If Carlson’s instincts are correct, the GOP primary will focus on three main themes. First, the panic surrounding the existence of transgender people is probably just beginning. I’ve never heard the word “genitalia” as often on a weekday afternoon as I did last week. When Carlson didn’t bring them up, the candidates did. It was a reliable cheer line when interviewees suspected they were losing the crowd. Carlson literally declared the centrality of “child protection” when Hutchinson tried to deflect his affirmative veto to ban care. “I hope we can talk about some issues,” Hutchinson pleaded. “Well,” Carlson replied, “it’s one of the biggest problems in the country.”
Second, in the case of Ukraine, Carlson’s influence is as at first in his seamless insertion of fantasy into what is now sure to be a common theme, a distortion sure to be echoed in town halls and on debate stages to haunt anyone, who has advocated support for Ukraine. You see, the reason anyone thinks Volodymyr Zelensky’s persecution of Christians is “very clear” is because Tucker Carlson said so on his old Fox show when he told his audience that he was citing a government order that said “personal economic and restrictive sanctions will be applied to any Christian caught worshiping in disapproved ways.” Carlson’s liberal embroidery of the order’s actual language (related to relations between the Orthodox churches of Ukraine and Russia) sidesteps the fact that the order does not even use the word ” pilgrimage’. Or “not approved”. Nevertheless, this quote about “every Christian” being punished for “worshiping in unapproved ways” has now entered the realm of skeptics in Ukraine as a given. Tulsi Gabbard even quoted it back to Carlson on his own show, at which point Carlson registered surprise.
The third and final big theme for Carlson: “censorship.” It’s something of a catch-all category, as it includes conspiracy theories about Covid, gossip about Hunter Biden, January 6th, “arming the Justice Department” and, well, the JFK assassination, which Carlson brought up as a confident aside maybe three times. (“They obviously don’t cover a person anymore, do they?” he asked Beck, who agreed.) only three times, you might think, but that’s three times more than I’ve heard it discussed in all the presidential forums I’ve observed.