White Nationalists Gleefully Embrace Tucker Carlson
April 15, 2021 8:51 AM Subscribe
White nationalists sure don't think Tucker Carlson's "replacement" segment is about voting rights. Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and popular media personality among young white extremists, responded to Carlson’s Monday night segment by tweeting, “This week Tucker redpilled 4 million people and there is nothing liberals can do about it.” He then listed the white nationalist talking points he believes Carlson got right: “Demographic replacement, ADL, Israel, it’s all there... a full redpill. On primetime Fox News for 4 million mainstream conservatives,” he wrote. “Can you feel it? We are inevitable.”
CW: ugly hate speech, anti-semitism, stupidity
Given Metafilter's recent discussion of Paths to Nazism I thought this warranted its own post and discussion.
Given Metafilter's recent discussion of Paths to Nazism I thought this warranted its own post and discussion.
This pilling thing has to stop. Here's how the creator of the term feels: "After Musk took to Twitter on Sunday to encourage his followers to "take the red pill," in which Trump responded "Taken!," Wachowski criticized the Tesla creator and first daughter: "F— both of you," she wrote.
posted by thoughtful_jester at 9:06 AM on April 15, 2021 [67 favorites]
posted by thoughtful_jester at 9:06 AM on April 15, 2021 [67 favorites]
Super weird how Cancel Culture is somehow unable to stop someone from broadcasting literal Nazi ideology to millions of people every weeknight?? Can we get someone on that
posted by theodolite at 9:30 AM on April 15, 2021 [113 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 9:30 AM on April 15, 2021 [113 favorites]
It's interesting how Fuentes' comment implies that much of Carlson's Fox audience is being fed Nazi talking points on the sly.
Times like these I recall that Jonah Goldberg, who last I looked is still welcomed on NPR as a "serious, honest conservative," wrote a book insisting that fascism is a liberal phenomenon, which to my knowledge he has not recanted. Well, maybe, but it sure looks like Nazis and so-called "conservatives" are the ones in a big hurry to embrace each other's ideology and rhetoric.
posted by Gelatin at 9:38 AM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Times like these I recall that Jonah Goldberg, who last I looked is still welcomed on NPR as a "serious, honest conservative," wrote a book insisting that fascism is a liberal phenomenon, which to my knowledge he has not recanted. Well, maybe, but it sure looks like Nazis and so-called "conservatives" are the ones in a big hurry to embrace each other's ideology and rhetoric.
posted by Gelatin at 9:38 AM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Super weird how Cancel Culture is somehow unable to stop someone from broadcasting literal Nazi ideology to millions of people every weeknight?? Can we get someone on that
Sorry, we’d really like to get around to cancelling billionaires and racist ideology, but we’ve been so busy with Dr Seuss and plastic potato toys.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:38 AM on April 15, 2021 [27 favorites]
Sorry, we’d really like to get around to cancelling billionaires and racist ideology, but we’ve been so busy with Dr Seuss and plastic potato toys.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:38 AM on April 15, 2021 [27 favorites]
Others on the thread pushed back, suggesting that Carlson’s commentary was the perfect gateway drug to turn average Fox News viewers into extremists.
They were already there by dint of being "average Fox News viewers."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:44 AM on April 15, 2021 [26 favorites]
They were already there by dint of being "average Fox News viewers."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:44 AM on April 15, 2021 [26 favorites]
“Dog continues to bite man. Dog’s owner disagrees. Supporters of dog rally online, say that they too would like to bite man. Some supporters go bite man. Who could have foreseen?”
posted by Going To Maine at 9:53 AM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 9:53 AM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
Super weird how Cancel Culture is somehow unable to stop someone from broadcasting literal Nazi ideology to millions of people every weeknight?? Can we get someone on that
People have been applying cancel culture to Tucker and other toxic personalities on Fox for years . There's a reason why no national brand advertises on Tucker, even if they advertise elsewhere on the network. The #1 spending spot during Tucker is fucking MyPillow and Lindell basically has his head so far up Trump's ass he can't see daylight. Cancel culture has already cancelled Tucker as much as they can from a market perspective. The only reason Tucker can't be cancelled at this point is internal politics inside Fox News. They would be facing the revolt of its remaining viewers and the pressure from the right of Newsmax and OAN. Tucker has literally made a prime time segment utterly unprofitable but Fox can't cancel it without risking the rest of the network.
It'd be almost beautiful if Tucker hadn't swung full white supremacist in a prime time slot. He's just inches away from reciting the 14 words on basic cable and I hope the second he does it every cable provider in the country either cancels or refuses to renew their carriage agreements with Fox News.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:55 AM on April 15, 2021 [46 favorites]
People have been applying cancel culture to Tucker and other toxic personalities on Fox for years . There's a reason why no national brand advertises on Tucker, even if they advertise elsewhere on the network. The #1 spending spot during Tucker is fucking MyPillow and Lindell basically has his head so far up Trump's ass he can't see daylight. Cancel culture has already cancelled Tucker as much as they can from a market perspective. The only reason Tucker can't be cancelled at this point is internal politics inside Fox News. They would be facing the revolt of its remaining viewers and the pressure from the right of Newsmax and OAN. Tucker has literally made a prime time segment utterly unprofitable but Fox can't cancel it without risking the rest of the network.
It'd be almost beautiful if Tucker hadn't swung full white supremacist in a prime time slot. He's just inches away from reciting the 14 words on basic cable and I hope the second he does it every cable provider in the country either cancels or refuses to renew their carriage agreements with Fox News.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:55 AM on April 15, 2021 [46 favorites]
I think that saying that Fox “can’t” cancel Carlson is a slight misstatement - it’s true that he’s a loss leader, but I have yet to hear anything about the Murdochs wanting to cancel him but being unwilling to do so. Carlson drives money to the network, and because Fox’s profitability is tied to cable bundles (as you say) that’s money in their pockets. No one’s tweeting to hold anyone else over a barrel here.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:02 AM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 10:02 AM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
Carlson's (and Fox's) Atwater-esque transition to saying the quiet parts loud after decades of being racist but at least trying to be a little bit sneaky about it is probably something more people should have seen coming given the GOP's trajectory from a party that needed the votes of virulent racists to win elections to a party that not only needs those votes, but also needs to cancel out the votes of others. It might seem like an odd stylistic choice that a sentient boat shoe has become Fox's Grand Wizard, but that's easily accounted for by the fact that even the non-hood-wearing contingent of the old GOP guard has always been okay with racism as a tool to protect their financial interests. The only thing that's changed are the electoral conditions that make being obviously identifiable as the party of white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia less of a political liability than failing to get the votes of white supremacists, misogynists, homophobes, and transphobes.
What's been more surprising to me has been the ease with which one can traverse the ideological spectrum to end up at the point where Tucker Carlson speaking at you for an hour each night seems like a good idea. It's almost like the so-called intellectual dark web emerged as a result of a routing optimization algorithm trained to funnel as many leftists and centrists as possible toward reactionary views. Glenn Greenwald as a permanent fixture on Tucker's show is one of the more prominent examples of this, but it seems like the entirety of the Substack extended cinematic universe exists to get people angry in ways that would make them receptive to the kind of messaging that Carlson's White Power News Hour puts out each night.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:12 AM on April 15, 2021 [34 favorites]
What's been more surprising to me has been the ease with which one can traverse the ideological spectrum to end up at the point where Tucker Carlson speaking at you for an hour each night seems like a good idea. It's almost like the so-called intellectual dark web emerged as a result of a routing optimization algorithm trained to funnel as many leftists and centrists as possible toward reactionary views. Glenn Greenwald as a permanent fixture on Tucker's show is one of the more prominent examples of this, but it seems like the entirety of the Substack extended cinematic universe exists to get people angry in ways that would make them receptive to the kind of messaging that Carlson's White Power News Hour puts out each night.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:12 AM on April 15, 2021 [34 favorites]
We've already known that David Duke is cool with Tuck, so . . .
posted by aspersioncast at 10:14 AM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by aspersioncast at 10:14 AM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
it’s true that he’s a loss leader, but I have yet to hear anything about the Murdochs wanting to cancel him but being unwilling to do so.
That's part of the internal political struggle. Lachie Murdoch, Rupert's son and the CEO of Fox News, has Tucker's back. The rest of the network who aren't raging white supremacists who are tired of his segment being a millstone around the neck of the network want him gone.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:17 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
That's part of the internal political struggle. Lachie Murdoch, Rupert's son and the CEO of Fox News, has Tucker's back. The rest of the network who aren't raging white supremacists who are tired of his segment being a millstone around the neck of the network want him gone.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:17 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Can someone explain what the "full redpoll" means in this context. It's obviously completely divorced from the Matrix symbolism and I can't make sense of it.
posted by Mitheral at 10:18 AM on April 15, 2021
posted by Mitheral at 10:18 AM on April 15, 2021
I finally Wikipedia'd the 14 words thing and..... God help us all. These are the people who want to leave me dead in a ditch? I'm trying to come up with some sort of clever statement about the quality of enemies, but.... I've got nothing. Power of fear mongering propoganda.
At least I like cold temperatures so if things get much worse, I can pretend a Nordic county will give me asylum.
posted by Jacen at 10:19 AM on April 15, 2021
At least I like cold temperatures so if things get much worse, I can pretend a Nordic county will give me asylum.
posted by Jacen at 10:19 AM on April 15, 2021
"full redpoll"
The "full" adjective means one has stopped masking any thoughts on racism/sexism/whatever culture war battle and are proudly open about their beliefs despite societal consequences.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:20 AM on April 15, 2021
The "full" adjective means one has stopped masking any thoughts on racism/sexism/whatever culture war battle and are proudly open about their beliefs despite societal consequences.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:20 AM on April 15, 2021
As it is the lynchpin of the whole enterprise - the key (I heard this on the Lawfare podcast (I think)) to short-circuiting the Fox Propaganda machine is to get it disentangled from the bundled cable offering. Without it being 'automatically' offered as part of the cable-bundle of programs, they would lose their viewership because on advertising rev the network doesn't work. So, cable reform - call your reps!
posted by From Bklyn at 10:34 AM on April 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by From Bklyn at 10:34 AM on April 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
Lachie Murdoch, Rupert's son and the CEO of Fox News, has Tucker's back. The rest of the network who aren't raging white supremacists who are tired of his segment being a millstone around the neck of the network want him gone.
Tucker is also Fox's bullwark against the rise of OAN on the even-further right.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:37 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Tucker is also Fox's bullwark against the rise of OAN on the even-further right.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:37 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
The frozen dinner fortune heir's father is a player in the documentary The Lady and the Dale on HBO. Watching it, it's clear that the Carlson men have always been complete garbage.
How anyone can watch (as Today in Tabs recently put it) "Tucker Carlson’s Puzzled Hound Dog Squinting Hour" is a mystery to me. Watching hate speech to stick it to the libs! That'll show me.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:38 AM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
How anyone can watch (as Today in Tabs recently put it) "Tucker Carlson’s Puzzled Hound Dog Squinting Hour" is a mystery to me. Watching hate speech to stick it to the libs! That'll show me.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 10:38 AM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
If he's angry about immigrants diluting the power of American votes, he should be equally angry about Mormons who have fifteen kids
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:43 AM on April 15, 2021
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:43 AM on April 15, 2021
I can't quite parse what you are saying, East Manitoba.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:46 AM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:46 AM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
Can someone explain what the "full red pill"
The red pill, in the Matrix, opens up your eyes to reality (instead of the illusion "they" want you to see.)
The metaphor is obvious and could be in any ideological direction in theory. But in practice it's become a meme among MRAs and white nationalists and so on, who self-identify as having taken the red pill. Everyone else is sheeple.
(I'll add some gratuitous snark by adding that among public "intellectuals," the equivalent is announcing you're part of the Intellectual Dark Web, or on the editorial board of Quillette.)
posted by mark k at 10:47 AM on April 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
The red pill, in the Matrix, opens up your eyes to reality (instead of the illusion "they" want you to see.)
The metaphor is obvious and could be in any ideological direction in theory. But in practice it's become a meme among MRAs and white nationalists and so on, who self-identify as having taken the red pill. Everyone else is sheeple.
(I'll add some gratuitous snark by adding that among public "intellectuals," the equivalent is announcing you're part of the Intellectual Dark Web, or on the editorial board of Quillette.)
posted by mark k at 10:47 AM on April 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
I'm wryly observing that Carlson's claim to only be interested in reducing immigration to secure the relative power of Americans' votes is false, because otherwise he would be protesting about people having large numbers of children, thereby diluting the importance of their neighbors' votes
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:47 AM on April 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:47 AM on April 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
in practice it's become a meme among MRAs and white nationalists and so on, who self-identify as having taken the red pill. Everyone else is sheeple.
It goes with the even more insidious meme of "NPCs", literally denying the humanity of people with whom you disagree politically. Why on earth would we give rights and dignity to a robotic "non-playable character"?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:53 AM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
It goes with the even more insidious meme of "NPCs", literally denying the humanity of people with whom you disagree politically. Why on earth would we give rights and dignity to a robotic "non-playable character"?
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 10:53 AM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
It's not much of an evolutionary step for Carlson, or his audience for that matter. At the same time, it's a boon for Fox, who has been fighting for white nationalist eyeballs with OAN and NewsMax. It's easy to see how this is a win for Carlson and Fox and a loss of the country at large. Whether or not Trump lost they were in it for the long term and they're just getting started.
posted by tommasz at 11:07 AM on April 15, 2021
posted by tommasz at 11:07 AM on April 15, 2021
On top of everything else, the whole red pill thing is so fucking stupid. What a bunch of babies, basing totems of their rational, manly worldview on a film about a cyber wizard and an '80s breakdancing movie.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:16 AM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:16 AM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
posted by chavenet at 11:23 AM on April 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
posted by chavenet at 11:23 AM on April 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
Wow, that cancel culture is definitely rough on conservatives. They sure are cancelled a lot. And by cancelled, I mean that right-wingers get loads of free print space in and airtime on mainstream and neoliberal media, 24/7.
I still don't get the obsession that FOX News-watching neo-Nazis have with Israel. Republicans fairly openly hate Jews, but love their country. Is it the food? The arms deals?
"Demographic replacement" is an interesting term, a fancy, cleaned-up repackaging of ancient Fascist ideology that says these people over here (i.e. whites) are real citizens, and those people over there (everyone else) are not. There's a great essay on the NYRB about how Trump has basically been hard-selling this idea of "counterfeit citizen"-ry as his brand, with one end result being the mob at the front lines of the January 6 riot.
We had a thread here yesterday on Repubs rebranding. Cleaning up the language seems to be part of it, as much as you have the Richard Spencers and Matt Gaetz types putting on a nice suit and combing their hair just so, before going in front of the cameras. If anything, Tucker Carlson and his bowtie collection were maybe a first draft on that idea, so perhaps Tucker is a man ahead of his time, in that special way. (Or maybe William Buckley was the first American neo-Nazi to use the power of modern media?)
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:29 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I still don't get the obsession that FOX News-watching neo-Nazis have with Israel. Republicans fairly openly hate Jews, but love their country. Is it the food? The arms deals?
"Demographic replacement" is an interesting term, a fancy, cleaned-up repackaging of ancient Fascist ideology that says these people over here (i.e. whites) are real citizens, and those people over there (everyone else) are not. There's a great essay on the NYRB about how Trump has basically been hard-selling this idea of "counterfeit citizen"-ry as his brand, with one end result being the mob at the front lines of the January 6 riot.
We had a thread here yesterday on Repubs rebranding. Cleaning up the language seems to be part of it, as much as you have the Richard Spencers and Matt Gaetz types putting on a nice suit and combing their hair just so, before going in front of the cameras. If anything, Tucker Carlson and his bowtie collection were maybe a first draft on that idea, so perhaps Tucker is a man ahead of his time, in that special way. (Or maybe William Buckley was the first American neo-Nazi to use the power of modern media?)
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:29 AM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
If he's angry about immigrants diluting the power of American votes, he should be equally angry about Mormons who have fifteen kids
Mormons outpace every other religion when it comes to fertility rates, by like 30 percent. With the exception of Utah, I don't think their numbers matter. Also, outside of Utah their political profile is more varied.
Previous responses to concerns about growing Mormon electoral influence (combined with some violent skirmishes) led to Missouri Executive Order 44, commonly known as the Mormon Extermination Order. Granted, that was a long time ago and this sort of violence against a group seen as having too much growing political influence could ever happen again in this country.
Pew, demographic profiles of religious groups
I have four brothers who all skew heavily Democrat, and my elderly mother didn't vote for Trump. I have two siblings who have passed away, one from crib death and a sister who died in her thirties from brain cancer. I think she was a democrat.
The LDS church issued a statement on immigration reform in 2018
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long expressed its position that immigration reform should strengthen families and keep them together. The forced separation of children from their parents now occurring at the U.S.-Mexico border is harmful to families, especially to young children. We are deeply troubled by the aggressive and insensitive treatment of these families. While we recognize the right of all nations to enforce their laws and secure their borders, we encourage our national leaders to take swift action to correct this situation and seek for rational, compassionate solutions.”
I believe this was an attempt, in part, to speak to the Utah legislation, many of whom are nutcase-conservative. See Mike Lee.
I'm not trying to argue that Mormons don't have lots of kids and aren't unfortunately conservative, and aren't heavily integrated and privileged, especially in the American west, but some Mormons vote progressively. You are welcome to make blanket claims about members of a religion if you want--I think there's a technical term for this.
Also, I have four kids, two of whom are still Mormon, and they are all progressive.
posted by mecran01 at 11:37 AM on April 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
Mormons outpace every other religion when it comes to fertility rates, by like 30 percent. With the exception of Utah, I don't think their numbers matter. Also, outside of Utah their political profile is more varied.
Previous responses to concerns about growing Mormon electoral influence (combined with some violent skirmishes) led to Missouri Executive Order 44, commonly known as the Mormon Extermination Order. Granted, that was a long time ago and this sort of violence against a group seen as having too much growing political influence could ever happen again in this country.
Pew, demographic profiles of religious groups
I have four brothers who all skew heavily Democrat, and my elderly mother didn't vote for Trump. I have two siblings who have passed away, one from crib death and a sister who died in her thirties from brain cancer. I think she was a democrat.
The LDS church issued a statement on immigration reform in 2018
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has long expressed its position that immigration reform should strengthen families and keep them together. The forced separation of children from their parents now occurring at the U.S.-Mexico border is harmful to families, especially to young children. We are deeply troubled by the aggressive and insensitive treatment of these families. While we recognize the right of all nations to enforce their laws and secure their borders, we encourage our national leaders to take swift action to correct this situation and seek for rational, compassionate solutions.”
I believe this was an attempt, in part, to speak to the Utah legislation, many of whom are nutcase-conservative. See Mike Lee.
I'm not trying to argue that Mormons don't have lots of kids and aren't unfortunately conservative, and aren't heavily integrated and privileged, especially in the American west, but some Mormons vote progressively. You are welcome to make blanket claims about members of a religion if you want--I think there's a technical term for this.
Also, I have four kids, two of whom are still Mormon, and they are all progressive.
posted by mecran01 at 11:37 AM on April 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
I still don't get the obsession that FOX News-watching neo-Nazis have with Israel. Republicans fairly openly hate Jews, but love their country. Is it the food? The arms deals?
Israel is where Jesus was from, and it is where He is scheduled to eventually make His triumphant comeback.
No, seriously.
...And similarly: I suspect that what East Manitoba was saying about Mormons may have something to do with how a great many Protestant Christian denominations regard the Church of Latter-Day Saints to be a cult; therefore, if someone were worried about immigrants "diluting the population", it stands to reason that they would also be concerned about members of these "cults" doing the same. And yet they don't - however, many Mormon families are also white, so therefore there must be something else about immigrants which the Tucker crowd doesn't like, hmmm....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:44 AM on April 15, 2021 [23 favorites]
Israel is where Jesus was from, and it is where He is scheduled to eventually make His triumphant comeback.
No, seriously.
...And similarly: I suspect that what East Manitoba was saying about Mormons may have something to do with how a great many Protestant Christian denominations regard the Church of Latter-Day Saints to be a cult; therefore, if someone were worried about immigrants "diluting the population", it stands to reason that they would also be concerned about members of these "cults" doing the same. And yet they don't - however, many Mormon families are also white, so therefore there must be something else about immigrants which the Tucker crowd doesn't like, hmmm....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:44 AM on April 15, 2021 [23 favorites]
Israel is where Jesus was from, and it is where He is scheduled to eventually make His triumphant comeback.
The unspoken part of this is that Israel will become the Holy Land of Christians and Jews all over the world will be forced to convert or be killed.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:54 AM on April 15, 2021 [17 favorites]
The unspoken part of this is that Israel will become the Holy Land of Christians and Jews all over the world will be forced to convert or be killed.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 11:54 AM on April 15, 2021 [17 favorites]
it stands to reason that they would also be concerned about members of these "cults" doing the same. And yet they don't -
Yes, that makes sense.
posted by mecran01 at 12:00 PM on April 15, 2021
Yes, that makes sense.
posted by mecran01 at 12:00 PM on April 15, 2021
There are mornings I wake and the world seems brighter, lighter, and filled with promise. The sky is bluer, the air cleaner, and I am full-to-bursting with hope and a certainty that things are unquestionably getting better. My first thought on these days is always, "Did Tucker Carlson die in the night?"
posted by dobbs at 12:12 PM on April 15, 2021 [20 favorites]
posted by dobbs at 12:12 PM on April 15, 2021 [20 favorites]
I think everyone here knows that Tucker’s Strasserite bullshit has been a siren song for white nationalists for a while now, but I think the new thing is Lachlan coming out to back him personally and vocally afterwards. His primary advertiser is Mike Lindell who is being hella sued and spreading himself thin. Will they continue to air his program after he’s gone? Will they change their ad buy structure to accommodate the show’s content so advertisers cannot back out of his program? Or will the network decide that what he has to say isn’t actually important enough to lose out on profits for an extended period of time?
posted by Selena777 at 12:23 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 12:23 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Tucker Carlson will expand his content contributions for Fox News Media, agreeing to a new deal to create three video podcasts and some original specials for Fox Nation, the company’s subscription-based video service.
posted by mecran01 at 12:27 PM on April 15, 2021
posted by mecran01 at 12:27 PM on April 15, 2021
I guess that answers that. Tucker's going all-in on being the 21st century's Goebbels.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:41 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 12:41 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
I still don't get the obsession that FOX News-watching neo-Nazis have with Israel. Republicans fairly openly hate Jews, but love their country. Is it the food? The arms deals?
Israel is where Jesus was from, and it is where He is scheduled to eventually make His triumphant comeback.
No, seriously.
And by “make His triumphant comeback”, they mean the apocalypse.
posted by TedW at 12:41 PM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Israel is where Jesus was from, and it is where He is scheduled to eventually make His triumphant comeback.
No, seriously.
And by “make His triumphant comeback”, they mean the apocalypse.
posted by TedW at 12:41 PM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
And by “make His triumphant comeback”, they mean the apocalypse.
Yep. That's it completely. As fervently as white nationalists want a race/civil war, evangelicals fervently want the apocalypse to be unleashed, preferably in their lifetime. To that end, they are huge, huge, huge supporters of Israel continuing as a nation. At least up until Jesus comes back, anyway.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:44 PM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
Yep. That's it completely. As fervently as white nationalists want a race/civil war, evangelicals fervently want the apocalypse to be unleashed, preferably in their lifetime. To that end, they are huge, huge, huge supporters of Israel continuing as a nation. At least up until Jesus comes back, anyway.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:44 PM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
I think Tucker flirted with this shit for years, and then Jon Stewart broke him, and he decided to go all in. I mean, you can argue that he was already headed that way, and I will agree. But still, once Jon called him out he had no choice but to go full Fox. Or rather full Nazi.
posted by valkane at 12:44 PM on April 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by valkane at 12:44 PM on April 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm sorry, but my lack of belief in Jesus (or perhaps in his divine nature) is wrapped up in my disbelief in that particular form of divinity.
That's as may be, but we are discussing what other people happen to believe. And while you may not believe in Jesus as being the Son Of God Who Is Ordained To Bring About The Right-Wing American Dream Of Heaven, there are several people who do believe this, to a point which much of the other things they believe and many of the things they do are influenced by this belief.
In short - someone asked why the right wing nutbags were so pro-Israel, and I answered that question. I'm assuming you ain't a right wing nutbag so we took it as read you don't agree with them about this either.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:31 PM on April 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
That's as may be, but we are discussing what other people happen to believe. And while you may not believe in Jesus as being the Son Of God Who Is Ordained To Bring About The Right-Wing American Dream Of Heaven, there are several people who do believe this, to a point which much of the other things they believe and many of the things they do are influenced by this belief.
In short - someone asked why the right wing nutbags were so pro-Israel, and I answered that question. I'm assuming you ain't a right wing nutbag so we took it as read you don't agree with them about this either.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:31 PM on April 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
This is kind of a digression, but I really don't consider the idea antisemitic. There really isn't evidence of a historical singular person that was Jesus, and there were quite a few people running around the era claiming to be prophets. And I'm not suggesting that people don't find great value in the idea of Jesus - please do, if that's what helps you. I'm not going to judge your religion. And, as one of these atheists you point out, I'm rather fond of many of the the teachings associated to the character of Jesus.
It's just remarkably unlikely that the man referred to in the texts, written hundreds of years after "he" lived, by people who never met or knew him, many of whom wrote for their own purposes, was real. At best, it would be a 300-year game of telephone describing someone.
posted by mrgoat at 1:31 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's just remarkably unlikely that the man referred to in the texts, written hundreds of years after "he" lived, by people who never met or knew him, many of whom wrote for their own purposes, was real. At best, it would be a 300-year game of telephone describing someone.
posted by mrgoat at 1:31 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
There's a lot of mentions of Jesus in Roman historical literature, and little doubt that he existed in human form at any rate.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:41 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:41 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
Whatever your thoughts on the divinity of Jesus, the gospels are thought to have been written in the first century, decades after his death, not hundreds of years afterwards. There are even physical fragments of gospel text from the early 2nd century.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:43 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:43 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
In short - someone asked why the right wing nutbags were so pro-Israel, and I answered that question. I'm assuming you ain't a right wing nutbag so we took it as read you don't agree with them about this either.
It's less that they are pro-Israel and more that they are pro-Israel-being-annihilated-by-its-neighbors. At least among the fundamentalists I used to know, that was considered a precondition for the second coming. The two sides letting loose the nukes is seen as the beginning of the tribulation, which ends in Jesus' return.
Why do you think they were so against the Iran deal?
This also ties into why they were so insistent on Obama being the literal antichrist. I forget the particulars, as it's been a long time since I last read the last dispensation of christ, but the appearance of the antichrist is another precondition to the beginning of the tribulation.
posted by wierdo at 1:44 PM on April 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
It's less that they are pro-Israel and more that they are pro-Israel-being-annihilated-by-its-neighbors. At least among the fundamentalists I used to know, that was considered a precondition for the second coming. The two sides letting loose the nukes is seen as the beginning of the tribulation, which ends in Jesus' return.
Why do you think they were so against the Iran deal?
This also ties into why they were so insistent on Obama being the literal antichrist. I forget the particulars, as it's been a long time since I last read the last dispensation of christ, but the appearance of the antichrist is another precondition to the beginning of the tribulation.
posted by wierdo at 1:44 PM on April 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
then Jon Stewart broke him
As terrible as people like Carlson, Beck, O'Reilly etc. were and are, the media continues to report on people like them and make money off of them, however tangentially, and TDS was no different. Stewart also had hardcore conservatives on his show and gave them fairly soft interviews, as it goes, and his statement that his program followed crank-calling puppets remains as much of a cop-out today, as it was back in 2004. He wanted it both ways, to be critical of the media from the outside, even though reporting on the events and people of the day made his show just as much a part of that business.
In hindsight, TDS was cynical infotainment and toxic in some ways parallel with Crossfire, even if it had a different ideology that I sympathize with. I suspect that the Trump presidency and the culture we have today in 2021 is due at least in some small part to that cynicism about and soft treatment of representatives of right-wing hate in the 90s and 00s. We had some cheap laughs, but Jon Stewart and those of us watching in the audience didn't take the fascists seriously enough.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:52 PM on April 15, 2021 [18 favorites]
As terrible as people like Carlson, Beck, O'Reilly etc. were and are, the media continues to report on people like them and make money off of them, however tangentially, and TDS was no different. Stewart also had hardcore conservatives on his show and gave them fairly soft interviews, as it goes, and his statement that his program followed crank-calling puppets remains as much of a cop-out today, as it was back in 2004. He wanted it both ways, to be critical of the media from the outside, even though reporting on the events and people of the day made his show just as much a part of that business.
In hindsight, TDS was cynical infotainment and toxic in some ways parallel with Crossfire, even if it had a different ideology that I sympathize with. I suspect that the Trump presidency and the culture we have today in 2021 is due at least in some small part to that cynicism about and soft treatment of representatives of right-wing hate in the 90s and 00s. We had some cheap laughs, but Jon Stewart and those of us watching in the audience didn't take the fascists seriously enough.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:52 PM on April 15, 2021 [18 favorites]
> The two sides letting loose the nukes is seen as the beginning of the tribulation, which ends in Jesus' return.
I'm not, like, a Bible expert or anything, but it seems a bit odd to me that Jesus would want billions of people to die in a nuclear war as a condition for his return, but I guess this would be some sort of magical neutron bomb which only kills unbelievers?
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:54 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm not, like, a Bible expert or anything, but it seems a bit odd to me that Jesus would want billions of people to die in a nuclear war as a condition for his return, but I guess this would be some sort of magical neutron bomb which only kills unbelievers?
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:54 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
On top of everything else, the whole red pill thing is so fucking stupid.
my sugar cube just beat the crap out of your red pill
posted by pyramid termite at 1:55 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
my sugar cube just beat the crap out of your red pill
posted by pyramid termite at 1:55 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
As you folks know from time to time I post 'portraits' here of various of various feckless pond scum masquerading as human beings.
A few months ago I tried to do a portrait of Mr Fishsticks hisself, but I could not, because there was literally nothing to draw. Carlson is such a non entity of a gormless hack that I couldn't find anything to latch onto and base the drawing on. It's extremely rare, but it happens.
That is all.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:56 PM on April 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
A few months ago I tried to do a portrait of Mr Fishsticks hisself, but I could not, because there was literally nothing to draw. Carlson is such a non entity of a gormless hack that I couldn't find anything to latch onto and base the drawing on. It's extremely rare, but it happens.
That is all.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 1:56 PM on April 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
Yeah, even the January 6th insurrection has already been reduced to fodder for late-night comedy shows. Whew, wasn't that quite the day! What will that wacky Trump and his followers think of next?
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:59 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 1:59 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
I guess this would be some sort of magical neutron bomb which only kills unbelievers
All the believers get Raptured to Heaven where they can laugh at the burning of all those horrible Hindus and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Catholics and gays and socialists and women's studies majors and BLM protestors and gun control advocates and anti-Trumpists and Hollywood actors and nudists and kneeling NFL players and and people who read Heather Has Two Mommies to their children and
posted by Anonymous at 2:16 PM on April 15, 2021
All the believers get Raptured to Heaven where they can laugh at the burning of all those horrible Hindus and Jews and Muslims and Buddhists and Catholics and gays and socialists and women's studies majors and BLM protestors and gun control advocates and anti-Trumpists and Hollywood actors and nudists and kneeling NFL players and and people who read Heather Has Two Mommies to their children and
posted by Anonymous at 2:16 PM on April 15, 2021
At least among the fundamentalists I used to know, that was considered a precondition for the second coming. The two sides letting loose the nukes is seen as the beginning of the tribulation, which ends in Jesus' return.
That's one version of it, yeah. There are plenty of variations that theologians could probably parse out in detail (off the top of my head the phrase "premillennial dispensationalism" comes to mind, although I couldn't tell you exactly what that entails), but I'm fairly confident that for the average "Jesus brings the apocalypse" believer it's all muddled together with the Christian pop fiction of the Left Behind series and The Late Great Planet Earth and suchlike. (By which I mean for some the nukes are the beginning, for others the middle, for others it's the Antichrist trying to nuke Israel and Jesus stops it, yadda yadda yadda.)
posted by soundguy99 at 2:28 PM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
That's one version of it, yeah. There are plenty of variations that theologians could probably parse out in detail (off the top of my head the phrase "premillennial dispensationalism" comes to mind, although I couldn't tell you exactly what that entails), but I'm fairly confident that for the average "Jesus brings the apocalypse" believer it's all muddled together with the Christian pop fiction of the Left Behind series and The Late Great Planet Earth and suchlike. (By which I mean for some the nukes are the beginning, for others the middle, for others it's the Antichrist trying to nuke Israel and Jesus stops it, yadda yadda yadda.)
posted by soundguy99 at 2:28 PM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
There are a few different schools of thought on when in the sequence of events the believers get raptured. The fundamentalist preppers are hedging their bets on that one. Guess it's better to assume you've got to survive wormwood and the trumpets and the breaking of the seven seals.
I'm actually a bit sad I can't find any reference on the Googles to the book that sparked the widespread acceptance of dispensationalism amongst the fundamentalists. It really was a trip of a read.
posted by wierdo at 2:35 PM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm actually a bit sad I can't find any reference on the Googles to the book that sparked the widespread acceptance of dispensationalism amongst the fundamentalists. It really was a trip of a read.
posted by wierdo at 2:35 PM on April 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
The trick here is not trying to pinpoint when blatant racism entered modern American conservative thought. The trick is trying to pinpoint a time when it wasn't part of American conservative thought.
As I am fond of pointing out, there are plenty of people who can read this comment who were alive on this planet before federal laws began to be passed in America forbidding racial discrimination. Who know people who have been unfairly profiled by employers, by service providers, by neighbors, by police, and others due to race, gender, preference, ethnicity, religion or other Not One Of Us criteria. Who have been profiled on those themselves. Who have had to fight for basic rights of citizenship that others have enjoyed all along. Who are STILL fighting for them, because the other side never stops fighting to prevent that.
Tucker doesn't stand out because he's pushing a radical new message; it's the same old message, and it's the same old bland white face reciting it.
posted by delfin at 3:02 PM on April 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
As I am fond of pointing out, there are plenty of people who can read this comment who were alive on this planet before federal laws began to be passed in America forbidding racial discrimination. Who know people who have been unfairly profiled by employers, by service providers, by neighbors, by police, and others due to race, gender, preference, ethnicity, religion or other Not One Of Us criteria. Who have been profiled on those themselves. Who have had to fight for basic rights of citizenship that others have enjoyed all along. Who are STILL fighting for them, because the other side never stops fighting to prevent that.
Tucker doesn't stand out because he's pushing a radical new message; it's the same old message, and it's the same old bland white face reciting it.
posted by delfin at 3:02 PM on April 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
so-called intellectual dark web emerged as a result of a routing optimization algorithm trained to funnel as many leftists and centrists as possible toward reactionary views. Glenn Greenwald as a permanent fixture on Tucker's show is one of the more prominent examples of this, but it seems like the entirety of the Substack extended cinematic universe exists to get people angry in ways that would make them receptive to the kind of messaging that Carlson's White Power News Hour puts out each night
Greenwald is a useful stooge for right-wing nuts since he's the sort of left-adjacent person whose disgust at the USA's failure to live up to some of its ideals leads to an uncritical defense of the USA's geopolitical enemies (in this case Russia), on the theory that they have been unfairly maligned by propaganda, so Fox get to go "look, here's a 'leftist' who doesn't think Putin helped Trump win in 2016!".
And some fairly prominent "centrists" are a lot more "intellectual dark web"-adjacent than they themselves would probably admit (see for instance Andrew Sullivan, who's still willing to die on the hill of scientific racism, defending Herrnstein and Murray's Bell Curve).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:23 PM on April 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
Greenwald is a useful stooge for right-wing nuts since he's the sort of left-adjacent person whose disgust at the USA's failure to live up to some of its ideals leads to an uncritical defense of the USA's geopolitical enemies (in this case Russia), on the theory that they have been unfairly maligned by propaganda, so Fox get to go "look, here's a 'leftist' who doesn't think Putin helped Trump win in 2016!".
And some fairly prominent "centrists" are a lot more "intellectual dark web"-adjacent than they themselves would probably admit (see for instance Andrew Sullivan, who's still willing to die on the hill of scientific racism, defending Herrnstein and Murray's Bell Curve).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:23 PM on April 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
"I still don't get the obsession that FOX News-watching neo-Nazis have with Israel. Republicans fairly openly hate Jews, but love their country. Is it the food? The arms deals?"
"The unspoken part of this is that Israel will become the Holy Land of Christians and Jews all over the world will be forced to convert or be killed."
Yeah, so, I can provide a brief tour of this line of fundamentalist American Christian nuttery. Background: The first really important thing is NOT understanding how apocalypses (such as Daniel and Revelations, or some non-canonical stuff like Apocalypse of Zerubbabel or Apocalypse of Peter) function as a literary form in the Jewish and then early Christian world from 300 BCE to 150 CE-ish. Hebrew prophetic literature generally does not "predict the future" -- prophets deliver God's message in the now about how their contemporaries SUCK and it's pissing God off. Apocalypses do some of that -- the "prophecies" are NOT about the future. But one of the things apocalypses are starting to contemplate, now that Jews are firmly textual and have a lot of texts to refer to, is that God keeps making promises and bad shit keeps happening anyway and they're living through some of it (the Romans), and why does an omnipotent God keep letting bad shit happen to God's chosen people? Tough question. (How various groups answer this question theologically and interpret these texts is not today's point.) The second really important thing is not understanding, at all, the historical context of the Romans, Jews, and Christians in the first century CE, so any references to then-current events are total gibberish to you.
Now picture yourself as a Biblical literalist round about 1850, which is a trend arising from a bunch of the forces in the Second Great Awakening, including an emphasis on charismatic preachers and hellfire and damnation and being personally saved -- which fits really neatly alongside American individualism and up-by-your-bootstraps stuff (have a personal relationship with Jesus! Save yourself without any preachers or priests needed!) but turns out to be a really pernicious throughline of evangelical thought in the US that fertilizes a lot of really ugly stuff, because "having a personal relationship with Jesus" or a "personal experience of salvation" can excuse, literally, a multitude of sins (like Falwell, Jr. or any of a million other examples). But one of your key, key points in becoming a Biblical literalist is that all these edumacated Harvard preachers and Free Methodists and Quakers up north are preaching the abolition of slavery, and you are VERY AGAINST THAT. So American Biblical literalism is wrapped tight in white supremacy from the beginning. And NOW you're going to attempt to read Revelations literally, without knowing the above about apocalyptic literature or the historical context of Rome, and without any historical tradition of interpretation providing guidance, but WITH a deep conviction in white supremacy and American exceptionalism. (This is really important and helps feed an anti-Muslim strain of American foreign policy in particular, and is also why they lost their goddamned minds about Obama, the political fact of white supremacy in America is baked into the theology from the jump, because its WHOLE POINT was to prevent Black people from gaining political power.)
SO, yeah, "Left Behind" is a fair enough basic pop culture outline to where literalists ended up. Generally, these fundamentalist literalist groups WANT to do anything they can to trigger the apocalypse (itself an idea nutty enough and so wildly foreign to Christian theology -- that humans can "force" God to start the apocalypse by acting a particular way or performing a particular ritual -- that even the SBC gets extremely upset about it (it's almost laughably Papist, really)). Once Jesus comes back, everyone they hate will be punished and they themselves will be wildly rewarded AND God will win the video game or whatever, which will stick it to liberals and unbelievers, so yay! I guess.
Two key ways these groups want to "immanentize the eschaton" that relate to Israel specifically, and to American policy in Israel, are rebuilding the Third Temple, and a land war on the plains of Megiddo (nearish Haifa). When I was in seminary, there was a fundamentalist group in North Carolina dedicated to breeding a wholly red calf without a single white hair for what they believed was the immanent rebuilding of the Temple, after the US drove all the Muslims out of Jerusalem which they would do any second now because of 9/11, so that the red calf could be sacrificed properly to sanctify the Temple, which would like magically FORCE God to go dwell in the Temple and is part of the sequence of events leading to the apocalypse. (PLEASE NOTE that this is based on a) insane readings of Revelation and b) wild misunderstandings of Hebrew Scripture and Judaism generally; it is wrong and nuts by the standards they claim to be going by, and it gets real antisemitic real fast.) The other one is the battle of Armageddon, which might be a little more familiar, which requires Satan to set up his HQ in Israel (Satan's HQ can be, variously, the modern Israeli state, the United States under liberal presidents like Obama or Biden, Palestinians and/or Muslims, groups like ISIS, or other more obscure things, or something yet to come that we don't know about -- this is part of what's confusing, because some of these groups believe the US is Satan and others believe it's God's army, and some change their minds based on who's in office) and then there's a big war in Israel at Megiddo in which God wins and that kicks off the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth but also everyone who doesn't believe what fundamentalist literalists believe going to hell. (Jews are typically given the chance to convert right at the end there when God does the big reveal, buuuuuuut only if they're legitimate blood descendants of Jacob, because, again, very messed up ideas of how Judaism works.)
But this has been deeply influential on a) conservative religious readings of the Bible in the English-speaking world generally and b) American politics, especially as they relate to Israel. These people care a LOT about Israel -- far more than most non-Jewish Americans -- and they carry outsized weight in the GOP foreign policy world (such as it is) as a result. (Especially as the GOP has ceased to be a "big tent" and has become the party of white conservative Christianity, so there aren't all that many voices left in the GOP who care about Israel EXCEPT the apocalypse guys.)
It's also incredibly hella dangerous, because these people don't care if we get involved in a land war in Asia -- that would be good! They don't care if there's a nuclear war with Iran -- that would probably be good too! They definitely don't care about global warming because they think God is ending the world on purpose in order to create heaven on Earth. If they think it's real, they think it's a good thing because it's another way to destroy the world so God can remake it. When people say "death cult," they are NOT WRONG.
But it's also really important to understand partly because it helps give context to other apocalyptic groups. ISIS was absolutely desperate to bait the United States into putting boots on the ground in Syria, and the parts of the US foreign policy establishment that understood ISIS was desperate to avoid it. (While the chicken hawks wanted to shock-and-awe them, because America.) ISIS's apocalyptic theology had a battle similar to the Christian fundamentalist battle at Mediggo, but it was at Dabiq in Syria, and it required Christian nations invading Syria. Which, the second they did, would have "proved" that ISIS's theology was correct, both to their adherents (who would have much more willingly become suicide bombers, it was predicted) AND to sort-of casually-interested borderline-reactionary Muslims who could now be recruited to ISIS with that proof of correctness. ISIS's theology of both apocalypse and of war was wildly different from al-Qaeda's, and attempting to use the al-Qaeda playbook to fight ISIS would have been catastrophic.
These extremist religious fringe beliefs are easy to dismiss because they are pretty obvious lunacy, and why should we spend a lot of time talking about wild-eyed religious fanatics who like to talk about particularly bizarre fictions based on an arguably imaginary being's desires? Well, because people who are overwhelmingly and unreasonably dedicated to JUST THAT ONE THING turn out to have an outsized, sometimes geopolitical-level, impact.
Anyway, to return to the main topic of the post, I met Tucker Carlson once when I was in law school, and he creeped on me, but he was creeping on everyone under 25 in a skirt so I wasn't special or anything. But it was still extremely gross.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:25 PM on April 15, 2021 [98 favorites]
"The unspoken part of this is that Israel will become the Holy Land of Christians and Jews all over the world will be forced to convert or be killed."
Yeah, so, I can provide a brief tour of this line of fundamentalist American Christian nuttery. Background: The first really important thing is NOT understanding how apocalypses (such as Daniel and Revelations, or some non-canonical stuff like Apocalypse of Zerubbabel or Apocalypse of Peter) function as a literary form in the Jewish and then early Christian world from 300 BCE to 150 CE-ish. Hebrew prophetic literature generally does not "predict the future" -- prophets deliver God's message in the now about how their contemporaries SUCK and it's pissing God off. Apocalypses do some of that -- the "prophecies" are NOT about the future. But one of the things apocalypses are starting to contemplate, now that Jews are firmly textual and have a lot of texts to refer to, is that God keeps making promises and bad shit keeps happening anyway and they're living through some of it (the Romans), and why does an omnipotent God keep letting bad shit happen to God's chosen people? Tough question. (How various groups answer this question theologically and interpret these texts is not today's point.) The second really important thing is not understanding, at all, the historical context of the Romans, Jews, and Christians in the first century CE, so any references to then-current events are total gibberish to you.
Now picture yourself as a Biblical literalist round about 1850, which is a trend arising from a bunch of the forces in the Second Great Awakening, including an emphasis on charismatic preachers and hellfire and damnation and being personally saved -- which fits really neatly alongside American individualism and up-by-your-bootstraps stuff (have a personal relationship with Jesus! Save yourself without any preachers or priests needed!) but turns out to be a really pernicious throughline of evangelical thought in the US that fertilizes a lot of really ugly stuff, because "having a personal relationship with Jesus" or a "personal experience of salvation" can excuse, literally, a multitude of sins (like Falwell, Jr. or any of a million other examples). But one of your key, key points in becoming a Biblical literalist is that all these edumacated Harvard preachers and Free Methodists and Quakers up north are preaching the abolition of slavery, and you are VERY AGAINST THAT. So American Biblical literalism is wrapped tight in white supremacy from the beginning. And NOW you're going to attempt to read Revelations literally, without knowing the above about apocalyptic literature or the historical context of Rome, and without any historical tradition of interpretation providing guidance, but WITH a deep conviction in white supremacy and American exceptionalism. (This is really important and helps feed an anti-Muslim strain of American foreign policy in particular, and is also why they lost their goddamned minds about Obama, the political fact of white supremacy in America is baked into the theology from the jump, because its WHOLE POINT was to prevent Black people from gaining political power.)
SO, yeah, "Left Behind" is a fair enough basic pop culture outline to where literalists ended up. Generally, these fundamentalist literalist groups WANT to do anything they can to trigger the apocalypse (itself an idea nutty enough and so wildly foreign to Christian theology -- that humans can "force" God to start the apocalypse by acting a particular way or performing a particular ritual -- that even the SBC gets extremely upset about it (it's almost laughably Papist, really)). Once Jesus comes back, everyone they hate will be punished and they themselves will be wildly rewarded AND God will win the video game or whatever, which will stick it to liberals and unbelievers, so yay! I guess.
Two key ways these groups want to "immanentize the eschaton" that relate to Israel specifically, and to American policy in Israel, are rebuilding the Third Temple, and a land war on the plains of Megiddo (nearish Haifa). When I was in seminary, there was a fundamentalist group in North Carolina dedicated to breeding a wholly red calf without a single white hair for what they believed was the immanent rebuilding of the Temple, after the US drove all the Muslims out of Jerusalem which they would do any second now because of 9/11, so that the red calf could be sacrificed properly to sanctify the Temple, which would like magically FORCE God to go dwell in the Temple and is part of the sequence of events leading to the apocalypse. (PLEASE NOTE that this is based on a) insane readings of Revelation and b) wild misunderstandings of Hebrew Scripture and Judaism generally; it is wrong and nuts by the standards they claim to be going by, and it gets real antisemitic real fast.) The other one is the battle of Armageddon, which might be a little more familiar, which requires Satan to set up his HQ in Israel (Satan's HQ can be, variously, the modern Israeli state, the United States under liberal presidents like Obama or Biden, Palestinians and/or Muslims, groups like ISIS, or other more obscure things, or something yet to come that we don't know about -- this is part of what's confusing, because some of these groups believe the US is Satan and others believe it's God's army, and some change their minds based on who's in office) and then there's a big war in Israel at Megiddo in which God wins and that kicks off the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth but also everyone who doesn't believe what fundamentalist literalists believe going to hell. (Jews are typically given the chance to convert right at the end there when God does the big reveal, buuuuuuut only if they're legitimate blood descendants of Jacob, because, again, very messed up ideas of how Judaism works.)
But this has been deeply influential on a) conservative religious readings of the Bible in the English-speaking world generally and b) American politics, especially as they relate to Israel. These people care a LOT about Israel -- far more than most non-Jewish Americans -- and they carry outsized weight in the GOP foreign policy world (such as it is) as a result. (Especially as the GOP has ceased to be a "big tent" and has become the party of white conservative Christianity, so there aren't all that many voices left in the GOP who care about Israel EXCEPT the apocalypse guys.)
It's also incredibly hella dangerous, because these people don't care if we get involved in a land war in Asia -- that would be good! They don't care if there's a nuclear war with Iran -- that would probably be good too! They definitely don't care about global warming because they think God is ending the world on purpose in order to create heaven on Earth. If they think it's real, they think it's a good thing because it's another way to destroy the world so God can remake it. When people say "death cult," they are NOT WRONG.
But it's also really important to understand partly because it helps give context to other apocalyptic groups. ISIS was absolutely desperate to bait the United States into putting boots on the ground in Syria, and the parts of the US foreign policy establishment that understood ISIS was desperate to avoid it. (While the chicken hawks wanted to shock-and-awe them, because America.) ISIS's apocalyptic theology had a battle similar to the Christian fundamentalist battle at Mediggo, but it was at Dabiq in Syria, and it required Christian nations invading Syria. Which, the second they did, would have "proved" that ISIS's theology was correct, both to their adherents (who would have much more willingly become suicide bombers, it was predicted) AND to sort-of casually-interested borderline-reactionary Muslims who could now be recruited to ISIS with that proof of correctness. ISIS's theology of both apocalypse and of war was wildly different from al-Qaeda's, and attempting to use the al-Qaeda playbook to fight ISIS would have been catastrophic.
These extremist religious fringe beliefs are easy to dismiss because they are pretty obvious lunacy, and why should we spend a lot of time talking about wild-eyed religious fanatics who like to talk about particularly bizarre fictions based on an arguably imaginary being's desires? Well, because people who are overwhelmingly and unreasonably dedicated to JUST THAT ONE THING turn out to have an outsized, sometimes geopolitical-level, impact.
Anyway, to return to the main topic of the post, I met Tucker Carlson once when I was in law school, and he creeped on me, but he was creeping on everyone under 25 in a skirt so I wasn't special or anything. But it was still extremely gross.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:25 PM on April 15, 2021 [98 favorites]
a fundamentalist group in North Carolina dedicated to breeding a wholly red calf without a single white hair
I'm always really excited to see the red heifer come up, because it was a highlight of my otherwise fairly arcane bat mitzvah torah portion, and I'm like at least someone read Chukat even if they didn't really get it
posted by theodolite at 3:36 PM on April 15, 2021 [16 favorites]
I'm always really excited to see the red heifer come up, because it was a highlight of my otherwise fairly arcane bat mitzvah torah portion, and I'm like at least someone read Chukat even if they didn't really get it
posted by theodolite at 3:36 PM on April 15, 2021 [16 favorites]
It's just remarkably unlikely that the man referred to in the texts, written hundreds of years after "he" lived, by people who never met or knew him, many of whom wrote for their own purposes, was real. At best, it would be a 300-year game of telephone describing someone.
You may not think Jesus was a god or the son of a god or the Messiah, but there is ample evidence of a historical Jesus from very close to his life, and from non Christian sources.
The gospels and the letters of Paul were written quite early, and we know they were reasonably stable given our evidence - and in wide circulation by the early 200s. Mark, the earliest gospel, was probably in its near final form by the 60s. And its source, Q, was probably around by the late 30s.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 3:36 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
You may not think Jesus was a god or the son of a god or the Messiah, but there is ample evidence of a historical Jesus from very close to his life, and from non Christian sources.
The gospels and the letters of Paul were written quite early, and we know they were reasonably stable given our evidence - and in wide circulation by the early 200s. Mark, the earliest gospel, was probably in its near final form by the 60s. And its source, Q, was probably around by the late 30s.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 3:36 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
But he wasn't white, so presumably Carlson hasn't figured that out yet
posted by lesbiassparrow at 3:38 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by lesbiassparrow at 3:38 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
the "prophecies" are NOT about the future. [. . .] The second really important thing is not understanding, at all, the historical context of the Romans, Jews, and Christians in the first century CE, so any references to then-current events
Continuing the religious semi-derail, because why not and also fuck Tucker, somewhere I read a piece saying that the Book of Revelation makes a lot more sense viewed not as a prophecy but as an allegory for how Christians were treated by the powers that be during the early years of the church. Possibly written as an allegory so it could be passed around without getting in trouble for distributing seditious Christian lit. Dunno how valid a concept that is, though.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:42 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Continuing the religious semi-derail, because why not and also fuck Tucker, somewhere I read a piece saying that the Book of Revelation makes a lot more sense viewed not as a prophecy but as an allegory for how Christians were treated by the powers that be during the early years of the church. Possibly written as an allegory so it could be passed around without getting in trouble for distributing seditious Christian lit. Dunno how valid a concept that is, though.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:42 PM on April 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Tucker doesn't stand out because he's pushing a radical new message; it's the same old message, and it's the same old bland white face reciting it.
Slave ownership is the original sin of the US, all the very strange contorted rights of small business owners to abuse and kill their workers are callbacks to the good ol' days when you could just own people. Libertarians like Rand Paul have proposed that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery and the minimum wage is one of the reasons why free markets fail.
posted by benzenedream at 4:01 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
Slave ownership is the original sin of the US, all the very strange contorted rights of small business owners to abuse and kill their workers are callbacks to the good ol' days when you could just own people. Libertarians like Rand Paul have proposed that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery and the minimum wage is one of the reasons why free markets fail.
posted by benzenedream at 4:01 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
"I still don't get the obsession that FOX News-watching neo-Nazis have with Israel. Republicans fairly openly hate Jews, but love their country. Is it the food? The arms deals?"
Another completely different angle is that from Israel is a fairly successful ethnostate explicitly based on being a home for the Jewish people, with military prowess and an evident preference for realpolitik over human rights and international law. A weird thing about a lot of white supremacist types is that they kind of admire what they perceive to be ethnic supremacism from other racial groups because while those groups may be the enemy, they at least demonstrate the truth of the white supremacist outlook. You can see this in Breivik's deranged manifesto (where he also admires Israel for being anti-Muslim). Anyway, emotionally it's grudging admiration for how the enemy plays the game.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:08 PM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Another completely different angle is that from Israel is a fairly successful ethnostate explicitly based on being a home for the Jewish people, with military prowess and an evident preference for realpolitik over human rights and international law. A weird thing about a lot of white supremacist types is that they kind of admire what they perceive to be ethnic supremacism from other racial groups because while those groups may be the enemy, they at least demonstrate the truth of the white supremacist outlook. You can see this in Breivik's deranged manifesto (where he also admires Israel for being anti-Muslim). Anyway, emotionally it's grudging admiration for how the enemy plays the game.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 4:08 PM on April 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
These people care a LOT about Israel -- far more than most non-Jewish Americans
And, to be clear, most Jewish Americans. Polling has consistently shown that the state of Israel isn't even a secondary concern for most of us, usually coming in well behind domestic US issues like health care, the economy, equal rights, and so forth. This varies across ages, denominations, and other demographic factors, but for the most part we're far more concerned about what affects our lives as Americans.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 4:29 PM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
And, to be clear, most Jewish Americans. Polling has consistently shown that the state of Israel isn't even a secondary concern for most of us, usually coming in well behind domestic US issues like health care, the economy, equal rights, and so forth. This varies across ages, denominations, and other demographic factors, but for the most part we're far more concerned about what affects our lives as Americans.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 4:29 PM on April 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
...somewhere I read a piece saying that the Book of Revelation makes a lot more sense viewed not as a prophecy but as an allegory for how Christians were treated by the powers that be during the early years of the church...
yeah I did some time at a media distributor in the late 20th-century and one of their many clients shared 'Left Behind'-style screeds, so I had a chance to look at some of their books and videos. They were literally Christians-without-Jesus. They never mentioned Jesus or Gospels. All they cared about was "The RaptureTM" and confirming that they were chosen ones, and feeling superior to sinners. Vaguely conflating the rapture and immanent nuclear war seemed for granted.
I'm not a Biblical scholar but from my understanding the inclusion of Revelations into what we now know as The Bible was a kinda fluke. It has a Babylonian flavour to it.
posted by ovvl at 5:02 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
yeah I did some time at a media distributor in the late 20th-century and one of their many clients shared 'Left Behind'-style screeds, so I had a chance to look at some of their books and videos. They were literally Christians-without-Jesus. They never mentioned Jesus or Gospels. All they cared about was "The RaptureTM" and confirming that they were chosen ones, and feeling superior to sinners. Vaguely conflating the rapture and immanent nuclear war seemed for granted.
I'm not a Biblical scholar but from my understanding the inclusion of Revelations into what we now know as The Bible was a kinda fluke. It has a Babylonian flavour to it.
posted by ovvl at 5:02 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
About Tucker's segment being unprofitable with advertisers, but FOX news backing him anyway... here's a conspiracy theorist take for you:
The Saudi royal family has been the second-highest shareholder in News Corporation [Murdoch’s company]. And apparently Murdoch and the Saudi family are close friends, so that is a potential motive.
From here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/27/climatologist-michael-e-mann-doomism-climate-crisis-interview
Saudi Arabia is a petrostate, like Russia. FOX News pushes far-right views, not ***only*** in a cynical bid to pander to a far-right audience but also to advance the interests of the fossil fuels industry. More generally they use social division to cover up the fact that the Republican party's agenda is at this point broadly unpopular and basically only benefits the wealthy.
See Let Them Eat Tweets: How the RIght Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality.
posted by subdee at 6:23 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
The Saudi royal family has been the second-highest shareholder in News Corporation [Murdoch’s company]. And apparently Murdoch and the Saudi family are close friends, so that is a potential motive.
From here:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/27/climatologist-michael-e-mann-doomism-climate-crisis-interview
Saudi Arabia is a petrostate, like Russia. FOX News pushes far-right views, not ***only*** in a cynical bid to pander to a far-right audience but also to advance the interests of the fossil fuels industry. More generally they use social division to cover up the fact that the Republican party's agenda is at this point broadly unpopular and basically only benefits the wealthy.
See Let Them Eat Tweets: How the RIght Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality.
posted by subdee at 6:23 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
yeah I did some time at a media distributor in the late 20th-century and one of their many clients shared 'Left Behind'-style screeds, so I had a chance to look at some of their books and videos. They were literally Christians-without-Jesus. They never mentioned Jesus or Gospels. All they cared about was "The RaptureTM" and confirming that they were chosen ones, and feeling superior to sinners.
Have told this story before, am telling it again - a while back I knew a guy who was on a track to become a Jesuit priest. One of the assignments for his theology class in Seminary was: he had to write a term paper on a given topic, but he had to use ONLY Scripture to support his point. He chose The Rapture, because the whole thing fascinated him (he didn't believe it, he thought the whole thing was a weird mythological turn fundies took and wanted to know more). But he quickly realized he couldn't use that as his topic - because he found no Scriptural basis (at least in Catholic dogma) for any of the Left-Behind kind of stuff. He found plenty of contemporary books about it, but nothing in the Bible itself or in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas or suchlike.
He reluctantly chose another topic for his paper, but kept up the research into The Rapture as a personal project largely because he wanted to know "well then where the hell DID this all come from then".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:36 PM on April 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
Have told this story before, am telling it again - a while back I knew a guy who was on a track to become a Jesuit priest. One of the assignments for his theology class in Seminary was: he had to write a term paper on a given topic, but he had to use ONLY Scripture to support his point. He chose The Rapture, because the whole thing fascinated him (he didn't believe it, he thought the whole thing was a weird mythological turn fundies took and wanted to know more). But he quickly realized he couldn't use that as his topic - because he found no Scriptural basis (at least in Catholic dogma) for any of the Left-Behind kind of stuff. He found plenty of contemporary books about it, but nothing in the Bible itself or in the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas or suchlike.
He reluctantly chose another topic for his paper, but kept up the research into The Rapture as a personal project largely because he wanted to know "well then where the hell DID this all come from then".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:36 PM on April 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
the red heifer
Well that puts a whole new spin on those unhealthily colored red hot dogs I recall from school hot lunches from my childhood. Good to have additional reasons to dislike those, I guess.
posted by eviemath at 6:57 PM on April 15, 2021
Well that puts a whole new spin on those unhealthily colored red hot dogs I recall from school hot lunches from my childhood. Good to have additional reasons to dislike those, I guess.
posted by eviemath at 6:57 PM on April 15, 2021
Vaguely conflating the rapture and immanent nuclear war seemed for granted.
Those 1960s folks songs about nuclear apocalypse were supposed to be cautionary, not aspirational :(
posted by eviemath at 7:00 PM on April 15, 2021
Those 1960s folks songs about nuclear apocalypse were supposed to be cautionary, not aspirational :(
posted by eviemath at 7:00 PM on April 15, 2021
But he wasn't white, so presumably Carlson hasn't figured that out yet
Nor was he Christian, but that is something resting-baffled-face Carlson probably prefers not to dwell on, if he has ever noticed.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:32 PM on April 15, 2021
Nor was he Christian, but that is something resting-baffled-face Carlson probably prefers not to dwell on, if he has ever noticed.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:32 PM on April 15, 2021
Tucker wrote a profile on my brother-in-law for GQ magazine.
It’s, uh, really something.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:42 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
It’s, uh, really something.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:42 PM on April 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
These extremist religious fringe beliefs
When a set of religious fringe beliefs has a chokehold on one of the two major political parties, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that set of religious fringe beliefs is not at the religious fringe anymore but has in fact become the mainstream.
posted by Soi-hah at 8:30 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
When a set of religious fringe beliefs has a chokehold on one of the two major political parties, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that set of religious fringe beliefs is not at the religious fringe anymore but has in fact become the mainstream.
posted by Soi-hah at 8:30 PM on April 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
Wait... so you're saying Turcker Carlson is a white supremacist? That's a shocker. That hasn't been something people have been aware of for ages now.
posted by brundlefly at 10:28 PM on April 15, 2021
posted by brundlefly at 10:28 PM on April 15, 2021
(I'm not knocking the posting of this link, to be clear. It's been an apparent thing for a while now and it's worth calling out whenever possible.)
posted by brundlefly at 10:34 PM on April 15, 2021
posted by brundlefly at 10:34 PM on April 15, 2021
Exterminate All the Brutes by Raoul Peck examines white supremacy rather effectively.
Tucker Carlson is most definitely a piece of doodoo, in addition to being a white supremacist, and a member of the (burnt) upper crust. Dante's Inferno doesn't contain enough circles of hell to house all of these toxic hypocrites.
posted by nikoniko at 1:21 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Tucker Carlson is most definitely a piece of doodoo, in addition to being a white supremacist, and a member of the (burnt) upper crust. Dante's Inferno doesn't contain enough circles of hell to house all of these toxic hypocrites.
posted by nikoniko at 1:21 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
John Oliver makes a mockery of this particular asshole.
posted by bendy at 3:01 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by bendy at 3:01 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
But he wasn't white, so presumably Carlson hasn't figured that out yet
There were neither white nor non-white people for about 1500 after Jesus died but that is definitely not something that Carlson would understand.
posted by atrazine at 3:03 AM on April 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
There were neither white nor non-white people for about 1500 after Jesus died but that is definitely not something that Carlson would understand.
posted by atrazine at 3:03 AM on April 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm not, like, a Bible expert or anything, but it seems a bit odd to me that Jesus would want billions of people to die in a nuclear war as a condition for his return
But isn't the ultimate question to any deity "if you have infinite power to change things and to heal and forgive, why are so many people suffering?"
posted by bendy at 3:06 AM on April 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
But isn't the ultimate question to any deity "if you have infinite power to change things and to heal and forgive, why are so many people suffering?"
posted by bendy at 3:06 AM on April 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Tucker Carlson has been poisoning my family for years. My parents are spending their retirement watching an angry racist man yell at them from TV.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:32 AM on April 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 6:32 AM on April 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
The trick here is not trying to pinpoint when blatant racism entered modern American conservative thought. The trick is trying to pinpoint a time when it wasn't part of American conservative thought.
[snip]
Tucker doesn't stand out because he's pushing a radical new message; it's the same old message, and it's the same old bland white face reciting it.
But while it is true that Republicans have been courting the white supremacist vote for decades, the openness of their racism truly is new, at least for the last few decades. As Lee Atwater famously confessed, by the '70s overt racism was a vote-loser and so Republicans had to couch their racism in "dog whistles," such as Reagan announcing his Presidential bid in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where civil rights workers were murdered. (Atwater's contemporaneous claim that Reagan didn't use racial dogwhistles was, of course, self-serving hogwash.)
Many have commented that Trump "says the quiet parts loud," and it's important to remember that before Trump, while the Republican Party absolutely was increasingly defining itself as a white nationalist party -- see the post-Romney "post mortem" that suggested the Republicans broaden their racial appeal, which was swiftly ignored -- it generally couched its racism in plausible (okay, implausible, but good enough for the so-called "liberal media") deniability.
Unfortunately, while it may be shocking that Trump could enjoy political success with such open racism, it isn't surprising. But while Republican racism was hardly new, Trump's overt racist appeals changed the trend.
posted by Gelatin at 6:38 AM on April 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
[snip]
Tucker doesn't stand out because he's pushing a radical new message; it's the same old message, and it's the same old bland white face reciting it.
But while it is true that Republicans have been courting the white supremacist vote for decades, the openness of their racism truly is new, at least for the last few decades. As Lee Atwater famously confessed, by the '70s overt racism was a vote-loser and so Republicans had to couch their racism in "dog whistles," such as Reagan announcing his Presidential bid in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where civil rights workers were murdered. (Atwater's contemporaneous claim that Reagan didn't use racial dogwhistles was, of course, self-serving hogwash.)
Many have commented that Trump "says the quiet parts loud," and it's important to remember that before Trump, while the Republican Party absolutely was increasingly defining itself as a white nationalist party -- see the post-Romney "post mortem" that suggested the Republicans broaden their racial appeal, which was swiftly ignored -- it generally couched its racism in plausible (okay, implausible, but good enough for the so-called "liberal media") deniability.
Unfortunately, while it may be shocking that Trump could enjoy political success with such open racism, it isn't surprising. But while Republican racism was hardly new, Trump's overt racist appeals changed the trend.
posted by Gelatin at 6:38 AM on April 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I hope nobody interpreted my remarks as anti-Mormon. I could just have easily said "Catholics" or any population that has a high birth rate. Carlson's claim is that he is trying to protect extant Americans from the vote-diluting effects of there being more Americans, which would be absurd if true, but it is not true because he is not opposed to high birth rates among Americans. He is only opposed to immigration. Because he is racist.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:50 AM on April 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:50 AM on April 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I hope nobody interpreted my remarks as anti-Mormon. I could just have easily said "Catholics" or any population that has a high birth rate.
Nah, I got what you were trying to say. I was "yes, and"-ing the comment, I admit - since I'm pretty sure that the whole thing about some Protestant denominations perceiving Mormons (and Catholics, while we're at it) as not being "real" Christians is subtly mixing in there in Tucker's head as well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Nah, I got what you were trying to say. I was "yes, and"-ing the comment, I admit - since I'm pretty sure that the whole thing about some Protestant denominations perceiving Mormons (and Catholics, while we're at it) as not being "real" Christians is subtly mixing in there in Tucker's head as well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:03 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Some More News' playlist on Tucker Carlson
posted by Sockdown at 8:20 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Sockdown at 8:20 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Carlson's claim is that he is trying to protect extant Americans from the vote-diluting effects of there being more Americans,
Similar ideas are insanely mainstream in the US. It's the exact same as NIMBYs in schools and neighborhoods, just at the national level. That's what sucks. If it was just a few far-right Republicans or even all Republicans, it'd be solvable with voting. It's far more widespread than that..
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:20 AM on April 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
Similar ideas are insanely mainstream in the US. It's the exact same as NIMBYs in schools and neighborhoods, just at the national level. That's what sucks. If it was just a few far-right Republicans or even all Republicans, it'd be solvable with voting. It's far more widespread than that..
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:20 AM on April 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
There were neither white nor non-white people for about 1500 after Jesus died but that is definitely not something that Carlson would understand.
Some more recent work has suggested that some of the discourse around Blackness and sexuality in particular can be dated as far back Late Antique Rome and Christians of the 400s. I don't know enough about this period to talk more about it than it has to do with St. Antony's temptation narrative, and fights between various Christian groupings and regions for power as soon as a Christian emperor sat on the imperial throne.
I guess someone more knowledgeable than me could draw out the implications of that for certain brands of Christianity and why we ended up where we are now, and Tucker Carlson as well. But I don't touch Rome after the Christians except for Cicero's sake, and even then only with great reluctance. It's all bishops and presaintliness saints taking potshots at each other.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 12:02 PM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
Some more recent work has suggested that some of the discourse around Blackness and sexuality in particular can be dated as far back Late Antique Rome and Christians of the 400s. I don't know enough about this period to talk more about it than it has to do with St. Antony's temptation narrative, and fights between various Christian groupings and regions for power as soon as a Christian emperor sat on the imperial throne.
I guess someone more knowledgeable than me could draw out the implications of that for certain brands of Christianity and why we ended up where we are now, and Tucker Carlson as well. But I don't touch Rome after the Christians except for Cicero's sake, and even then only with great reluctance. It's all bishops and presaintliness saints taking potshots at each other.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 12:02 PM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
I still don't get the obsession that FOX News-watching neo-Nazis have with Israel.
Neo–Nazis are obsessed with Israel because they're obsessed with Jews. There may be some antisemites who are ostensibly pro–Israel, but in my experience most frankly prejudiced people will go on at length about how evil Israel is. E.g., David Duke, David Icke, the British Fascists League, the National Front, and, of course, Adolf Hitler. Some open antisemites (e.g., Richard Spencer) purport to support Israel, but it's pretty obvious that this is merely mischievous and/or tactical.
Most antisemites aren't open about their prejudices, though; they may not even recognise it. I have to presume that the brains behind Fox think their viewers generally are pro–Israel, which is interesting. I'm sure it doesn't reflect a genuine love of justice or indigenous people generally, or even an interest in geopolitics and the modern international order. I suppose I'd say that paternalism is one of the modes of prejudice, and that while Jews have occasionally been extremely glad that philosemitism was a thing, it would obviously have been better to have lived in a world where there were neither philosemites nor antisemites.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:08 AM on April 17, 2021 [4 favorites]
Neo–Nazis are obsessed with Israel because they're obsessed with Jews. There may be some antisemites who are ostensibly pro–Israel, but in my experience most frankly prejudiced people will go on at length about how evil Israel is. E.g., David Duke, David Icke, the British Fascists League, the National Front, and, of course, Adolf Hitler. Some open antisemites (e.g., Richard Spencer) purport to support Israel, but it's pretty obvious that this is merely mischievous and/or tactical.
Most antisemites aren't open about their prejudices, though; they may not even recognise it. I have to presume that the brains behind Fox think their viewers generally are pro–Israel, which is interesting. I'm sure it doesn't reflect a genuine love of justice or indigenous people generally, or even an interest in geopolitics and the modern international order. I suppose I'd say that paternalism is one of the modes of prejudice, and that while Jews have occasionally been extremely glad that philosemitism was a thing, it would obviously have been better to have lived in a world where there were neither philosemites nor antisemites.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:08 AM on April 17, 2021 [4 favorites]
I just saw a REALLY interesting video this weekend which may also add a nuance to the "neo-Nazis who are pro-Israel - what's up with that?" debate. It was a debunking of British Israselism from a geneological and archeological perspective; "British Israelism" is something I'd literally never heard of before, and the video explained it as a pseudohistory which teaches that the people who settled in Western Europe and the United States (*cough*onlythewhitepeoplethough*cough*) were the "missing 10 tribes of Israel", and that moreover, Queen Elizabeth II was a descendant of King David by way of an Israeli princess who got smuggled to Ireland a couple millennia ago. The video mostly was about using DNA science and archeological records to disprove all those points.
But - at the very end he addressed "so where did British Israelism come from in the first place" and attributed it to a 19th-century drive to claim that the white race was somehow Ordained By God From The Very Beginning. So every time God talked about His "chosen people" in the Bible? He was talking about us British/European/American folk! It's history and science and stuff! He also adds that he grew up in the Worldwide Church of God, a "cult" (he uses that term) founded by one Herbert Armstrong - whom he notes was from a part of the country "known to be a hotbed of right-wing anti-Semitic groups in his day."
So in short - neo-Nazi groups may be pro-Israel because they are pro-the land itself - because they think they were the chosen people God saved that land for, and they want it back. And if they have to make nice with its current occupants for a little while first, fair enough....they can wait, they know what to do when they have to.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:08 PM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
But - at the very end he addressed "so where did British Israelism come from in the first place" and attributed it to a 19th-century drive to claim that the white race was somehow Ordained By God From The Very Beginning. So every time God talked about His "chosen people" in the Bible? He was talking about us British/European/American folk! It's history and science and stuff! He also adds that he grew up in the Worldwide Church of God, a "cult" (he uses that term) founded by one Herbert Armstrong - whom he notes was from a part of the country "known to be a hotbed of right-wing anti-Semitic groups in his day."
So in short - neo-Nazi groups may be pro-Israel because they are pro-the land itself - because they think they were the chosen people God saved that land for, and they want it back. And if they have to make nice with its current occupants for a little while first, fair enough....they can wait, they know what to do when they have to.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:08 PM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
@HeerJeet: This is almost certainly the Washington Post investigation that Carlson alluded to tonight. Dan White killed Harvey Milk. "The Dan White Society" is exactly the sort of frat boy homophobia one would expect from Carlson.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:30 PM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by tonycpsu at 3:30 PM on April 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have to presume that the brains behind Fox think their viewers generally are pro–Israel, which is interesting. I
The brains behind Fox are telling users what to think, not asking them. If the Republicans and Murdoch are for Israel, then Fox will try to make it so. We may actually be lucky that this is the case, since I think it would be a lot easier for Fox to go full Nazi; racism and antisemitism go hand in hand, and Fox has gone to some pains to separate them.
posted by benzenedream at 6:07 PM on April 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
The brains behind Fox are telling users what to think, not asking them. If the Republicans and Murdoch are for Israel, then Fox will try to make it so. We may actually be lucky that this is the case, since I think it would be a lot easier for Fox to go full Nazi; racism and antisemitism go hand in hand, and Fox has gone to some pains to separate them.
posted by benzenedream at 6:07 PM on April 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Fox isn't consistently pro-Israel. E.g., a few days ago Naomi Wolf appeared, promoting what I regard as an implicit blood libel:
Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf claims Anthony Fauci ‘doesn’t work for us’ and got $1 million from Israel
I would say Fox's actual objective is to reinforce its viewers' allegiance by making them angry and subject to conspiratorial thinking in ways that reflect Fox's programming. Fox will take Israel's side when it's Israel vs. Arabs, because of their viewers' predominant prejudice against Arabs. But Fox isn't locked into that, ideologically - in this case Israel was just name-dropped into a mess of Naomi Wolf word salad and Fox didn't care, because the lever they were using was their viewers' anger at COVID-19 restrictions, not racial prejudice.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:39 PM on April 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
Conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf claims Anthony Fauci ‘doesn’t work for us’ and got $1 million from Israel
I would say Fox's actual objective is to reinforce its viewers' allegiance by making them angry and subject to conspiratorial thinking in ways that reflect Fox's programming. Fox will take Israel's side when it's Israel vs. Arabs, because of their viewers' predominant prejudice against Arabs. But Fox isn't locked into that, ideologically - in this case Israel was just name-dropped into a mess of Naomi Wolf word salad and Fox didn't care, because the lever they were using was their viewers' anger at COVID-19 restrictions, not racial prejudice.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:39 PM on April 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
Fox isn't consistently pro-Israel. E.g., a few days ago Naomi Wolf appeared, promoting what I regard as an implicit blood libel:
That's the thing, though - religious conservatives' "support" for Israel doesn't preclude or prevent anti-semitism. You could say that it's actually fairly anti-semitic in and of itself - they don't actually care about Israel as a viable independent nation, they don't care about the Jews as a people, they only care about Israel as a mechanism or tool for whatever flavor of apocalyptic "Jesus returns and the Christians win" scenario they believe.
So there's no dissonance for them in spitting out "support" for Israel one minute and then turning immediately to "Guess who controls the finances of the world?" paranoid anti-semitic conspiracies or whatever. It's all a story to them - Israel is the location and setting, Jews are unimportant supporting characters at best.
I would say Fox's actual objective is to reinforce its viewers' allegiance by making them angry and subject to conspiratorial thinking
So, I mean, you're entirely right here, but that applies to pretty much ANY topic on Fox, they will never be ideologically consistent on anything because all they're looking to do is push emotional buttons.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:01 AM on April 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
That's the thing, though - religious conservatives' "support" for Israel doesn't preclude or prevent anti-semitism. You could say that it's actually fairly anti-semitic in and of itself - they don't actually care about Israel as a viable independent nation, they don't care about the Jews as a people, they only care about Israel as a mechanism or tool for whatever flavor of apocalyptic "Jesus returns and the Christians win" scenario they believe.
So there's no dissonance for them in spitting out "support" for Israel one minute and then turning immediately to "Guess who controls the finances of the world?" paranoid anti-semitic conspiracies or whatever. It's all a story to them - Israel is the location and setting, Jews are unimportant supporting characters at best.
I would say Fox's actual objective is to reinforce its viewers' allegiance by making them angry and subject to conspiratorial thinking
So, I mean, you're entirely right here, but that applies to pretty much ANY topic on Fox, they will never be ideologically consistent on anything because all they're looking to do is push emotional buttons.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:01 AM on April 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
A recent survey on antisemitism comes very highly recommended by David Schraub, a lawyer and blogger who often talks about prejudice.
The thing that aroused Schraub's attention was the unexpected but very clear association between antisemitism, youth, and conservative ideology: e.g., support for the statement "It is appropriate for opponents of Israel’s policies and actions to boycott Jewish American owned businesses in their communities" was basically constant at around 10% among persons 31+ years old, and liberals and moderates of all ages. Nearly 40% of conservatives younger than 30 agreed with that statement! Conservative college students were also much more likely to be antisemitic than non-students of a similar age; young Blacks were more likely to be antisemitic than young whites; young conservative Latinos were much more likely to be antisemitic.
Antisemitic Attitudes Across the Ideological Spectrum (Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden) [PDF]
Abstract:
The thing that aroused Schraub's attention was the unexpected but very clear association between antisemitism, youth, and conservative ideology: e.g., support for the statement "It is appropriate for opponents of Israel’s policies and actions to boycott Jewish American owned businesses in their communities" was basically constant at around 10% among persons 31+ years old, and liberals and moderates of all ages. Nearly 40% of conservatives younger than 30 agreed with that statement! Conservative college students were also much more likely to be antisemitic than non-students of a similar age; young Blacks were more likely to be antisemitic than young whites; young conservative Latinos were much more likely to be antisemitic.
Antisemitic Attitudes Across the Ideological Spectrum (Eitan Hersh and Laura Royden) [PDF]
Abstract:
Concern about antisemitism in the U.S. has grown following recent rises in deadly assaults, vandalism, and harassment. Public accounts of antisemitism have focused on both the ideological right and left. However, there is little quantitative research evaluating left-wing versus right-wing antisemitism. Building on theories of social identity, racial competition, and affective partisanship, we examine antisemitic attitudes across the ideological spectrum and across demographic cohorts. We conduct several experiments on an original survey of 3,500 U.S. adults, including a large oversample of adults ages 18-30. We find evidence of prejudice on the ideological left and among racial minority groups, but the data clearly show the epicenter of antisemitic attitudes is young adults on the far right. Unlike social identities that are closely aligned with ideology and partisanship, Jewish identity remains an outgroup to Americans across typical political divides, resulting in diverse forms of prejudice.posted by Joe in Australia at 6:09 PM on April 22, 2021 [3 favorites]
In hindsight, TDS was cynical infotainment and toxic in some ways parallel with Crossfire, even if it had a different ideology that I sympathize with. I suspect that the Trump presidency and the culture we have today in 2021 is due at least in some small part to that cynicism about and soft treatment of representatives of right-wing hate in the 90s and 00s. We had some cheap laughs, but Jon Stewart and those of us watching in the audience didn't take the fascists seriously enough.
I still haven't forgotten the sheer, unconcealed giddiness with which Stewart greeted Trump's campaign announcement in '15. In its own way, it's right down there with Les Moonves' "but it's damn good for CBS".
posted by non canadian guy at 11:52 PM on April 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I still haven't forgotten the sheer, unconcealed giddiness with which Stewart greeted Trump's campaign announcement in '15. In its own way, it's right down there with Les Moonves' "but it's damn good for CBS".
posted by non canadian guy at 11:52 PM on April 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Carlson doesn’t object to the state harassing people or exercising undue power. He delights in it, as long as the state is harassing the people he hates. The cruelty, as my colleague Adam Serwer has said, is the point. This is the lodestar of the Trump and post-Trump GOP, which values owning the libs above all—not merely rhetorically, but with the fist of government. Thus Trump asserted that he had the authority to override state and local coronavirus shutdowns (before hastily backtracking when it became clear that he had no such power). He sought to involve the federal government in decisions of colleges and universities in order to muzzle speech. And he celebrated police violence, even as he moaned that he was the victim of overzealous law enforcement.
Tucker Carlson, Unmasked
posted by mecran01 at 11:10 AM on April 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
Tucker Carlson, Unmasked
posted by mecran01 at 11:10 AM on April 28, 2021 [3 favorites]
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