Quote: (01-08-2017 11:13 AM)IveBeenFramed Wrote:
This isn't the Tucker Carlson I remember getting consistently owned by liberals over on CNN...what changed about him? Now he's owning people left and right that he brings on the show.
The more I've thought about it, the more I think this is all about Jon Stewart.
I think following Jon Stewart going on Crossfire in 2004 and creating that buzz that arguably led to the downfall of that show, Tucker had to have realized that this is what plays. I mean, Stewart did that just a short time before YouTube was launched, but right around the time that videos getting passed around from other sources was creating the need that YouTube eventually filled. It was a relatively viral video if i recall correctly, and Stewart showed the footage on the Daily Show and it was this moment during the Bush administration where a lot of the "Daily Show liberals" got to feel this sense of victory and validation. These same Daily Show liberals gave way to the modern day leftist in a lot of ways - "Occupy Wall Street" types.
Meanwhile, I think Tucker Carlson was playing the long game. The dude knows the issues, has strong beliefs, and is a trained journalist - I'm sure he wasn't real happy that he was allowed to get clowned (at least in the court of public opinion) by a comedian who should have been out of his depth. What I think we have now is a new Tucker Carlson who is giving liberals
exactly what hosts like Jon Stewart have been giving conservatives for years. He doesn't care about playing fair - he pulls out articles written in Teen Vogue to discredit that one broad's credibility in political issues, he calls out tweets made knowing full well he's just putting people on the back foot and causing them to lose their cool while he does that open-mouthed stare that makes a neutral viewer sense he's in control via his pure (and sometimes punched-up) incredulousness. He owns people and he is picking targets who he knows he will own, just as the Daily Show did for all 15 years of Jon Stewart's tenure.
Of course, his timing is perfect - Trump showed conservatives that they can go on the offensive and win. More to the point, that they lose by staying on the defensive. Carlson is just applying that high energy to his interviews. The more this keeps working for Tucker, the more I'm confident in saying he might actually be this administration's Jon Stewart - only he's collecting liberal scalps. And Trump isn't even in office yet.