There is no shortage of flaccid hate peddlers on the internet, and on Elon Musk’s toxic Twitter, Tucker Carlson is now just another one of them.
Make no mistake, Tucker Carlson is an especially malevolent brand, mainstreaming white supremacy-saturated conspiracy theories — but without the platform that Fox News provided him, his power and influence will be significantly diminished. We’ve seen it many times before: from Glenn Beck, to Megyn Kelly, to Bill O’Reilly — they all have alternative shows where they make plenty of money, but none of them matter to the news cycle or the real world anymore. Without Fox News, they’re just impotent, irrelevant hatemongers.
There are two important lessons here. First, Fox News, although diminished at the moment, remains a uniquely destructive force. Accordingly, the top priority is ensuring that cable providers and advertisers don’t help them regain their footing by helping the network profit from a Tucker-less version of the same old hate and lies. Second, be warned, Elon Musk is continuing to double down on making Twitter a supercharged engine of radicalization. Any brands still partnering with Twitter, or using the platform to reach consumers, should be increasingly worried about what they are funding. Put another way, get out now before you become the advertising equivalent of Tucker’s new MyPillow.
