We used to love Tucker Carlson. During the pandemic, we’d tune in every night to hear his heterodox monologues on issues vital to the public and ignored by corporate media. From the government’s Orwellian COVID-19 protocols, to the Russiagate and Hunter Biden scandals, to toxic ideologies overtaking our education system, we trusted Carlson to give us the unfiltered truth. When the 2020 George Floyd riots broke out, we turned to Candace Owens for her honest commentary on what really occurred that day and what the ensuing rioters actually stood for.
Today, we are witnessing a very different Carlson and Owens — an identitarian version of themselves that employs the same tactics of postmodernism, historical revisionism, and moral relativism essential to the progressive Left. Carlson, Owens, and the influencers they have elevated to social media stardom regularly shill for America’s self-declared enemies, whether the Islamic Republic of Iran or Communist China, and characterize America as a sinful, imperialistic nation that has brought nothing but death and destruction to the developing world.
So, what happened? The horseshoe effect. Horseshoe theory posits that the political spectrum is not as much a straight line as it is a horseshoe, in which right-wing and left-wing extremism eventually loop back around and tend in the same direction. In other words, the more extreme the Right becomes, the more it parallels the philosophy of the Left. Alas, Carlson and Owens have become woke.
We saw glimpses of this when Carlson bizarrely endorsed self-declared communist Jackson Hinkle on Fox News, or when Owens repeatedly defended Kanye West’s pathological antisemitism. But once they left Fox and the Daily Wire, respectively, becoming directly beholden to an online audience, the nature of the game changed. Carlson and Owens were now rewarded not for their faithful reporting but for whatever entertaining, fearmongering clickbait they could provide.
When Oct. 7, 2023, arrived, all hell broke loose. The Hamas massacre in Israel was the catalyst for a zealous new Jew hatred within the MAGA camp that has become pervasive on X and TikTok. Carlson and Owens are key propagators of it, resurrecting virtually every tired, medieval, antisemitic trope, presenting as if they are the first to have conceived of each one.
Mossad carried out 9/11 and assassinated JFK. Oct. 7 was a false flag attack. Joseph Stalin was a Jew. So was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The star of David has satanic origins. Anti-Zionism isn’t antisemitism. Israel is committing genocide against children in Gaza. Jews are Bolsheviks. The Talmud is evil and perverted. Hamas didn’t commit rape or kill babies on Oct. 7. Zionists control the media and rule Wall Street. AIPAC is a foreign lobby that wields undue power and influence over the U.S. government. Israel was formed by pedophiles because Judaism is a pedophilic religion.
This is not even the full list of what we’ve heard from Carlson, Owens, or the guests they repeatedly endorse on their shows. Last month, we learned that Jeffrey Epstein worked for Mossad. Weeks ago, we were told Israel blackmailed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And now, Carlson has resurrected the 1,600-year-old theological canard of supersessionism, asserting that Christians have replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people and that anyone who disagrees with this dispensationalist interpretation of the New Testament has obviously not read it.
Many who claim to be pro-Trump, “America First” conservatives are actually falling for this fringe, primeval balderdash. In one sense, we are sympathetic to them. Throughout the pandemic, conservatives who spoke out about ballot harvesting and election fraud, FBI informants present on Jan. 6, or COVID-19 leaking from a lab in Wuhan were marginalized and labeled “conspiracy theorists.” It is easy, when such sinister government schemes and private-public collusion appear all around you, to fall into the rabbit hole of seeing conspiracies everywhere. But that hole eventually leads to the Holocaust, and evidently, we have arrived there — with full-blown deniers and distortionists now celebrated by the world’s leading political podcasters, generating tens of millions of views and shaping the hearts and minds of young, vulnerable Americans.
THE RISE OF THE UNINTELLECTUAL DARK WEB
Both of us proudly voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, and we are thrilled about his political appointments and moves he has taken to gut the federal bureaucracy and restore constitutional liberties. But as the saying goes, politics is downstream from culture. Trump may have won the battle, but putting Republicans in office is just the first step. The real war is fighting to preserve MAGA principles to ensure that we deliver on our promises and win future elections. Though we may be fearful of dividing the movement by publicly criticizing its members, choosing country over party is the truest test of American patriotism.
Antisemitism has united the left-wing and the right-wing for generations and is the most glaring example of the horseshoe effect. It only took a small group of Jew-hating progressives to hijack the entire Democratic Party and make the majority beholden to the minority. If we do not excise the poison from our own camp, there is no reason why this won’t happen to us.
Emily Austin is a TV personality, sports broadcaster for DAZN, and owner of her own skincare company, People’s Beauty. Karys Rhea (@rheakarys) is a producer at the Epoch Times, a fellow with the Middle East Forum, a delegate for Israel365 Action, and a rising leader at the Global Liberty Institute.