. Most people rightly like their heads attached to their bodies, and their blood on the inside.
The largest hotbed of antisemitism is deep in the bosom of the Left, and it is far more dangerous than one Tucker Carlson, and has killed and will continue to kill Jewish people and their supporters all over the world. Does anyone even remember the two from the Israeli embassy who were killed in DC? How soon before Mr. Unknown Motive with the “Body By Allah” t-shirt is forgotten? There’s definitely antisemitism on the rise, and it’s loud and proud, and getting people killed, yet it gets a pass. I suspect the audience of “people who might do something” is *far* larger for radical islam than for tucker, candace, and the fuentes creep combined.
Kate, “If my husband suddenly, unreasonably, began contradicting everything he used to believe so blatantly, I’d be talking to his doctor.”
Absolutely! That’s why I included that I wonder if she agrees with him.
Lab Rat:
I certainly have written time and again about the left and Islamists regarding America-hatred, hatred of the West, Jew-hatred, terrorism, takeover of the academy and of the Democrat Party – just about every topic one can think of, for decades.
So have most other pundits, bloggers, and podcasters on the right, as well as many politicians (maybe not enough, but many – although they get labeled haters and “Islamophobes”).
It’s not as though the territory of radical Islam and the left has not been covered. I have no idea why you think “it gets a pass.”
We fought two wars since 2001 against it, and we are presently fighting an air war against it. That’s a very odd definition of “getting a pass.”
Now several pundits with large audiences, who used to be on the right – or who are supposedly on the right (I don’t think they are or ever were actually on the right, but they tried to appear to be and some of their approving audience probably voted for Trump) – have become cheerleaders for Islamic countries such as Qatar and are very vocal Jew-haters and even America-haters. They are also dangerous. They need to be called out, too.
One of their main goals is to split the right and even take over the right if possible. They appeal in particular to young men on the right who are disillusioned. Charlie Kirk kept their influence in check when he was alive. It’s no accident that they’ve become bolder since his death.
Lab rat, there are some people in Congress trying to put some road blocks on Islam. For example, banning sharia law.
I’m not saying it’s enough, though.
I’d like to stop the building of mosques, start profiling some of them, take away their nonprofit status. …
And clarify that to be a “religion” here, it can’t be based on theocracy, since that conflicts with our Constitution.
Imagine the lawyers feasting on those lawsuits.
We can’t succeed at any of those things, at this time.
But definitely, acknowledging the threat & discussing it is necessary. Educate more people.
This post by Mark Tapscott is relevant:
https://washingtonstand.com/article/media-ignored-gabbards-2025-islamization-warning-but-hill-gopers-are-taking-action
No one expects the ….
purity test (straw man).
Marlene, thank you for that washingtonstand.com link on Islamization.
It sounds like the “take over” is going according to plan, whether it takes 10, 30, or 300 years.
I would mirror Labrat’s call to call out not just Islamization, but Islam, period. If Iranian’s are finding it hard to accept or believe, we might expect other groups to also have mounting doubts. I think it was Douglas Murray who pointed out Muslims often develop doubts when they compare the reduced freedoms and prosperities of Islamic societies to Western ones.
If logic were to prevail, then the results of selected Western scholarship over the last several decades, and especially since maybe 1990, showing how ahistorical the “Islamic history” really is, along with the “con game” of some later period Caliph to establish an Arabic oriented “religion” to compare more favorably with the results of the then current Christian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian religious groups.
This group is intensely vulnerable because they are visible and operate – often just a married couple in each venue – all over the world. They have already experienced attacks, such as the terrible one in Bondi Beach, Australia, during a Chanuka celebration.
Yes, one of the dead in Bondi was a Chabad rabbi. And a Chabad rabbi and his pregnant wife were murdered in the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. The Chabad House there was obviously targeted, as it was not in the immediate vicinity of the primary attacks.
R2L,
Iranians have memories of a history with a vastly better life. Most (?) other muslim countries don’t, so immigrants from those places may be more indoctrinated towards wanting a caliphate. They certainly seem more cult-like and tribal.
“… may have been Douglas Murray who pointed out Muslims often develop doubts when they compare the reduced freedoms and prosperities of Islamic societies to Western ones.”
I’d love to see those doubts happening faster in Muslim immigrants — & to accept and practice our values, rather than behave with anger, hostility, & entitlement.
Sadly, places like the UK, France, etc.,
and here in NYC, Minneapolis, et al, the leaders pander to them and encourage the worst from them.
.
America truly needs to stop bringing in people of such different cultures!
It has failed us, for too many recent decades.
1. There is justified distrust of Jews among MAGA Americans. For almost a century Ameican Jewry has been associated with – and actively promoted – a progressive, socialist worldview that opposes Judeo-Christian values. These progressive Jews have pulled the Democratic party leftward and fostered identity politics that demonize the “whitebread” mainstream. It’s not much of an exagerration to say that MAGA seeks to undo much that liberal American Jews proudly promoted.
From that truth it’s a few short, emotional, confused steps – aided by misinformation and reheated antisemitic tropes – to demonizing this highly visible group.
As i have written here previously, the younger generation – from MAGA to Lefties – does not share the post-WW2 frame of Jewish victimhood/underdog status. For MAGA youth the Jews are part of the Dem Establishment that promoted and benefitted from the DEI schemes, and for Lefties they are colonialists.
In addition JD Vance has a personal connection – Carlson’ s son is on his staff. A denuncuation by Vance will be perceived by some as disloyalty and ‘caving to the Liberal establishment’.
The White House has to keep the political Right together.
This is why Trump – with his Jewish/NewYawk personal connections – is the one seen with Bibi and denouncing Tucker. Vance takes a more libertarian line that appeals to younger more distrustful conservatives.
Vance has never failed to justify America’s alliance with Israel on practical grounds. That’s what the distrustful MAGA voter wants to hear.
2. Orthodox Jews with conservative values are small, recent features of the media image of American Jews. My guess is that practicing, pro-Israel Christians are far more aware of/sympatheic to them than the general population.
But they (ok, we) overwhelmingly share traditional values. When demagogues like Tucker point at Chabad, it’s a giveaway – they are choosing conservative-minded Religious Jews for the optics.
Ironically, Chabad in particular is actually stand-offish about Zionism and doea not support eatablishment of a Jewish State before the Messiah arrives.
Tucker apparently became free to become a lunatic, much like Candace Owens. To become utter fringe wackos, with more fans in Stormfront than mainstream conservatives
Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove
Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup - Freedoms Light Network News
Ironically, Chabad in particular is actually stand-offish about Zionism and doea not support eatablishment of a Jewish State before the Messiah arrives.
While that’s technically correct, in practice Chabad is strongly pro-Israel. Whatever their doctrinal views were about the establishment of the secular state, as it’s a fait accompli, they support Israel because they support Jews wherever they are. As one example, Chabad participates in the Israel Day Parade in NYC every year. They are not at all like the overtly anti-Zionist Satmar chasidim.
I was unclear in the “it gets a pass” in reference to radical islam. I meant in terms of purity tests – that we can’t support Vance unless he denounces so and so crazy person. What I don’t hear is we can’t support so and so unless they denounce so and so crazy radical islam person. Maybe it’s just assumed, maybe it’s just out of fear of being called a hater and a -phobe. Maybe it’s the real fear of having radical islam take your life away.
And how many of these vulnerable disillusioned young men of the “right” are going to fall for Tucker’s babbling and … do what? Start mass slaughtering Jewish people? How many young men – and women! – are radicalized already by islam and have gone out and will continue to go out and mass slaughter Jewish people? Who is taking over college campuses and putting Jewish students in fear? I work at a university, and after october 7 I had to listen to days of From the River to the Sea, yet when TP USA tried to have a student meeting, it was shut down by the university over “security fears”. One group gets to have their antisemitism shouted from the rooftops, while 3 crazies who may never have been on the right, and who definitely aren’t now, say similar things in their personal channels, but how they can compete with the cool kids of islam i don’t know. If these disillusioned young men are in any way misogynistic as well as antisemitic, why not go with the proven strong horse, islam?
I guess what I am trying to say, is if we are worried about what some disillusioned young men might do, what does crazy man carlson have that islam doesn’t? Why would they choose to follow him and not the proven strong horse?
I’m glad to hear that there’s some legislation starting to move on sharia law. I wouldn’t put my faith in lawyers, as the same government places who will sue over a cross or star of David have prayer rooms and wash facilities for islamic use. Because if we don’t prevent it, we will end up like the UK, where a kippah can get you a reprimand by the police and a strong suggestion to leave the area. That’s where we’re headed, and it does not come from crazy man carlson. It comes from the likes of ilhan omar and her ilk in federal, state, and local governments. It comes from a popular president who said that the future does not belong to those who insult the prophet, and who called an act of terrorism and mass killing by a follower of radical islam “workplace violence”. It comes from a popular smiling snake oil salesman who can get elected mayor in NYC just a few decades after 9-11.
I guess because I am in the belly of the beast, where lefty purity tests rule supreme and you never know from which day to the next is the person you’re supposed to denounce, I am cynical of the whole business. If JD Vance is strong on Israel, and by his actions demonstrates it, then to me that’s what counts. I am but one person with one opinion, and I am often wrong.
Lab rat:
Do you understand the concept of “divide and conquer?”
Tucker’s and Meghan’s and Candace’s rants and babbles serve the Democrats, the anti-semites, and the Islamists by peeling off marginally attached voters from normal Americans. If JD or you can’t grasp what that entails consider what Susan Rice plans to do and what the Islamists are doing to NYC.
No one expects The Purity Test.
Lab Rat:
J.D. Vance is subordinate to Trump. Trump is strong on Israel. We don’t know what JD would be like if he were president. I do NOT think he’s an Israel-hating anti-Semite, but I think he’s nothing like as strongly pro-Israel as Trump is. The point is that we really don’t know what he’d do if he were on his own. Denouncing Tucker would be a good start.
You write:
I think it’s quite simple. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. In other words, Islam appeals to Muslims (and there are plenty of them) and to the left. Some of them are hateful and violent enough to kill. Tucker appeals at this point to the left, Muslims, and some disaffected young men who once were on the right, or who at least voted for Trump. Tucker’s reach is different than that of Islam because it affects that latter additional group.
You write:
How many does it take? Do you really think there aren’t at least a few, and even more than a few?
Here’s an example – the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter: who killed 11:
Tucker Carlson reaches a great many more people than people like Jim Quinn. He promotes ideas about Jews that are even more incendiary than the ones motivating Bowers.
The Pittsburgh shooter was also critical of Trump’s pro-Israel/Jew stance.
Someone at X observed that when the technology of the day was cable TV, the potential audience was Americans, and Tucker aimed to connect with an American conservative audience. But with the dominance of the Internet and social media, the potential audience is global…and that different positions are required to connect with those audiences.
@David Foster:that different positions are required to connect with those audiences.
I’d add that talking heads like Carlson are essentially actors. We think we know them, but we really don’t, they are playing a role.
I don’t really follow any of the three we’ve been talking about but I know enough to know they used to play very different roles. I remember Carson in the early days of MSNBC when he had the bowtie, I think he was supposed to be some kind of libertarian. Megyn Kelly was on Fox News but not actually a conservative and got in a very public spat with Trump in 2016 (“blood coming out of her eyes”). Owens was once a bog-standard race hustler. Whatever their core beliefs may have been their public personae have been too different for them over the years to know what they really are or were.
One thing we’ve seen from the Bulwark crowd is that their sole remaining principle seems to be “opposite of Trump”. A month ago when Trump wasn’t bombing Iran they saying he was wrong not to, and now that he is they are saying he is wrong to do so. Public pontificating is just a job for them, and they just need to look sincere in the moment, but they don’t need to actually believe anything they say.
I honestly think these three are monetizing the Q-tard and Alex Jones niche audience, which is why they are taking such bizarre positions. Such people we have ever with us.
I don’t like to attribute stupidity in politics with mental illness but I’m not sure in Tucker’s case. In his latest rant he equates Trump’s call for unconditional surrender as a desire to have American soldiers rape the wives and daughters of Iranians. He says that since we lack the ground forces to achieve this end that we will resort to using nuclear weapons.
Every time I think he has hit rock bottom he manages to go down another level. It’s like he can’t stop himself once he gets going. He seems to be acting on some self-destructive impulse.
What will Tucker say next?
‘The US military will rape the Iranian women with nuclear weapons!’
Don’t ask, Tucker.
Demonic is right. Tucker Carlson has responded to Trump condemning him in about the sane and level headed way you would expect.
https://instapundit.com/781280
That said, one of the things that disturbs me is that while Tucker is particularly evil, his nonsense is not a billion miles away from what is mainstream on the left and peddled by supposedly “respectable” people like we saw from the likes of CNN and Schiff for brains. And that’s terrifying. Carlson needs to be singled out and condemned (and yes that includes by you Vance, you can be reasonably gentle about it by phrasing it in a sort of “I have long considered Tucker my friend but I not only disagree with his claims but am concerned for his mental health-“ but you need to say something), but the left and creeping Jihad are also poisons with if anything even more reach.
@Gregory Harper
Yeah just saw that. Sickening. Perhaps his “logic” is to make up for the deficit of Iranian women being raped by the IRGC as part of the explicit doctrine laid out by their first Supreme Leader?
But seriously, I want any fuckwad claiming to be a feminist but who says a single thing to excuse or whitewash the Mullahcracy to be branded.
Some people question Tucker Carlson’s mental health.
I’m reminded of Joe Rogan’s theory that Chevy Chase’s unpleasantness is due to chronic back pain he acquired from all those comic pratfalls, which were Chase’s trademark in his early days.
Jerry Lewis was known for being difficult too. It’s not well-known but Lewis hurt his back badly in the mid-sixties doing a pratfall. Which led to percodan addiction for 13 years. Chronic pain can be pretty tough. I don’t know if that was a factor in Lewis’s unpleasantness but I’m sure it didn’t help.
Rule of thumb: Never trust any “adult” who giggles…?
(Or should that be, “…who giggles uncontrollably”?)
— Shirehome
It’s too soon to say much about who would be best in 2028. We’re not even to 2026 yet.
Rubio has been one of the big pleasant surprises of Trump II. When Trump first appointed him I was doubtful, because of his past positions. His performance as Secretary of State has been a delightful surprise and mostly a pleasure to watch.
But his past is still there. When Rubio ran for President in 2016, every time he appeared on the TV screen you could imagine the chyron flashing ‘GANG OF EIGHT!’ above his head. That 2013 Gang of Eight immigration bill hung over him and haunted him. Rubio should be desperately grateful to Trump for giving him this change to change the voter perception of him.
But it’s still a long way to 2028 and Rubio has time to solidify things, too.
Jerry Lewis was known for being difficult too.
==
Six of his seven children were disinherited at the time of his death and three of them were banned from his funeral. During their marriage, his 1st wife rigged up an electronic device which warned their sons when his car had passed the gates onto the property. (By his own admission, he was also a chronic adulterer during the early years of that marriage).
I’d add that talking heads like Carlson are essentially actors. We think we know them, but we really don’t, they are playing a role.
==
Some of them. You get that impression with S.E. Cupp. I don’t think George Will’s peregrinations over the years can be explained that way.
The nicotine habit isn’t helping. See also Tucker Carlson’s decline UPDATED.
His sweaty, nicotine-fueled, obsessive behavior suggests that he’s not just hunting for clicks.
Could excessive nicotine use cause serious mental disorders?
Kate:
Yes it can according to Dr. A I Duck Duck who isn’t a quack like Dr. Google, Dr. Chat, or Dr. Grok!
Oops, actually it is Dr. A I Duck II.
So, Tucker’s nicotine pouches, which he advertises and uses heavily, can turn people into Jew- hating Islamist apologists. Good to know.
Kate:
Excessive nicotine may turn
off the crazy/hate filter between the head/heart and the mouth?
Watched Tucker in early days when his gig was to invite a liberal on to the show who would invariably be allowed to talk himself into knots. Kind of amusing.
Lost interest after that.
I follow neo’s point that there are enough losers; mostly young, rootless, unable to cope and thus angry at….someone, looking for…..something. Looking back at history, I think “displacement” is underestimated as a social force.
For example, whites in the South immediately after the Civil War were in a catastrophic situation> A huge number of their young men were dead, another number crippled into social and economic uselessness. The infrastructure was ruined, you couldn’t run the little farm without a man so you sold it to a carpetbagger for enough to get by on for a month. And on and on. You couldn’t be mad at the politicians who got you into this–they were someplace else and presumably doing okay. The generals….the one running the battle where your son was killed was killed three months later.
Where could you put your anger? the freedmen. They’re everywhere and they’re obvious.
The losers to whom neo refers need a target and they aren’t, don’t need to be, rational about who it is. Just so they can personalize their anger and rootlessness.
Okay, that’s Tucker’s result, or one of them. His motives are inconceivable.