Back in the summer of 2020, in these pages, I criticized then-Fox News personality Tucker Carlson for his attack on Senator Tammy Duckworth. The senator had said that dealing with statues honoring Confederate leaders and slave owners merited a “national conversation.” For that, Mr. Carlson called her “a moron” and “a fraud,” and accused the combat veteran, who lost both legs in Iraq, of “despising” her country.
Some readers felt I was wrong to be critical of the MAGA Mr. Carlson.
Ensuing events, though, bore out my judgment of the erstwhile conservative poster boy.
For example, Mr. Carlson, who was later fired from Fox but maintains a large following, said that Americans who previously served in the IDF should have their US citizenship revoked; and he blasted the Trump administration for trying to deport pro-Palestinian student protesters.
He also claimed that notorious criminal Jeffrey Epstein was working for the Mossad, something he called “extremely obvious”—although his only “evidence” for the charge was his own fevered imagination.
These days, Mr. Carlson is under well-earned fire for having hosted a friendly interview last month with unapologetic neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, a vile character who, among much else, has praised Hitler, called the Holocaust “exaggerated,” promoted anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and called for a “holy war” against Jews.
The interview drew wide criticism of Mr. Carlson, but the president of the prominent conservative Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, came to Mr. Carlson’s defense. In a short video, Mr. Roberts said that, while he abhorred “things that Nick Fuentes says,” he rejects “canceling our own people or policing the consciences of Christians.” And he decried the “venomous coalition” that was condemning Mr. Carlson—who, he pledged, will “always be a close friend of the Heritage Foundation.”
(A Heritage Foundation staffer named Preston Brashers posted a short, informative message about his boss’ attempt to defend Mr. Carlson: “NAZIS ARE BAD.”)
Both major political parties are infected with loathsome characters. On the left we have the “Squad” and, on the right, the “Groypers” (the term that Mr. Fuentes and other right-wing misfits have adopted). Each party carries some smelly baggage.
What’s more, the mainstream of each party has been cowed, at least to some degree, by the radicals within it. Partisan politics, among its many faults, requires its practitioners to refrain from criticizing their fellows.
I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic leanings of the fringes on either the right or the left. But, despite the ugliness we witness on those extremes—and there have always been isolationists and bigots in Congress—it is important to know that a respectable mainstream dominates in each party.
More representative of Democrats than the “progressives” are people like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, New Jersey Representative Josh Gottheimer and New York Representative Ritchie Torres, who have loudly and strongly condemned their choleric colleagues. And even if their fellow Democrats are less brave and less vocal, many of them also regard the “Squad” as squalid. Legislators like Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen and California Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Brad Sherman may not call out their party’s fringe, but are stalwart supporters of Israel and Jews.
On the Republican side, those who condemned Tucker Carlson for giving the rabid Mr. Fuentes a platform (and his implied hechsher) include South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who asked, “How many times does [Carlson] have to play footsie with this anti-Semitic view of the Jewish people and Israel until you figure out that’s what he believes?”
And Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who said of the interview, “It’s anti-Semitic. Let’s just call it for what it is; let’s not sugarcoat it.”
And Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who, addressing fellow Republicans during a recent speech, said about Mr. Carlson that, “If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are [a] coward and you are complicit in that evil.”
Disturbing developments on the American political scene? Roger. But even we justifiably apprehensive Jews need to take in the full picture. While there are foul fringes on the contemporary political spectrum, fringes are what they are. And, b’ezras Hashem, will remain.
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