The Tucker Carlson Show - 3 Things Tucker Learned About the Left, and You Should Learn Too
Aired: 2024-01-20
Duration: 19:07


=== Powerful Forces Opposed (14:35) ===

[00:00:00]  So here are three things that I have learned about the left over the past couple of years.
[00:00:06]  And I think they go, since this is a conference about nationalism, they might help explain the resistance to nationalism.
[00:00:14]  It wouldn't seem obvious that there would be much.
[00:00:17]  There's nothing inherently wrong with nationalism.
[00:00:19]  In fact, it should be the default setting for a nation, right?
[00:00:22]  I mean, by definition.
[00:00:26]  But there are, as you well know, and if there weren't, this conference wouldn't be occurring.
[00:00:33]  There are powerful forces who are opposed to it.
[00:00:35]  And so the question which is too rarely asked is, why?
[00:00:40]  And I'm not sure I have an answer, but here are three observations that help, might help fill in the blanks.
[00:00:45]  The first and the most shocking to me is, and this is something that I've said like 30 times on my show, but every time I say it, it's like, I'm bewildered that I'm saying it.
[00:00:57]  The main threat to your ability to live your life as you choose does not come from the government anymore, but comes from the private sector.
[00:01:04]  I can't believe I'm saying that.
[00:01:06]  As someone who really grew up in this city, my father worked for the government, was engaged day to day in fighting the Cold War.
[00:01:14]  And maybe because of that, I was trained from the youngest age, from a pup, to believe that the threats to liberty came from government, of course, because the Soviet Union was our model.
[00:01:25]  You know, the force that was clamping down, was darkening half of the world and crushing religious expression and the market was a government, the Soviet government, and all the satellites in China.
[00:01:37]  And so it really took a huge amount of evidence wagging right in my face, not being the brightest person in DC, to realize that in 2019, the threat to the things that I want to do and the things that I want to say,
[00:01:52]  the threat to my conscience, to the ability to believe what I choose to believe, and that's the fundamental right, that those threats really come primarily from companies and not from the federal government.
[00:02:07]  And this even now is a controversial statement.
[00:02:10]  I'm sure there are libertarians, well, libertarians already hate me.
[00:02:13]  It's requited, trust me.
[00:02:14]  But even non-libertarian conservatives almost can't form the words because they've been trained for so long not to believe that.
[00:02:24]  But the evidence is absolutely overwhelming.
[00:02:28]  And not just in sort of the small annoying ways, the fact that America's most popular cookie, the Oreo, now has a statement of gender politics on it.
[00:02:40]  Well, I'm not joking.
[00:02:42]  I would need reading glasses to read it, but apparently, since I'm 50, apparently all new Oreos have the question, what's your pronoun?
[00:02:51]  So this is the kind of story that cable news thrives on.
[00:02:54]  I'll be like, oh, that's so annoying.
[00:02:55]  They're so crazy.
[00:02:56]  Take three steps back.
[00:02:57]  What's actually happening?
[00:02:59]  A large American company is committing a pretty brazen act of propaganda aimed at your kids.
[00:03:06]  And the message is that the binary gender scheme, which we were taught in biology class in seventh grade, is no longer operative.
[00:03:15]  This is basically a kind of profound statement against nature.
[00:03:20]  And you have to kind of ask yourself, like, is the federal government doing that?
[00:03:24]  No.
[00:03:25]  Mongolay is doing that.
[00:03:26]  Oreo is doing that.
[00:03:27]  Multiply that times every Fortune 500 company in America, 500.
[00:03:34]  And you have the state of play.
[00:03:37]  The coercive, okay, so to which libertarians will say, well, I mean, yeah, if you don't like it, start your own Oreo company.
[00:03:47]  Okay?
[00:03:50]  I guess.
[00:03:53]  And we can argue, or, you know, go nill a wafer or whatever.
[00:03:55]  There's no sort of way to imprint messages on a nill a wafer.
[00:03:58]  It, okay?
[00:04:01]  But that's not really an operative option in a world of monopoly power.
[00:04:07]  And I know that I think Arthur Millick is speaking later on this, maybe Oren Casper, probably a bunch of people are going to address this in much deeper detail and much more capably than I'm going to now.
[00:04:19]  But let me just say, you can't create your own Google.
[00:04:24]  And if you have a company, and we do, through which all human information in English flows through a choke point that we can't control, there's no democratic way of controlling.
[00:04:38]  You have the potential.
[00:04:39]  Well, first of all, you have more power vested in a smaller number of hands at any time in American history, A.
[00:04:45]  And that itself is ominous and should make all of us, like, cast aside any kind of ideology or theology or whatever.
[00:04:53]  Just look at that straight in the face.
[00:04:55]  Are you comfortable with that?
[00:04:56]  You shouldn't be.
[00:04:56]  Of course, you're not comfortable with it.
[00:04:57]  It's terrifying.
[00:04:58]  Let's stop lying to ourselves.
[00:04:59]  It's awful.
[00:05:00]  All right?
[00:05:01]  And that's where we are.
[00:05:03]  But think through for five minutes the potential risks, the threats from that, and they're really obvious.
[00:05:10]  It's like they could make whole ideas disappear.
[00:05:14]  And in fact, there's some evidence that they're working to do that.
[00:05:17]  And as Orwell noted, once you take away the words, you take away people's ability to think about the concepts.
[00:05:25]  Right?
[00:05:26]  You can't have an idea if you don't have the words to express it.
[00:05:31]  And so the person in charge of the words really has the power over your mind.
[00:05:37]  And they do.
[00:05:39]  And the pushback from our elected officials has been basically zero.
[00:05:43]  Now, I'm not going to go on a long Jeremiah about why.
[00:05:45]  I think you know why, because they're corrupt.
[00:05:49]  Literally, the antitrust think tank in Washington takes money from Google.
[00:05:57]  No, I'm not.
[00:05:59]  And it has a name, something like it's a very literal name.
[00:06:02]  It's like antitrust think tank.
[00:06:05]  And if you go through their list of donors, yeah, Google's on there.
[00:06:09]  So that doesn't seem to bother anyone on the left.
[00:06:12]  Well, why?
[00:06:12]  Because they're benefiting from JD fans, ladies and gentlemen.
[00:06:15]  Sorry, sorry, sorry.
[00:06:17]  I'm so nearsighted that people loom out of the darkness at me.
[00:06:24]  That doesn't bother anyone on the left, of course, because these are the shock troops for their politics, of course.
[00:06:30]  Because they're an alliance with the progressive left.
[00:06:35]  It should bother people on the right, but it doesn't because, again, their minds are captive to an antiquated way of looking at the world, the build your own Google way.
[00:06:49]  So I just think, again, this is something that I could go on about to the point where you'd ask me to stop.
[00:06:55]  But I would just, I would stop on this point.
[00:06:59]  Ponder this.
[00:07:01]  Retrain your mind to acknowledge the things that are right in front of you that are obvious.
[00:07:09]  One of the upsides, there are many downsides, I will say, to Trump, but one of the upsides is the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely.
[00:07:20]  We elected Donald Trump president, huh?
[00:07:24]  We all pretend, oh, of course we did.
[00:07:26]  Yeah, okay.
[00:07:27]  Yeah.
[00:07:30]  It was so shocking that it did cause some significant percentage of people to say, wait a second, if that can happen, like, what else is true?
[00:07:39]  In other words, like, if the Loch Nest monster is real, what about the Yeti?
[00:07:43]  I'm serious.
[00:07:46]  Weirdly, the Trump election spurred in me a kind of reassessment of UFOs.
[00:07:52]  We've done a consistent series.
[00:07:53]  No, I'm not, I'm serious.
[00:07:55]  And it turns out like they're real.
[00:07:57]  It never occurred to me.
[00:07:58]  I spent my entire life making fun of people who had unauthorized thoughts.
[00:08:02]  I thought I was a free thinker.
[00:08:04]  You know, as all, you know, young people flatter themselves.
[00:08:07]  You know, of course, almost all fascists are under 30, in case you haven't noticed.
[00:08:12]  Especially true in the press corps.
[00:08:13]  And they think of themselves as really sort of the cutting edge.
[00:08:18]  You know, I'm willing to, I'm radical.
[00:08:21]  And that's why if you think something you're not allowed to think, I'll punch you in the face.
[00:08:26]  Right.
[00:08:27]  Well, you know, all young people, the truth is, are a kind of variety of that.
[00:08:33]  Including me.
[00:08:34]  And the beauty of Trump was, once he showed up, you're like, huh, okay.
[00:08:39]  Well, so this happened.
[00:08:40]  I guess I can think whatever I want.
[00:08:42]  So maybe it's time to trap to the mental attic and see what's in storage.
[00:08:47]  And what you realize, what I realized was there was all this junk up there moldering that I'd assumed was still sort of fresh and bright and worth keeping.
[00:08:59]  You really accumulate all kinds of ideas, most of which aren't actually ideas.
[00:09:04]  They're just ticks.
[00:09:09]  And you don't realize that you have them.
[00:09:12]  And Trump really, and it wasn't, of course, just me, but it was a lot of people, almost all of whom are in this room, actually, who went up there and they're like, huh, you know, well, is it still true?
[00:09:23]  And so what I encourage myself to do every single day, this is one thing I am faithful about, is I really encourage myself to just try to look clearly, like, what is actually happening?
[00:09:36]  I mean, the forces of lying have definitely increased.
[00:09:40]  They've gotten louder anyway.
[00:09:41]  It's like everyone's lying.
[00:09:43]  It's all propaganda.
[00:09:44]  So disregard all of it.
[00:09:46]  Put your earphones on to white noise and just look around.
[00:09:50]  And who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?
[00:09:53]  I'm serious.
[00:09:54]  And a lot of the people we've been told are good guys are not at all.
[00:10:00]  Actually, some of them are the worst guys.
[00:10:04]  I'll let you figure out who.
[00:10:08]  Sorry.
[00:10:09]  I got carried out.
[00:10:09]  Okay, so that's the first observation.
[00:10:13]  The second observation I would make is, and I'll be short with this, but it's another one of my obsessions, is that it's all a kind of Freudian projection.
[00:10:22]  Like, whatever they say you're doing is precisely what they're doing.
[00:10:29]  And again, because I'm not a super genius, it took a long time to figure this out.
[00:10:33]  And I really think Antifa was maybe the moment where I figured it out.
[00:10:39]  It's the guys who are literally armed with steel bars and have black masks on are calling other people fascist.
[00:10:50]  And I'm like, you know, so of course you go immediately to the cliche.
[00:10:53]  That's Orwellian.
[00:10:54]  No, actually, it's Freudian.
[00:10:57]  It really is.
[00:10:59]  The things I fear about myself, I transfer onto you.
[00:11:04]  And once you understand that, it really is the Rosetta Stone for their behavior, amazingly.
[00:11:09]  It's true for virtually everything.
[00:11:11]  And if you're me, the most, I mean, specifically me, the most bewildering of all is, you're a racist.
[00:11:18]  You're a racist, which is like, you know, I wake up, I open my door to get the paper.
[00:11:22]  You're a racist.
[00:11:26]  And I guess at this point, I guess I probably need to admit it.
[00:11:29]  But I actually not.
[00:11:30]  And I make the opposite.
[00:11:31]  I make an affirmative case against racism like all the time on my show.
[00:11:35]  Or for less race consciousness anyway.
[00:11:38]  It's such a boring subject.
[00:11:39]  It's such a dead end.
[00:11:41]  It can't be fixed.
[00:11:42]  It can't be changed.
[00:11:44]  No, I'm serious.
[00:11:46]  It's not even that interesting.
[00:11:48]  It's not interesting to me anyway.
[00:11:50]  It's not the America that I grew up in.
[00:11:52]  I'm not being self-righteous about it.
[00:11:54]  I'm not saying I'm above any, I'm above nothing, trust me.
[00:11:58]  One of the things you realize as you age is that you really are pretty loathsome.
[00:12:05]  You know?
[00:12:07]  As my father, this is vulgar, excuse me, my father, who is a genuinely wise man, I dinner with him last night.
[00:12:13]  He always used to say, when we were little, I mean like third grade.
[00:12:16]  My brother, Amid always said, boys, the root of all wisdom is knowing what an asshole you are.
[00:12:22]  Cheap?
[00:12:23]  People always say that.
[00:12:25]  And it was only in middle age that I realized totally how true that was.
[00:12:28]  So I'm not in any case, I'm not getting up and be like, I'm really not a racist.
[00:12:31]  Okay, please spare me.
[00:12:33]  What I'm just saying is it's amazing that the people who are so focused on the subject of race are the ones who are denouncing everyone else as racist.
[00:12:45]  And then you realize it's not amazing because it's true of literally everything they say.
[00:12:51]  Because it's not actually a matter of trying to convince you of their program.
[00:12:57]  It really is a very specific and recognizable psychological syndrome.
[00:13:05]  Right?
[00:13:08]  I mean, I remember the day that Bill Crystal, of all people, called me a racist.
[00:13:11]  And I was like, really?
[00:13:13]  Bill Crystal?
[00:13:14]  And I was like, oh, of course.
[00:13:16]  Of course.
[00:13:18]  It fits.
[00:13:19]  Anyway, so just keep that in mind.
[00:13:25]  And then I guess the last point I would make, which is worth brooding about, is that, and I don't want to believe this, and by the way, I hope I'm wrong, and perhaps I am.
[00:13:37]  But from where I stand right now, it seems pretty clear to me that they're not interested in peaceful coexistence.
[00:13:45]  And by temperament, you know, I just reject that.
[00:13:48]  I really am liberal.
[00:13:51]  I am, I'm literally an Episcopalian.
[00:13:55]  Still practicing, amazingly.
[00:13:59]  But I am liberal by temperament.
[00:14:02]  It would never occur to me to choose my friends by their political beliefs.
[00:14:09]  It would just never occur to me, ever.
[00:14:12]  Nor would it ever occur to me to try to control someone.
[00:14:14]  As much as I despise libertarians, and I really, really do, I mean that, I also kind of am one.
[00:14:22]  I mean, I am functionally in a lot of ways libertarian.
[00:14:24]  I'm just not that interested in other people doing their weird thing, go crazy.
[00:14:29]  It's just how I feel.
[00:14:30]  I probably shouldn't feel that way, but I do.
[00:14:33]  They don't feel that way.

=== I Feel Weird About That (02:05) ===

[00:14:35]  They don't.
[00:14:36]  So if you were, and someday I'm going to do this if I have time, it'd be interesting to go down to like the most remote county in Alabama and interview just a cross-section of people at the Hardys, just 25 people, and ask them what they think of the personal sexual practices of the residents of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
[00:15:04]  And B, how often they think of it.
[00:15:08]  How much of your disk space does this occupy?
[00:15:12]  How many hours a week, estimated, do you spend seething about what they're doing in the sack 1,500 miles from here?
[00:15:22]  And I'm pretty sure you would find right around zero people would even understand the question.
[00:15:30]  It just wouldn't compute.
[00:15:31]  Brooklyn, huh?
[00:15:33]  I don't know.
[00:15:34]  Probably something weird, right?
[00:15:35]  Yep, something weird for sure.
[00:15:37]  All right.
[00:15:38]  That's in New York City, right?
[00:15:40]  Yep.
[00:15:40]  Well, there you go.
[00:15:43]  Would you like to pass a law to prevent them from doing that weird stuff?
[00:15:46]  Huh?
[00:15:46]  Who are you anyway?
[00:15:48]  No.
[00:15:50]  And I mean people, I mean all of them elders at the local Antioch Baptist Church.
[00:15:55]  I mean, evangelicals, 100%.
[00:15:58]  And they would tell you, no.
[00:16:00]  And then, of course, you know, you know, the second half.
[00:16:02]  Go to Williamsburg.
[00:16:05]  And what do you think of the people of Dothan County, Alabama?
[00:16:09]  You know that over 50% of them are against gay marriage.
[00:16:13]  What?
[00:16:14]  I was just thinking about that this morning.
[00:16:15]  We should kill them.
[00:16:20]  They lay awake at night thinking that somewhere in this country there is somebody who's not fully on board with the program.
[00:16:30]  And by on board with the program, I don't just mean is disobeying.
[00:16:34]  I don't mean a county clerk who's refusing to sign a marriage certificate.
[00:16:39]  You know, that's a real argument.

=== Evangelical Faith Imperatives (02:26) ===

[00:16:40]  I get it.
[00:16:41]  No matter what side you're on.
[00:16:42]  No.
[00:16:43]  They mean someone who, in his heart secretly, is traipsing down to the basement after dinner and communicating by shortwave with someone else who disagrees.
[00:16:55]  And that's unacceptable.
[00:16:58]  And we're going to root that person out and we're going to fix that person.
[00:17:01]  In fact, you know what we're going to do?
[00:17:02]  We're going to re-educate that person.
[00:17:04]  Ah.
[00:17:05]  Yes.
[00:17:06]  These impulses are universal.
[00:17:08]  Yes, they are.
[00:17:09]  There's a reason that happened.
[00:17:12]  Because this is an evangelical faith, is what I'm saying.
[00:17:17]  The progressive faith is an evangelical faith.
[00:17:21]  It's a proselytizing faith.
[00:17:24]  And that's exactly what it is.
[00:17:27]  And you know why.
[00:17:28]  I can see there are religious people in this.
[00:17:30]  Of course, you know why.
[00:17:31]  Because you can't, you know, you can remove religion, but you can't remove the religious impulse.
[00:17:37]  Because it's inborn.
[00:17:39]  It's innate.
[00:17:41]  It can't be taken out.
[00:17:42]  So it'll just be redirected to something even.
[00:17:44]  Do you think the resurrection is implausible?
[00:17:49]  Let me tell you about woke politics.
[00:17:54]  Not only is it way more destructive, it's like 100% dumber.
[00:17:58]  Okay?
[00:17:59]  But that's what it is.
[00:18:00]  It's just a replacement, obviously.
[00:18:02]  But we should keep that in mind.
[00:18:04]  And by we, I'm not even sure who I'm talking about.
[00:18:07]  I don't know.
[00:18:08]  And I hope if this conference accomplishes anything, it's to explain what it means to be conservative or nationalist.
[00:18:14]  I don't even know.
[00:18:15]  I've lost track.
[00:18:16]  But whatever they're for, I'm against that.
[00:18:19]  That's kind of how I'm thinking of it right now.
[00:18:21]  I'm absolutely against that.
[00:18:23]  And I'm also, and I'll stop with this, I'm also prone, and I bet many of you are the same, I'm prone to lie to myself about it.
[00:18:29]  And I just want to be absolutely clear, because I notice there's a TV camera there.
[00:18:34]  I want to be really clear.
[00:18:36]  I'm still for living with people I disagree with.
[00:18:40]  I will always be for that.
[00:18:42]  I will always be for pluralism.
[00:18:44]  I will always be for intellectual diversity.
[00:18:47]  Always.
[00:18:48]  I'll always be happy to have dinner with someone who doesn't share my views.
[00:18:52]  My only point is, and that will never change.
[00:18:54]  I will not allow that to change because I think you become something less than you should be.
[00:19:03]  Younger people say the news is full of lies on Kennedy's motorcade.