Voices: Tucker Carlson reshaped the Republican Party in his own image

The news that Tucker Carlson has “parted ways” with Fox News, the right-wing news network that survived a potentially ruinous lawsuit by a voting machine company, has sent shockwaves throughout the media and political spheres.

Carlson began by being the butt of Jon Stewart’s jokes on CNN and a lackluster tenure at MSNBC before he founded The Daily Caller. He later flourished as an extremely popular conservative pundit on the top-rated cable news network. Now, he won’t even be able to bid farewell to his rabid fan base, whom he has whipped up with a mix of anti-immigrant xenophobia, election denialism and vaccine misinformation.

Liberals may be tempted to celebrate his demise while conservatives may express utter disbelief that a cash cow like Carlson could be dropped so unceremoniously. Undoubtedly, Carlson will be replaced by someone even more right-wing, someone who knows how to pluck the right notes of white grievance that enchants and entrances the primetime viewer slot on Fox, just as Carlson did when he assumed the throne from its previous occupant, Bill O’Reilly.

But Carlson’s footprint on the modern-day Republican Party cannot be erased.

His brainchild The Daily Caller breeds the next generation of right-wing journalists. His program on Fox shattered records. He has attained a status not on the level just of O’Reilly, but on par with the level Glenn Beck assumed in the 2010s with his brand of conspiracy-driven conservatism; and Rush Limbaugh in the 1990s with smash-mouth talk broadcasted to radio stations across the country; and William F Buckley, who hosted The Firing Line and founded National Review, which remains the premier right-wing journal.

Far more than any other figure, aside perhaps from Laura Ingraham, Carlson beat the drum of anti-immigrant rhetoric on Fox. Carlson frequently parroted lines from the racist “Great Replacement Theory,” often directly ripping lines from white nationalist groups, as an investigation from The New York Times last year found. Specifically, he said Democrats were trying to import “more obedient voters from the third world” to “replace” a white electorate with one more amenable toward liberal policies.

If former president Donald Trump offered the pathos for the GOP’s modern anti-immigrant zeal, Carlson offered its logos, giving it a sport coat and khaki veneer over its red trucker hat image. Republicans in turn adopted this rhetoric in their own campaigns and made it a staple of their talking points.

In the same respect, Carlson emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of hawkishness toward Russia and questioning western support for Ukraine against its aggressor Vladimir Putin. Indeed, when Ron DeSantis landed in hot water for calling the war in Ukraine a “territorial dispute,” he did so in response to a questionnaire from Carlson.

Carlson has often criticised the war in Ukraine and repeated lies that American troops were fighting in the war despite the fact his own network said that was not true.

Carlson also promoted lies about the Covid-19 vaccine throughout his show, giving oxygen to misinformation that the vaccines were deadly. He also praised and platformed Robert F Kennedy Jr, one of the leading voices of anti-vaccine lies.

But nowhere is Carlson’s impact on the GOP felt more than in his repetition of lies about the 2020 presidential election and the Capitol riot of January 6. He had such a momentous hold on the Fox viewership that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy felt compelled to share footage of the January 6 riot with him, which Carlson then used to whitewash the attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Mr McCarthy shared the footage after he repeatedly tried and failed to obtain the gavel before ultimately succeeding and ascending to the House speakership. The fact Mr McCarthy felt the need to share the footage not with Fox as a whole but Carlson specifically shows that he knew he needed to get on the host’s good side should he want to remain in power.

Now, a void will be left in Carlson’s wake. But his words cannot be untold. His language now flows throughout the bloodstream of modern Republican rhetoric. While the far-right flank of the GOP will have one fewer outlet on which to pontificate, his words have won the argument in the internecine feuds within the Republican Party. And that cannot be untold.