SCOTT JOHNSON: Tucker Carlson’s dark turn.
Thirty-four years ago, William F. Buckley Jr. published a 40,000-word essay in this magazine titled “In Search of Anti-Semitism,” wherein he renounced two prominent conservative figures for comments — much like Carlson’s — revealing their anti-Israel and anti-Jewish animus. Among many other calumnies, Joseph Sobran, a senior editor at NR, had called Israel an “anti-Christian country,” and, more notoriously, [Pat] Buchanan had suggested that Jews seek to aid Israel by starting wars that Gentiles have to fight. Both men, Buckley concluded, had engaged in antisemitism, and both of their reputations suffered because of Buckley’s careful but devastating reproach.
The evidence of Carlson’s antisemitism is far more plentiful, and damning, than that used to indict Buchanan. Today, however, there is no figure on the American right with the gravitas of Buckley, who could literally write extremists and bigots out of the conservative movement with a well-argued essay. But even more central to the rise of Carlson and others of his ilk is that the moral and political guardrails that used to protect our civic life from the pollutive emanations of illiberalism and uncivilized behavior have all but vanished. The antibodies that a healthy society develops to resist Jew-hatred are fast dissipating. Eight decades after the end of World War II, the fading memory of the Holocaust, the rise of identitarian thinking, and the ideological corruption of American higher education have contributed to making our country a place where growing numbers of citizens find it reasonable to blame humanity’s perennial scapegoat, the Jews, for what ails society. Tucker Carlson’s enduring popularity indicates that the cancer on civilization that is antisemitism metastasizes apace.
Exit quote:
He’s totally gone. I don’t know if it’s the money or if he’s high on himself. Either way this person is now right up there with Candace Owens for me. https://t.co/eFeX4Oz6QF
— Insurrection Barbie (@DefiyantlyFree) July 25, 2025