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Of all the new-right populists, alt-righers, groypers, or whatever they are this week, one has risen to the top to status of the leader. The modern Charles Lindbergh if you will – Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Of course, I’ve already talked about how Carlson is from a rich family, is a former libertarian (who even voted for Ron Paul three times and use to be a member of CATO), and how he even once called himself “an out-of-the-closest elitist.” However, that’s not the only thing to mention about this little friend of ours.
Recently, Carlson chose to attack the people over at The Heritage Foundation. This is part of his unending hatred for think tanks because-I don’t know.
Carlson’s claims went like this:
1) The Koch brothers-one of which is dead, by the way-spent “$10 million defending Silicon Valley.” Actually, they spent that money fighting regulation, they have also donated a large amount to fund independent college journalist, but Tucker makes sure to leave that out.
2) The Koch Brothers give money to The Heritage Foundation, as does Google.
3) The Heritage Foundation “defends the special privileges that Congress has given to left-wing Silicon Valley monopolies.” Actually, the paper in question was just anti-regulation. Unless Carlson thinks innocent until proven guilty is a privilege not meant for those with to much money, Heritage is in the right.
4) Carlson says the paper “may have been written by tech lobbyists.” Well, it was written by Diane Katz, a Senior Research Fellow in Regulatory Policy. She has never been registered as a lobbyist, especially for big tech. Carlson is just lying at this point.
Here’s where things get juicy. Carlson mentions in the segment that he is good friends with a few of the people at The Heritage Foundation. Well, according to Heritage “Carlson did not contact us in advance of his segment or provide Heritage with an opportunity to respond to his accusations.”
But don’t worry, good old Tucker is always interested in the spirit of debate. Carlson, after all, was one of the first right-wing commentators to have a supporter of the left-wing terrorist group Antifa on his program.
But that’s not all. This man also found people to defend racist trees, taking the word “God” off of a public bench, and giving college students reparations for slavery in the form of free classes. I’m sure if a man has the time to debate those loonies he’ll certainly find the time to debate a fellow conservative who he considers a friend on his television show.
Oliver Darcy, a reporter for CNN, tells a different story. Darcy has been trying to get the scoop on the Carlson vs. Heritage story, and Heritage has been all to happy to speak.
Here’s what they told Darcy:
“Behind the scenes, members of Heritage have tried to privately reach out to [Tucker] Carlson, the groups’s VP of communications, Rob Bluey, told me on Tuesday. . . But Heritage’s attempts to sit down with Carlson, or even debate Heritage’s stance on Big Tech on his show, fell on deaf ears. ‘There doesn’t appear to be any interest in having a sit-down meeting for a call or having someone on the program,’ Bluey told me.”
Neither Fox News nor Tucker Carlson Tonight have responded to these accusations.
This is when it hit me why Carlson is much more willing to have liberal college kids on his show to argue with compared to a think tank worker. One is simply much easier to debate than the other.
If I had to debate someone on the left, obviously a liberal high school student would be easier than someone like Noam Chomsky. Similarly, if I wanted to debate against someone on the right, a right-wing redneck would be much easier than someone like Milton Friedman.
This is not completely Carlson’s fault, mind you. This is just a tactic of news networks with political bias. Left-wing networks often have a token person with the most-extreme version of the opposite, such as when MSNBC hired Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter. Right-wing networks often have a moderate Democrat who is much closer to the center than they are the left, such as Fox News partnering the late Alan Colmes with Sean Hannity.
Of course, exceptions exist. Bill O’Reilly used to invite former labor sectary Robert Reich onto his Fox News show all the time, despite him being as far-left as you can get. MSNBC has been airing a fairly popular program since 2007 that stars the former moderate Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough. However, these exceptions do not disprove any kind of rule.
As such, it makes sense why someone like Carlson would be unwilling to allow non-populist Republicans and conservatives or libertarians on his program. He doesn’t want something that hard. He would much rather have some communist argue with him while he saves these populist rants for monologues where the only one talking is him.
Here’s how Carlson can prove me wrong: Put up or shut up. Either publicly apologize to Heritage at the start of an episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, or allow a representative to come in and debate Big Tech regulation with you.
You’ve taken on some of the most violent groups known to man kind (at least, according to you). Why then are you so worried about some think tank workers spending ten minutes arguing against you? Why do you not want your viewers exposed to a libertarian way of thinking?
I’ll let the reader figure that one out.
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Ephrom Josine is a libertarian political blogger/commentator, and a frequent contributor to The Liberty Hawk. In 2019, he published his first book Ramblings Of A Mad Man: Life As An Anarchist. You can find him on Twitter @EphromJosine1, writing near-daily on Medium @ephromjosine or weekly on Freedom First Blog.
Editor’s Note: Jonah Goldberg has an affectionate term for the process of picking the worst of your political opposition and holding them up as exemplary of all of them: nut picking. -Justin
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Big Tech has nearly universal access to major media. Advocating their regulation is a courageous stance. Claiming Heritage’s position is simply “anti-regulation” and not defending the “privileges” of Big Tech, to make it seem like Heritage is merely a consistent classical liberal position, is disingenuous. Big Tech avoids a slew of on-the-books regulation by claiming to be public utilities … but only when it suits them. They get the privileges of public utilities without their regulations and the privileges of private enterprise without its regulations.
Tucker is also the most courageous evening talk show host by far, reaching out consistently to the Left to bring on anti-imperialist activists and actual socialists (sometimes it is the only evening show to give half-sympathetic coverage to Bernie Sanders or Tulsi Gabbard).
I would move that the fake anarcho-libertarian author is more offended by nationalists and conservative Christians than by the actual stifling centres of centralised power in this country.