Far-right Fox News personality Tucker Carlson suffered a dramatic rebuke from voters in the 2022 midterms.
Nikki McCann Ramirez described Carlson as having a "type" in a new report for Rolling Stone magazine.
"He likes hardline nationalists who can cosplay anti-elitism while pretending they didn’t go to an Ivy, or have an heiress mother, or have the richest people in the country funding their campaign," Ramirez reported. "He likes the kind of candidate who blends hateful nativism and a fear of the impending collapse of Western Civilization™, with mockery of blue-haired, cat-owning coastal liberals. Turns out Tucker’s type may not be super electable."
With Republicans pointing fingers at each other over disappointing results, Carlson may be second only to Donald Trump in creating the dynamics that resulted in Republicans doing far worse than expected.
"Carlson enjoys a position as a kingmaker and agenda setter for GOP politics," Ramirez wrote. "Look no further than how he almost single-handedly converted the 'great replacement' conspiracy theory from a white nationalist talking point to a major policy concern for conservatives. If there’s a man besides Donald Trump with the power to catapult local political hopefuls into national political figures — and who wielded that power with unbridled enthusiasm in the lead-up to the election — is it not the man with the most-watched cable news show in the country?"
The report noted that J.D. Vance, who successfully held a GOP-controlled Senate seat in Ohio, was the only candidate Carlson pushed hard who won.
"Blake Masters lost to Mark Kelly in Arizona, where gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is already resorting to claims of election rigging to explain her deficit to Democrat Katie Hobbs. In Washington state, the extremist-affiliated House candidate Joe Kent is on the verge of an unexpected defeat at the hands of Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez," Ramirez reported. "Vance, Kent, and Masters, were among Carlson’s most frequent guests on his flagship Fox News program Tucker Carlson Tonight. According to weekday cable segment data from watchdog group Media Matters, Vance, Kent, and Masters appeared on Carlson’s show 17, 14, and 10 times respectively in the year before the election (11/1/21-11/10/22). Vance and Kent were among the 20 most frequent guests on the show in that time period."
Read the full report.
