""[Carlson] recognized that a nativist candidate running on white grievance actually might do pretty well in a Republican primary," New Yorker writer Jason Zengerle says. "His star rose at Fox because he kind of had the foresight to see Trump coming." In his new book, Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind, Zengerle traces Carlson's ascendency, and explains how he became one of the most influential people on the far right."
""Since leaving Fox, he doesn't have a built-in audience anymore and he has to navigate the attention economy. And in order to get people to listen to his podcast, I think he has kind of embraced more outrageous views," Zengerle says. "He's saying things before in a more explicit fashion, whereas in the past he tried to modulate his rhetoric a little bit.""
Tucker Carlson anticipated and amplified nativist, white-grievance politics, which helped his early association with Donald Trump's 2015 candidacy and raised his profile at Fox. He moved from conservative print media to television, worked at CNN and MSNBC before joining Fox, and became a leading figure on the far right with a significant advisory relationship to Trump. After being abruptly fired from Fox in 2023, he launched a streaming show on X and promoted far-right fringe views, including the "great replacement" conspiracy. Since leaving Fox he lacks a built-in audience and has shifted toward more explicit, attention-seeking rhetoric. His career shows a throughline of seeking fame, fortune, and power.
Read at www.npr.org
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