Here's how Tucker Carlson, not just Trump, damaged conservatism

[Zorro]

Much has been written about the damage Trump has done to the right; less has been written about how the right had become so damaged as to be ripe for him to take over.

Tucker Carlson has left the building. That in itself was unusual because Carlson hadn’t been in the building most other days over the last couple years. He rarely went into the Washington or New York bureaus, preferring his own private studios in Maine and Florida — comfortable silos from which he broadcast his infectious bunker mentality.

But he wasn’t physically in his bubble on Friday. He was in Washington to give the keynote address at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th Anniversary Gala. Tucker was a fitting choice. His first job in Washington was at Heritage, back when both he, and it, were stalwartly Reaganite. Heritage, which has long boasted of its influence in Washington (it was literally founded to help Congress craft more hawkish defense policies and more free market economic legislation) now fancies itself as little more than a Tucker franchise, a conduit for Carlson’s cable-ready populist rage, and all the “nationalist” policies that go with it.

Heritage’s shift from Reaganism has been described by many as a turn to Trumpism, and it is that, of course. But it was also a turn to Tuckerism.

Indeed, most right-wing institutions that depend on a large customer or donor base have embraced a strategy of monetizing the constant stoking of crisis and paranoia as the new True Faith. If the real-world facts prove inconvenient to the narrative, invent new facts to fit.

And Tucker was the high priest of that faith.

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2023/04/26/heres-how-tucker-carlson-not-just-trump-damaged-conservatism-column/

Hey I know it's Jonah Goldberg, but it's nice to see one rat fighting another rat.

[underpants]

1. I give Jonah credit for including the right's Saul Alinsky tactics

I listen to a lot of RW talk radio and Alinsky was a standard topic before Trump. Hillary Alinsky repeat repeat repeat.

I’ve noticed that they don’t talk about that anymore and they definitely use the same tactics.



An important part of that story is how the right became seduced by Saul Alinsky, the leftist radical, whose politics and tactics were once condemned by conservatives, me included.

But many of my fellow conservatives became convinced the left “always wins” and they do so by using “Alinskyite tactics.” Over time, the condemnations turned to admiration, and then envy, and then, finally, emulation. Some of Alinsky’s rules for radicals include, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it,” and “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”

[murielm99]

2. I listened to a talk by Alinsky when I was in college.

I think I learned a little, but I was too young and inexperienced to appreciate everything I was hearing.