A few weeks ago, I had the great honor of sitting down with Tucker Carlson for an hour-long interview. As of his departure from Fox News this past Monday, the interview had not yet aired on his Fox Nation show “Tucker Carlson Today.” It will probably never see the light of day.
This pains me not only personally, but because I believe our discussion was critical to helping more people grasp the human dynamics that lead to the mass misery, loneliness, and dystopian policies we see all around us today. More people must understand that destructive agendas depend upon the human impulse to self-censor. When we shut up or lie about what we believe in hopes of “fitting in,” we give abundant oxygen to tyrannical agendas.
But with the exit of Carlson, Fox News is a huge step closer to declaring that it’s completely on board with the media monopoly’s efforts to create the illusion of unanimity of thought. Such illusions are meant to tease out the conformity impulse by making us feel all alone in our views, and, therefore, less likely to express them.
This is the essence of my book, “The Weaponization of Loneliness: How Tyrants Stoke Our Fear of Isolation to Silence, Divide, and Conquer.” How ironic that my conversation with Carlson — about the very ability of human beings to have conversations in this era of censorship — has been silenced in the wake of his silencing on Fox. And yet it’s entirely in line with my thesis about social isolation as a political weapon. The goal is to cut us off from information and, ultimately, to cut us off from one another until we are completely atomized and socially controlled.
Oasis of Truth in a Desert of Lies
Any objective person can see that Carlson’s boldness and passion for the truth is a refreshing oasis in the vast desert of lies produced in lockstep by the propaganda media. Even if he wasn’t always correct, he thought for himself and spoke up. What a great tonic for our times. I believe that’s the ultimate reason he was let go.
Voices like Carlson’s cause the anti-thought brigades in politics and the corporate world to go bat-guano all over the place. If they now feel they’ve picked off a big prize with Carlson’s exit from Fox, they also feel freer to splatter the American landscape with more of their insanity and hatred and mediocrity.
Truth-telling has never gone over well with tyrants and petty rulers. We saw how Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., went nuts over the prospect of Carlson providing Americans with access to video of the Jan. 6 demonstrations against election fraud. Schumer’s obvious fear was that any new information would challenge the left’s carefully constructed propaganda narrative that absurdly branded the four-hour incident as a “dangerous insurrection.”
Schumer loudly demanded that Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch deplatform Carlson, which Murdoch has now done. The lesson: If you refuse to be ventriloquized by the oligarchy, we will destroy you. That goes not only for Carlson, but for far lesser voices like mine.
He Who Listens Best, Talks Best
One of the most striking things about Carlson’s long-form interviews is his capacity for listening intently and quietly. Aside from his immense talent, he possesses qualities of genuine curiosity and humor that are in short supply today, and virtually non-existent among our ruling elites.
As Carlson sits attentively and then punctuates the discussion with insightful questions, you can see the wheels spinning in his mind as he puts together the bigger picture to make sense of our world. Then, of course, there is Carlson, the nicest of guys, who asked me the friendliest of questions about my background and family before our interview got underway.
Predictably, Twitter has been filled with testimonials on Carlson’s warmth and kindness. Indeed, he has reached out to the voiceless and persecuted when precious few in the celebrity media would even think to do so. This is remarkable. It’s what real friends like George Bailey do.
On the other hand, the left appears to be at war with friendship itself. They tend to see people as commodities to be used rather than as potential bonds of real affection and knowledge. Tyrants throughout history have always treated ties of loyalty between individuals as dangerous threats to their collectivist agendas, often using some form of struggle session to weaken people by turning them into social pariahs. As bystanders become filled with the fear of being rejected, more people become terrified of thinking out loud.
Meanwhile, Carlson has been defusing the most essential device in the tyrants’ toolbox: social isolation. By giving more and more people a renewal of hope, he can spark a rebirth of real conversation in America. That would threaten to generate a butterfly effect of truth, deadly to totalitarianism.
‘The More You Tell the Truth’
I was also honored to be present at Carlson’s keynote speech at the 50th-anniversary gala of the Heritage Foundation on Friday, April 21, in which he continued to drive home his message of openness to the truth and courage in expressing it. First off, he noted that what we are watching in America today defies any political labels. It can only be explained in theological terms. Public “policies” such as the wanton castration of children and the outright celebration of abortion tell us plainly that we are actually in the throes of a spiritual battle between good and evil.
Yet sadly, we see cowardice all around us as people say things they don’t really believe, just to fit in with the crowd. As Carlson noted, this is due to a powerful herd impulse that “takes over at moments like this and in fact is harnessed by bad people in moments like this to produce uniformity.”
Carlson ended on a note of high optimism that there is always a countervailing force to the evil: “It’s called goodness!” We see it in people who surprise us by refusing to go along to get along. We can’t predict who will be that “lone brave person in the crowd” who refuses. Carlson is obviously not one to go along, though he shuns the description of “brave.” But I don’t think he can deny that he’s the sort of joyful warrior America needs more of.
Perhaps most important is Carlson’s reminder that the truth is contagious: “The more you tell the truth, the stronger you become. And the more you lie, the weaker and more terrified you become.” Every American should take these words to heart.
In his follow-up remarks, Carlson cited Elon Musk’s statement that “the most likely outcome is also the most ironic outcome.” Indeed, how ironic in light of Carlson’s dismissal two days later: At the height of his reach and influence, presumably good for Fox, he was let go for the sin of expressing himself truthfully.
But even though my greatest opportunity to discuss the weaponization of loneliness was silenced along with Carlson’s voice at Fox News, I will not stop talking about it. It’s critical to our future that Americans learn more about those patterns of human psychology that lead us into isolation, misery, and ruin. Only then can we build counterstrategies.
So, thank you again, Tucker, for pulling back the curtain on so many big lies. We know you’ll keep doing that! And thank you for listening.
Jesus Christ is King
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