Tucker Carlson is Incomprehensible to Outsiders

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has a vast audience that comes to him for information even though his reporting often takes the form of raising questions and then not answering them. I went into this planning to jump on the bandwagon of mocking his “Just asking questions” routine. But then I read the opinion piece 'Let's go Brandon' chants are demonstrations of pro-Biden unity. And I was really struck by something: I didn’t understand what he was talking about or what point he was trying to make.

First of all I had to look up “Let’s go Brandon” which was apparently originally a misinterpretation of a crowd chanting “Fuck Joe Biden” that has now become a way for MAGA crowds to chant against the president while avoiding censorship. This is never explained in Tucker’s article.

Carlson opens by saying that if you’ve been watching his show, then you know that you can’t trust your senses and your eyes will lie to you. Which I mean, yeah. If you are watching Carlson’s show, you are seeing lies.

Carlson goes on to say that it would seem obvious that Southwest Airlines cancellations of flights was due to Biden’s vaccine mandate, something officials from Southwest have denied, on Fox News itself. However, Carlson goes on to explain “that's just what the Kremlin wants you to think. In fact, as the authorities assured us all along, it was only the weather. Nothing more than a few clouds calm down America. That Southwest Airlines story is as fake as Hunter Biden's laptop.”

It’s pretty unclear what Carlson is trying to get across here. He’s been pushing the idea that vaccine mandates are horrible and have directly led to the trouble at Southwest Airlines. But then he says that idea is actually Russian misinformation. Then he throws in Hunter Biden’s laptop--which I understand to be a nefarious MacGuffin for conservatives, but for reasons that are unknown to me. It seems that Carlson is trying to be sarcastic, but sarcastic about what?

The whole article goes on this way. Carlson refers to the anti-Biden chants as chants of love for Biden. Carlson describes people at sporting events as “...overcome with the desire, the pressing, irresistible need to tell Joe Biden how great he is. It's like having to go to the bathroom real bad, except better and more progressive.” What are you talking about Tucker? Are you trying to tell us that you think about Joe Biden while you’re in the bathroom?

Carlson goes on with a passage that is very hard to unpack in part because the grammar is so bad:

It doesn't matter what team you showed up to root for in your heart, you are a Joe Biden fan. And that is national unity. Now, not everyone is for this, of course. To Vladimir Putin, who hates us for our freedoms, but also because he's Russian. This is a threat loving Biden is a thing of beauty. So by definition, Vladimir Putin must destroy it.

Carlson, Carlson, Carlson. This is a threat loving Biden is a thing of beauty??? I feel like maybe there’s a Russian sleeper agent on your staff, because that does not feel like it was written by a native speaker. And what is your actual stance on Putin? Cause my viewpoint leans towards “hostile foreign dictator” but you seem to be mocking that point of view? Do you like Putin? It’s all so unclear.

In a passing remark Carlson says that any doubts about the last election are now illegal, which is not a thing.

Tucker goes on to create a character, Brandon, that the chants are about.

In fact, Brandon is a newly arrived American part of what we call the Biden generation. He's an undocumented trans Haitian migrant now enrolled thanks to a Pell Grant as a film studies major at NYU, as well as a part-time non-binary rights activist and puppeteer. Brandon is the embodiment of the new American dream, where everything's free, but everyone is still angry.

I guess Carlson is trying to create the profile of the most ridiculous person possible but again, it doesn’t really make sense. No effort is put forward in trying to explain why this Brandon character is ridiculous, he just has a lot of traits Fox News viewers find triggering. But hey that’s cool about everything being free now. I guess I can tear up this $225.09 bill for routine blood work. What’s that? I still have to pay it? Hun. Weird.

Another passage:

Vladimir Putin is making up stories about our hospitals here in the United States. Putin claims that our health care system is collapsing because of Joe Biden's vaccine mandates, and that's preposterous. And yet somehow, those crafty and relentless Kremlin propagandists have managed to get that story onto American television.

Which does Carlson want us to believe? That health care is collapsing because of vaccine mandates or that idea is Russian propaganda? What do you want, Carlson?

In case you're wondering, our healthcare system is under huge strain-- BECAUSE OF THE DEADLY AND HIGHLY INFECTIOUS NOVEL CORONAVIRUS. Carlson knows this and he is definitely vaccinated. Yet he has chosen to lead his followers into the desert. Not through the desert, just into the desert.

And if anyone points out an oasis, he’ll respond “No, that’s just Russian propaganda.”