Remembering that the word 'aloha' can mean hello or goodbye, Carlson's departure from Fox News will eventually result in a gig someplace else. In other words, we might as well be singing the title of the Beatles' song, Hello Goodbye, to Carlson. For unlike what Nixon said about himself after he failed to win the 1962 office of governor of California, we will still have Carlson to kick around for some time still.
Some conservatives fail to be honest with why Carlson was fired. According to the Christian Ethnocracy promoting American Reformer website, Carlson's dismissal was due to his revealing of the evils that exist in America (click here to check it out).
The American Conservative, which seems to be another Christian Ethnocracy promoting website, laid the blame for Carlson's firing at his mention of God at an Heritage Foundation meeting (click here). The article, though mentioning a discrimination lawsuit in which Carlson is named in as a possible cause for his dismissal, tries to discredit the part of the lawsuit's accusation against Carlson. The article itself tells a story of how Carlson challenged Sydney Powell to provide evidence for her claims that Dominion had switched votes from Trump to Biden.
On the Christian blog front, Anthony Costello describes Carlson as a secular prophet of sorts for good (click here).
What those three sources have in common are a conflating of conservative politics with religiously conservative Christianity and the omission of both was a reason for the firing given by Rupert Murdoch and some of the false information that Carlson himself has recently spread on his show (click here for the Politifact list). As for reasons given by Murdoch, that, according to the LA Times (click here), one has to do with Carlson's promotion of a conspiracy theory stating that the Federal Government was involved with the January 6th Insurrection and the naming of Ray Epps being an FBI plant but who did not enter the building. The problem Murdoch had with Carlson's reporting that was that he did not provide any evidence for what he said.
That some have either conflated conservative politics with religiously conservative Christianity or others have been too tribal, many such conservatives have failed acknowledge that some of the complaints that Carlson is now making have been made by the Left for decades.
What is revealing about Carlson's followers is that they don't pay attention to what has been said before until he, or perhaps another accepted conservative authority speaker says it. Has Carlson just recently complained about the corruption at Wall Street? Yes, he just has (click here). Has Carlson complained about the limiting of legitimate debates on important issues in this nation and that has been because the Republican and Democratic Parties are beholding to elite corporate and business donors? Yes, he just has (click here). But people on the Left have been complaining about all of that for decades only to be, at best, ignored by many conservatives such as Carlson's followers.
Why would such conservatives ignore certain warnings and claims until one of their accepted authority figures gives the same warnings? Perhaps the answer can be found in Carlson's speech at the Heritage Foundation (click here for the speech). In his speech, Carlson divides much of America into 2 groups: there are those who are brave and strong in standing up to the current nonsense and there are those who are weak--eventually he named the two groups good and evil. Of course, those at the Heritage Foundation, especially its leader, belong to the former group while those who disagree belong to the latter group.
During his speech, Carlson canonized the kind of conservatism supported by the Heritage Foundation and demonized those who think differently. He did this by his comments on the LGBT community with their use of pronouns and supporting surgery that assisted people in changing genders. He did that with comments on abortion and his claim that the Treasury Secretary told women to get an abortion to help the economy. He did that by portraying the Biden Administration as being against free speech in the current arrest of 4 American citizens for, what Carlson claims was, opposing Biden's efforts to help Ukraine.
He then spoke in generalities that could only be used to support some old status quos views held by conservatives. This is when he used the labels 'good' and 'evil.' According to Carlson, good produces order, promotes peace, is evidenced by a lack of conflict, and favors cleanliness. On the other hand, evil manifests itself as violence, hate, division, and filthiness. Note that we do not see any group that serves as a mix of good and evil. And thus the context for the right to choose abortion and the desire to transition genders is completely absent.
But more important, it seems that Carlson describes good and evil in terms of either supporting or protesting against the old status quo. If we consider the hippies during the 1960s and early 1970s, they were involved in some not so good things. And they were challenging the status quo which means that they were looking to tear some practices down and replace them with other ideas. So, by Carlson's template for good and evil, they were evil. But they also protested the Vietnam War and the materialism of that time. And so if they were evil, how could they have opposed what was wrong? But if they were good, how do we explain some of their practices that turned out to be harm like open sexual practices and drug use.
We could also ask about the Civil Rights Movement that looked to disturb the calmness and order that was part of the status quo of the Jim Crow era. Even the peaceful protesters who followed Martin Luther King Jr invited disorder and division. They were portrayed as Communist instigators and trouble makers who were disturbing the peace by leaders who defended the Jim Crow culture and laws. So how could they have been on the side of good if they were displaying some of the characteristics that Carlson attributes to evil?
Or consider the urban rioters of the 1960s. They were not just trying to destroy the then social order, they were destroying property and even attacking people. So how is it that Martin Luther King Jr responded to their riots by both opposing them while adding that they were to be listened to because King stated that 'a riot is the language of the unheard.'
The point being we are all people and we are all a mix of good and bad. Yes, some are more good than bad and vice-versa, but there isn't this group that is good and another that is bad and Carlson demonstrates that himself in some of his remarks in his speech to the Heritage Foundation. For he certainly misinformed people about the arrests of 4 Americans whom, claimed, were arrested for disagreeing with the Biden Administration on the war in Ukraine. Actually, they were indicted by a grand jury for becoming unregistered agents for Russia who were trying to spread Russian propaganda and influence the elections for Russia's benefit (click here and there).
Carlson also grossly misrepresented Janet Yellen by claiming that she told women to get an abortion to help the economy. In reality, Yellen was praising the right to an abortion, not abortion per se. And she did so because that right to an abortion helped women to better participate in the economy (click here). In addition, the battle for the right to an abortion has a very involved context including women's question for equality here and that includes the woman's right to choose if her life is threatened by carrying and/or bearing the child. So would Carlson condemn as evil the woman who gets an abortion to spare her own life? He also says that he has compassion for those in difficult situations but is he also giving mixed signals.
In addition, we could consider the earlier part of this article that contained a link to a list of failed factchecks on Carlson.
In short, Carlson's speech at the Heritage Foundation was an open invitation for those conservatives who were attending to join him in auditioning for the role of the Pharisee in the parable of the two men praying ( click here for Luke 18:9-14). Spoiler Alert: the Pharisee did not fare well in that parable.
With his definitions of what is good and evil, the answer to why conservatives who favor Carlson are reluctant to agree with points that have been made by Leftists for decades until Carlson makes them is disturbing. Such is the case when Carlson recently complained about about Wall Street and our nation's one-party political system. Since Leftists, and I assume Carlson includes Liberals in that group, are evil, to agree with evil is too frightening to try. Such conservatives need permission from an approved authority figure before they are willing to agree with a Leftist position. And that shows an unhealthy dependence that some conservatives have with their accepted authority figure heroes.
Such a practice shows that these, but certainly not all, conservative followers have made their authority figure heroes into their nanny-thinkers. And that means that these conservatives will passionately embrace what their nanny thinking heroes say. We should also note that this kind of dependence on nanny thinkers crosses all ideological boundaries. That is because the dependence on nanny thinkers is all a part of an authoritarian mindset. And Carlson's followers do not have a monopoly on the authoritarian mindset.
Though we are now just saying goodbye to Carlson on Fox, because of the kind of followers Carlson has, we will soon be saying hello to him on another media source. After all, he has too many heavily dependent followers for that not to be the case.
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