Tucker Carlson announced on his show Monday evening that he would be taking a long vacation. This small respite for the public sphere comes after weeks and weeks of transparent, high-pitched racism, and pro-fascistic takes on the part of Carlson. It also comes after a long weekend for the Fox News hate machine, where Carlson’s top writer, Blake Neff* was outed by CNN for being a racist, homophobic dickweed—straight, no chaser. Writing under a pseudonym, Blake posted dumb racist stuff for years, like "Black doods staying inside playing Call of Duty is probably one of the biggest factors keeping crime down." He also dropped N-bombs and stuff you expect from the top writer for Tucker Carlson Tonight.
On Monday, Tucker addressed Neff’s departure from the show, saying the top writer for his show’s racism and abhorrent sensibilities had “no connection to the show,” and that Tucker and crew did not “endorse those words.” He also attacked the mythical villains around the media landscape who are enjoying Neff’s demise. Then Tucker said he would be taking a vacation. Fox News told The New York Times that the vacation was “preplanned.” Well, the fact that he knew he was going to take the vacation before he started his show Monday night technically means it was “preplanned.”
Tucker’s blatant racism and revved up fearmongering over the past few months has been the natural progression of a failed worldview, based on vapidity and intellectual bankruptcy. It has resulted in fewer and fewer media buyers for his program, a program that seems to speak to less and less people, the tighter and tighter Carlson squeezes his poisoned message.
Tucker has taken these vacations before, as have other racist Fox News personalities like Laura Ingraham. Carlson took off last August after calling white supremacy a “hoax,” and Ingraham took off in March 2018 after no less than 18 companies pulled ads from her show, due to her bizarre mocking of Parkland, Florida, high school shooting survivor David Hogg.
You can discuss Tucker over at this community story, here.
*Yes, that is a real name.