The Daily Dose- Tucker Carlson on Theo Von

This conversation is about Tucker Carlson being a guest on Theo Von's podcast.
Also discussed: Fox News, how did it get this way?

www.thedailyformer.com

Transcript

Sam 0:42

Theo Vaughn, who I don't know if you guys are familiar with, he's a comedian which I actually like Theo Vaughn. In some ways, but he had Tucker Carlson on his show and they had this long form conversation just about everything like about sobriety about politics about all these different things. They didn't go too deep into any of it, but I thought it was a really interesting reintroduction to Tucker Carlson post his show being canceled pretty unceremoniously. And I bring it up because I, I wanted to think about the fact that, like, Tucker Carlson was the most watched news anchor, in the world, in North America, at the very least, a huge Spreader of misinformation. He had propaganda all over the place. He was one of those. I'm just asking questions kind of guys. He got into outright accusations and inciting violence. Was it irresponsible of a Theo Von to have him on? I was really disappointed in myself for laughing at some of the things that Tucker Carlson said, like, I was like, damn it, he's funny, like, he is a really smart person is this dangerous? Is this dangerous for people that might be apolitical or whatever that are watching Theo Vaughn and suddenly you're introduced to this guy and you say, oh, you know, I want to see what else this guy has in store, he's really smart, and then you end up on some of his clips. Isn't that how it starts? isn't this a gateway?

Lauren 2:10

This kind of sounds like one of these intent versus impact sort of scenarios where it's like the intent probably wasn't to do harm. It was probably, hey, I'm going to have this controversial dickhead on and let's see what happens kind of thing. But God knows who the dickhead is going to influence.

Brad 2:26

Theo though. I mean, I find him funny. Like there are times where he's funny for sure. But He spent a lot of time with Joe Rogan. He spent a lot of time around different people who might be construed as problematic. I don't know. Problematic, far right, leaning guys. But again, this goes back to freedom of speech kind of issues I guess the more famous Lens of those guys is ricky gervais like push the very very very very limits of what jokes you can tell Right, like I don't think at all that ricky gervais is a racist person or a far right person or a anti trans person I think he is just trying to push the ultimate limits because that's what he does but I I fear though, if we Silence the Theo Vaughn's and Tucker Carlson's and, whatever. Then what do we do? What's next? we talked about the books and the libraries, right? Like, do you have to watch Theo Vaughn when he's talking about gay people? You don't have to. we don't have to watch that clip. Like, he talks a lot about gay people. But I think he is joking legitimately too. Cause he talks about a lot of different stuff. I think it's harmless in a lot of ways. the way Theo goes about it, but the way that Tucker Carlson goes about it, you have a, base of millions and millions of people where Theo has this little he's a standup comedian. Carlson had Fox news. That was what was backing him for years, right? So when you think about the reach that he had and the ability, I think deep down inside Carlson is not. a genuine person. And I think he does, spread things intentionally. and that's, my argument about Gervais and Theo Vaughn. I think they are comedians and they're not out to Harm people, Carlson, uh, potentially, I mean, the Great Reset stuff, do you think he, just sort of passed over those different things?

Sam 4:36

Carlson strikes me as the kind of guy who fucking researched Julius Evola. You know what I mean? Like, if I were to, in passing to say like, you know, Savitri Devi, he would know what I'm saying, whether he believes in it or not. He does seem like the type who has some knowledge of esoteric Hitlerism, you know? Something that I wanted to touch on is the fact that I only know about this episode because TikTok put it on my For You page. Just a random thing. I didn't have a choice to seek this out. Is it my fault for going on TikTok? Is that TikTok's fault? the clip that, that I was introduced to was, where, Theo von talks about, a friend who's a Democrat. And that friend outright says that they only vote Democrat because they want there to be programs to keep citizens fed. And just satiated enough to not revolt, to not be so unhappy they need to do something about it. And Tucker Carlson was sitting there like in disbelief. He's like, your friend said this out loud? Like, he just was a fucking monster like that? And I think about that, that's what shocked me about it. That's why I brought it up to you guys. It's like something I wanted us to talk about. Because on his show, he is that guy. He wants there to be misery. He wants the working class to be grateful for a minimum wage job and not a living wage to be paid. he wants there to be a cut on welfare. He wants the quality of life to decrease for people that aren't the 1%. And when we think about the lawsuits that were coming up against Fox and they had to do the discovery period and you find that Tucker Carlson thinks that Trump is a lunatic and he thinks all these things that are in direct contrast to what he presents to the public. What do we, what do we do with that? how many other people do you think are on Fox News that are quite literally paid shills? Is it weird that Tucker Carlson would accuse people of being paid shills when he very clearly was one? How do we reconcile that? do we even have thoughts about that? Or is it just an observation where it's like, yeah, that sucks. Capitalism, baby.

Lauren 6:50

Well, it's a very good observation. I'm just not really sure if there's one single answer to this.

Sam 6:55

Do you think it's a uniquely American problem?

Lauren 6:57

No. No, because honestly, we have the same problems. We just hide them a little bit better than y'all.

Sam 7:05

I know. I kind of hate that your reputation is like, Oh, we say, sorry, we're really nice. We smell like maple syrup.

Lauren 7:11

So we don't smell like maple syrup, but yeah, we have the rest.

Brad 7:14

Tucker Carlson coming here in the new year to join our premier of Alberta, who invited him to come along and have a good conversation, apparently, and present his. Findings about the world to Albertans. the thing is, is that we just do it differently. we sheltered under other stuff, but like. Populism, uh, right wing extremism, all of those things are very much here and alive and doing mostly the same things like that they're doing in America. Just at a very slower pace, you know, much slower pace. things go quickly in America when you have the news engine that it has, right? So you have the Fox news, you have CNN things. Move fast when when people hit those dynamic big news channels, and it Internationally very quickly. So we end up hearing all about it I mean look at the make America great again movement. It went to make great Britain great again or whatever make Canada great again it Permeated itself everywhere else. Yeah, Is that the point? I mean, look at what Carlson was doing during those times. He was pushing that to an extreme, pushing Donald Trump, pushing all of those different narratives Yeah, it's huge.

Sam 8:33

I think two things. Like, yeah, absolutely. I think everyone borrows from each other, you know, they're just always, quote, unquote, improving how it happens and we all know, you know, we talk about it all the time, that, like, white supremacy is a, Well oiled international thing. it is not just like, well, we got Nazis here in the U. S. And you guys have white supremacists there in Canada. they're all talking to each other. They're all networking. They're all figuring this stuff out. And you were talking about Fox News, Brad. And it's something that. I'm curious about when I left the movement, the stuff that I believed was fringe. But if I were to leave the movement today, I wouldn't be leaving the movement. I would just stop watching Fox News. Do you think that Fox breeds white supremacists? Do you think it's a white supremacist institution? Or do you think that it's kind of just echoing what is already there?

Brad 9:28

I think when we We talk about wider issues like institutional and structural racism, like white supremacy, we do see it in, media companies just as much as we see it in law enforcement, in government. It's going to exist in places. I mean, I don't believe it's rife across the board, but I believe that it does exist and it is something that we need to look at and we need to think about Changing policy changing how we do these things Media Over the last 10 years has been widely problematic when it comes to far right stuff and sharing content I mean, how many times do we see an attack and then these media? places are like, Ooh, here's the attacker. I'm like, weren't there like 22 people killed? Why aren't we talking about that community and those people? Why are we talking about this white supremacist guy?

Lauren 10:19

this has been talked about before where people are almost having the same in these mass shooter types as they were with serial killers. Like the whole true crime thing.

Brad 10:28

we need to think about what's actually going on here and where these media places have played a role in, spreading and normalizing extremism. Right? it's, Carlson himself and we know the laundry list of people who have similar viewpoints on these different issues. So we have to think about what is it that we're doing wrong about platforming these people, I mean, there's like, there's still people who, reshare Rebel News articles and they're like, this is news.

Lauren 10:56

Is Rebel News still around?

Brad 10:58

Oh yeah. Your basic media literacy though, that's what I worry about for Americans and Canadians specifically.

Sam 11:05

I agree with you when it comes to platforming and stuff. And I guess I want to ask a couple things. One, do we think it, do we think Tucker Carlson really believes all this stuff? And if not, does it matter? Because he's pushing it anyway. And do we think that we'll see like a different side of him now that he's not beholden to, Daddy Murdoch?

Lauren 11:24

he may believe some of it, but honestly, just like the rest of us when we were there, how much of it was just parroting shit that we'd heard before? Probably the same case with this idiot. And he's also a huge show pony too, just saying.

Sam 11:35

Yeah, that's fair. I don't know, the thing is, I don't think he's dumb.

Lauren 11:39

I think someone can both be intelligent in some ways and really stupid in others. I've seen it.

Sam 11:45

That's fair. That's true. are there any news outlets and social media platforms that are doing it right? Like we talk about X being a huge issue now and going out of its way to stoke these kinds of fires and ingratiate itself to white supremacists. And then we look at Fox News that also goes out of its way to do these kinds of things or OANN when that still existed. what media are we following that we think is fair and balanced and like real,

Lauren 12:12

They're Canadian. I still like global news though. They're kind of center left.

Brad 12:16

You know, I think that there are plenty of news agencies out there that are doing just fine. What's problematic is. The politicization of all of this stuff. Right? Like, Tucker Carlson. I've watched some of his stuff now that he's not with Fox News, it can only get worse because now he's doing his own deal. So now he can say whatever he wants. Not that he wasn't before, but Fox News to me, even when I was in the movement was like a clown fest because it was almost like they wanted people to, think it was satire. I don't know if you get that feeling when you turn on Fox News. You're like, these people look like and sound very, almost Saturday Night Live y. Is that purposeful? Probably. I don't know.

Sam 12:59

Yeah, we've talked about kayfabe before we're in wrestling where it's they expect that you know, it's bullshit. So they never have to address the fact that it's bullshit. That's what I think of with Fox news. Like it's performance. it is the WWE wrestling of news pundits.

Brad 13:14

Yeah. And I think it's meant to be that way. And people equate CNN to be like the same thing. I'm like, no, because They, legitimately, send reporters internationally to, go and, actually do takes of things. I get some of their shows get a little bit weird, but, I have never found it to be as grossly performative as... Fox news. it doesn't have that feeling to it. Like it almost feels like it's a professional thing in comparison Like I've dealt with Fox news outside of the national one and like the local, like Fox news outlets, it seems to be not bad. I've had no bad interactions with it. It, It really depends. it's who you have there too. If you look at the a d list of people that are on Uh fox news as as like hosts or whatever. I mean, that's purposeful man. Like how many times can you interview Candace Owens and then feel good about what you've just done, right? they're repeating those things purposely because that's what they are. That's their deal. That's their shtick. And you shouldn't really have a shtick.

Sam 14:22

Yeah. And I think it's also perpetuated by the death of print news, I was actually just listening to a podcast. I was talking about how Buzzfeed and Huffington post kind of like lower the bar on journalistic standards because an investigative piece takes months to write and learn about and get all the information. Right. And now it's Get people to click now, get them to click a bunch, get them to stay and, and feel this thing that makes them want to come back. you're the drug dealer. You're the, like the first taste is free, but you got to keep coming back. And like journalism requires standards and that's just not how it works anymore. You can just go on and say, I've decided this is right, or this feels right to me. You know, I'm doing research right now into the mini series that we're doing on conspiracy theories and like, I'm surprised at a lot of it, things that you would think make sense. The counterintuitive information is the stuff that's actually true, which is. And it's just, I don't know. That's a surprise to me. And yeah, this is kind of just a little taste of what season two is going to be. And I am really excited for everything that we have in store. So thank you guys. And talk to you soon. All right, bye y'all. See you guys.