There is, says Droogan, an implicit violence in the theory, particularly when filtered through an American perspective. The US mainstream media, and Fox in particular, provide platforms for people who use conspiracy terminology, including references to “elites” and “globalists” and nods to the “great reset”, such as those made by Vlaardingerbroek, in a way that rarely happens. broadcast TV in Europe or Australia.
“Terms like ‘race war,’ concepts like accelerationism—going out and creating social crises or exaggerating them to escalate them and creating some kind of purifying, climactic violence against all these threats to white identity—this really comes out of the American psyche and popular culture,” says Droogan.
It is impossible to draw a direct line between the content of tucker carlson tonight and political events inside or outside the US But its place within the information ecosystem means it has been, if nothing else, a passive participant in some surprising coincidences.
In June 2022, Carlson interviewed Jair Bolsonaro, then Brazil’s right-wing president, who spent the months leading up to the country’s October election trying to cast doubt on the validity of the vote.
“During the Interview, [Carlson] spoke the same language as the extreme right in Brazil,” says Bruna Santos, a researcher and activist for Coalizão Direitos na Rede in Brazil. Santos says Carlson’s focus on anti-communism, skepticism about the covid pandemic and concern about “racism against whites” resonated deeply with Brazil’s far-right. “The external approval coming from the US,” says Santos, reinforces and validates the views of the extreme right in the country.
Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Jair Bolsonaro, often showed clips of Carlson’s show on his popular Youtube channel, where he has more than 1 million subscribers, with translations and subtitles in Portuguese. These clips, as well as others from Carlson’s show, would later circulate among far-right groups in the country, appearing on Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups.
In the run-up to the Brazilian elections, Santos says, these groups shared brief snippets of Carlson’s show. “Many of Carlson’s criticisms of [US President Joe] Biden, or what Biden stands for, would be redirected to something that could help Bolsonaro,” says Santos. “And a lot of this comes from YouTube and social media, and that’s usually where the conversation starts.”
Then, on January 8, 2023, Bolsonaro’s supporters attempted to storm the presidential palace in Brasilia, after the right-wing populist lost a runoff election to his left-wing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Bolsonaro is not the only authoritarian that Carlson has promoted. He has been a vocal supporter of Viktor Orbanthe president of Hungary, who has railed against LGBTQ rights and migration, and who routinely accuses American financier and far-right beast noire George Soros of interfering in the country’s politics.
“[Carlson] he’s a celebrity figure in the authoritarian countries that he championed on his show,” says Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a media watchdog group. “He received an enthusiastic reception from Orban, and his coverage of Ukraine was hyped and promoted by Russian propagandists.”
carlson has echoed Russian talking points on Ukraine and criticized the US government for supporting the kyiv government. Several researchers told WIRED that Fox, and Carlson in particular, have been useful tools for Russia, amplifying narratives about the dangers of liberalism and the impending collapse of Western civilization. When the news of his dismissal broke, the Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov offered Carlson a job.
Yesterday, Vlaardingerbroek posted a photo on Twitter of herself with one arm around Carlson. “Tucker is the best of the best in the industry. He tells the truth like no one else does, in a way that no one else can. I stand with him 100%,” she wrote, before retweeting the right-wing conspiracy theorist. mike cernovichwho claimed that Carlson’s firing meant that “evil guys will try to win him over and put him out of history, and start another Armenian-style genocide against all of us.”
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