Tucker Carlson saying he’s not voting Republican is bad news for Trump
Right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson says that because of his fury over President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, he won’t vote for the Republican Party in the midterm elections. Trump should be terrified: Carlson’s defection from the party is precisely the kind of intra-MAGA blow that could demobilize Republican voters ahead of November.
In an interview with the “Can’t be Censored” podcast that aired Thursday, Carlson said, “There’s no chance I would support the Republican Party” this fall because he cannot back “a political party that’s not loyal to the United States, that puts the interest of a foreign country above those of its own citizens.” The country Carlson is referring to is Israel. And while his argument is not accurate, it taps into a narrative that has a lot of potency on the right.
Carlson’s increasingly hostile position toward the GOP is dangerous for the party’s midterm prospects.
As I explained last month, Carlson is the most prominent commentator on the right who promotes the idea that Israel has made the U.S. into a “slave” and has manipulated Trump and the U.S. into a war with Iran. That argument stems from ethnonationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories that suggest Israel (and, it is implied, the Jewish community more broadly) is puppeteering the U.S. This position allows Carlson to simultaneously encourage ethnic chauvinism at home and argue for isolationist foreign policy — in this case, cutting off ties to Israel as a way to end warmaking. As always with right-wing nationalists, society’s problems lie with groups deemed insidious “outsiders” rather than systems or ideologies at home.
The truth, of course, is that Israel has no power to force the U.S. to do anything it doesn’t want to do. A war between the U.S. and Iran has long been a possibility — one that Trump has fantasized about for nearly 40 years. And his withdrawal from the Obama administration’s deal with Iran in his first term set the stage for this war. The U.S. and Israel started this war together over perceived shared interests.
Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He primarily writes about politics and foreign policy.
