"Authoritarians seek power in order to hide the problems, steal money,
arrange favors for their friends, and manipulate the political system
so that they can't ever lose power...Carlson is simply the American
face...of that confidence trick"
==================
The American Face of Authoritarian Propaganda
"Axis Sally" was the generic name for women with husky voices and good
English who read German and Italian propaganda on the radio during
World War II. Like the Japanese women who became collectively known as
"Tokyo Rose," they were trying to reach American soldiers, hoping to
demoralize them by telling them their casualties were high, their
commanders were bad, and their cause was lost. "A lousy night it sure
is," Axis Sally said on one 1944 broadcast: "You poor, silly, dumb
lambs, well on your way to be slaughtered."
Tucker Carlson, who also repeats the propaganda of foreign dictators
while speaking English, doesn't have anything like the historical
significance of Axis Sally or Tokyo Rose, though his level of
credibility is similar. This is a man who famously wrote texts about
his loathing of Donald Trump, even while praising the then-president
in public; recently, the former Fox News host kept a straight face
while interviewing a convicted fraudster who claimed to have smoked
crack and had sex with Barack Obama. But when Carlson speaks on behalf
of Viktor Orban or Vladimir Putin, his words are repeated in Hungary
and Russia, where they do have resonance: Look, a prominent American
journalist supports us. I don't know what Carlson's motivation is--he
did not respond to a request for comment--but his words also circulate
in the far-right American echo chamber, where they are sometimes
repeated by Republican presidential candidates, so unfortunately they
require some explanation.
Carlson's hatred of American institutions, and of many Americans, is
the starting point for many of his diatribes. Recently, for instance,
he appeared at an event in Budapest, organized by a
Hungarian-government-funded organization, where he called the U.S.
ambassador to that nation a "creep," said he was "embarrassed that I
share a country of birth with a villain like this," and apologized for
American foreign policy in Hungary.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/tucker-carlson-putin-orban-propaganda/675380/
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