Posted on 06/08/2023 5:55:43 AM PDT by logi_cal869
Tucker Carlson — who was booted from Fox News in April — has made a serious pile of cash practicing what I like to call the conventional wisdom of the counterintuitive take. His worldview can be whittled down to this: everything you ever heard is wrong. And I mean everything. (He still believes the English alphabet has 26 letters but give him time.)
Last night, he began the Twitter phase of his lucrative career. Carlson was broadcasting from an undisclosed man cave of a studio — complete with unfinished wood and fishing rods that clashed with his preppy tie and blue blazer attire. It made him look like the country club money man wandering into a meeting of the Secret Society of Maladjusted Lunkheads who all loom right off-camera.
He then provided his rote 10-minute grocery list of Greenwald-meets-Greene grievances. It’s not clear if the speech was preplanned or tied to the news of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River, but Carlson used the catastrophe as his gleeful jumping off point. It was less than 24 hours since the incident and Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy denounced the act as Russian terrorism.
Anyone who has ever watched Tucker knew where this was going. Carlson argued that it was likely — surprise! — a Ukraine terrorist operation. He said the largely held worldview that Zelenskyy was a courageous defender of his homeland was completely incorrect. Instead he is a “sweaty and rat-like comedian turn oligarch, a persecutor of Christians.” Not nice! Notice the drive-by quality of the “persecutor of Christians,” which is a classic Carlson fact-free zone created by, uh, Tucker Carlson.
Carlson’s long-honed strategy is to call bullshit on his enemies — in this case Bill Kristol and Sen. Lindsey Graham — for sculpting the conventional view that the dam explosion was a Putin operation. He then provides his own bullshit report from the upside-down world. His theory for Zelenskyy being responsible is that Putin isn’t dumb enough to do this and you’d know this if you, dear watcher, weren’t bought and brainwashed by corporate media. Carlson offered the Nord Stream pipeline explosion as precedent for Zelenskyy blowing things up. The small problem is it has not been proven that Zelenskyy or Ukraine destroyed Nord Stream.
From there it was the worst cover version of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows.” Everybody knows 9/11 didn’t go down as you believe, everyone knows Oswald didn’t mow down JFK, everyone knows some “skinny dude in a dress is a girl.”
It all built up to a Carlson crescendo. The biggest news of yesterday isn’t climate crisis, transgender wars or Ukraine. No, it is the discovery that the Pentagon has UFO aircraft and the alien bodies of UFO pilots in their possession. “We know in a normal country, this news would qualify as a bombshell the story of the millennium, but in our country, it doesn’t,” said Carlson in his faux sad voice.
Here’s the thing. A mid-level bureaucrat claiming the Pentagon has aircraft and bodies stashed away is a well-versed song by UFO guys for over 30 years. If you have seven hours to kill, I wrote about it in 2020. The thing is the story is always a “heard it from a friend who heard from a friend” account. No one has firsthand evidence and to believe this is to believe that the notoriously leaky Pentagon has been able to keep this a secret for my entire lifetime. Think of it as the “Seinfeld” episode in which Jerry demands Kramer to actually “show me the levels” he could build in his apartment.
Carlson wrapped up by proclaiming our country is filled with well-meaning folks “manipulated by lies, silenced by taboos. It is unhealthy and it’s dehumanizing, and we’re tired of it. As of today, we’ve come to Twitter which we hope will be the shortwave radio under the blankets.”
And that’s Tucker on Twitter’s central problem, well, besides the lies. His act works best when it is accompanied by the graphics and bombast of an actual network news program. Carlson’s followers on Twitter praised Tucker’s return, but some said it was real bummer to have the family gather around the iPhone in order to watch. Demagogues work best on the big screen or in torch-lit stadiums.
Poor Tucker. He was big and then the picture got small.
Enjoy.
What is the author’s audience vs Tuckers?
This is like a flea biting an elephant.
Didn’t Carlson get close to 100 million views? These journalists writing lies about how Carlson is speaking to a “smaller audience” should be heckled mercilessly for their dishonesty.
A really desperate attempt at a smear…
Make the author and variety look very weak.
Critics ought to think about the 100+ million views and why so many people agree with most or all of what Tucker says.
Tucker’s first episode has over 100 million viewers. That’s 100+ million that have never heard of Stephen Rodrick. This clown’s article just feels up wasted space.
https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1666203439146172419?cxt=HHwWhoC8nebMxZ8uAAAA
102.2MM views, as of about 20 minutes ago.
Last I checked the Tucker tweet had 101 million views.
This dweeb, Stephan Rodrick, from Variety has 6746 followers.
EC
From Wikipedia (a source that should be friendly to Variety!): Paid Distribution: 54,000
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!
Tucker got tens of millions of views on his video.
LOL! This is funny.
“writing lies about how Carlson”
You have that right, Tucker had the paddle out and did some down home SPANKING.
He said he was told there were no gate keepers ... and he would find out if that is true.
I think we will see some really great things from him going forward.
Poor Tucker got 75,000,000 views and who is this shlep named roderick?
I did not watch Tucker as I don't twat or twit, but I may have to change my position.
And no one ever heard of Stephen Rodrick until now when he baselessly attacks Tucker, thereby getting a tiny splinter of attention.
Look how much attention his show is getting from the liberal media😂
are stephen rodrick and taylor lorenz a thing?
“Poor Stephen. He was small and then the picture got smaller.”
That was quite the little tantrum there, Mr. Rodrick. Feel better now?
Not even. This is mosquito vs speeding Mac truck.
“Paid Distribution: 54,000”
I bet 95% of the Variety readers are LGBTXYZ.
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