On The Weeknight, Angelo Carusone discusses the “existential vacuum” unfolding as right-wing media alternative reality “unravels”
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From the November 24, 2025, edition of MS NOW's The Weeknight
SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND (CO-HOST): We're entering the days that could be worse than the last days of Nixon, I think is a profound thing to write, and it's also very harrowing. How do you see it and what's percolating in the conservative media ecosystem?
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): So, there isn't a single story that's percolating. That's the tell that it's not going well because usually there's a coherent narrative. There's lots of other things, you know, and at least the story is Trump is great and he's great for all these different reasons and the vibes are good. And they're painting this imaginary picture about what's about to happen. And they're owning the libs, even if it might sting you a little bit, it's worth it because look at the reaction of everybody. That's not the case right now.
What you have is, for example, Tucker Carlson falling into an existential vacuum. He does an interview with Shawn Ryan, a prominent right-wing podcaster, who says, and Shawn Ryan says, "Nothing I voted for happened." And Tucker exasperatingly says, "Well, does it even matter?" I mean, that's one small example. They're all fighting each other. There's a lack of faith. And that's an important part of this because it's their faith in Trump as a character in this story that allows them to backfill and build out this alternative fantasy that perpetuates his political power, that keeps everybody else in line. So, when these things start to unravel, it unravels really, really fast.
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MICHAEL STEELE (CO-HOST): It's one thing to live in a conspiracy world, and there's another thing to come from downstairs, out of the room, or to walk out on the front porch and get in the car and realize, "Oh, I don't have enough gas, or I got to go to grocery store and buy some beef."
SANDERS-TOWNSEND: Beef is up 12%.
STEELE: 12%.
CARUSONE: That's the part that's interesting because they're not attacking Trump yet, right? They're not saying he is the reason this is all happening. They're expressing their frustration in these polls, even in Fox News polls. They say it's his fault. You know, they're mad at him or at least the White House. They're mad at the White House, which, of course is Trump. The tell, though, is that when they do talk about these things, both sides are really, really screwed us here. Both sides have messed this up. This is why I don't have faith in government, right? So you start to go back to old school sort of, you know, anti-government republicanism.
And that's their way of masking or acknowledging the problem because it's no longer they can't build this fantasy. Their guy is out there adorning everything in gold and bragging about it. And that's just such a disconnect. So, they can't carry water for him. They can't tell people it's not happening. It's too real at this point. They can't keep doing the long con because, say, well, three more months, three more months. It's going to be great. That maybe worked at the beginning of the year. It doesn't work now. So, instead you say, boy, aren't you just mad at everybody? Maybe you're trying to dilute the anger so that it's not all directed at Trump. That's the way that it's playing out right now. That could shift to a single target or to Trump himself the more he messes up. But that's the biggest shift in the last 60 days, is that it's everybody's fault.