Not long ago, the idea of conservative commentator Tucker Carlson extolling the virtues of a Democratic presidential candidate named Kennedy would have seemed absurd, but that is the world in which we now live.
On Thursday, Carlson posted Episode 6 of “Tucker on Twitter.”
Carlson’s corresponding tweet, which might double as the episode’s unofficial title, speaks volumes: “Bobby Kennedy is winning.”
Ep. 6 Bobby Kennedy is winning pic.twitter.com/jW51PYahLV
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 22, 2023
Carlson began by contrasting the establishment media’s harsh treatment of Kennedy with its response to Donald Trump’s 2015 campaign announcement.
“Trump got a gentle scalp massage, by comparison, when he announced,” Carlson said.
Carlson traced the establishment media’s anti-Kennedy vitriol to a July 2005 article in which Kennedy raised questions about a possible link between vaccines and autism.
In 2005, pharmaceutical companies responded to Kennedy with “the most ferocious public relations campaign in memory.”
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Today, pharmaceutical companies can rely on legions of enthusiastic media censors. Last month, Instagram shut down Kennedy’s account, before reinstating it early in June. On Monday, YouTube removed a video of Kennedy’s recent conversation with Jordan Peterson.
Last week, Kennedy appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” and discussed a possible connection between vaccines and everything from allergies to eczema to chronic diseases.
Anna Merlan, staff writer at the now-bankrupt vice.com, demanded that Spotify censor the episode.
Peter Hotez, a Texas pediatrician whom Carlson called “a Biden shill and a vaccine promoter,” agreed with Merlan. When Rogan invited Hotez onto his show to debate Kennedy, Hotez refused.
The Hotez-Kennedy dispute occupied Twitter for several days, with Kennedy remaining largely silent. In the end, Hotez and his elitist supporters agreed that it would be beneath Hotez’s dignity to debate Kennedy.
Carlson played a clip of Hotez on CNN during the pandemic calling for Homeland Security and the Justice Department to get involved in silencing anti-vaccine rhetoric.
According to Carlson, however, the tyrants are losing because events have shown that their arguments have no merit.
“America’s medical establishment has beclowned itself for all time. Its official positions on vaccines, psychiatric drugs, puberty blockers, reassignment surgeries, a long list of other politically fashionable priorities, have no connection whatsoever to legitimate science. It’s all effectively witchcraft,” Carlson said.
Despite the authoritarians’ best efforts, people see what is happening, which means that Kennedy “is winning.”
Kennedy is winning not because of resources but because “gatekeepers” like Merlan and Hotez “are transparently ridiculous.”
Carlson covered a good deal of ground in an 18-minute video that has averaged 1 million views per hour since it was posted on Thursday evening.
Depending on how events unfold in the coming months and years, we might look back on this video as a seminal moment in American political life.
Inside-the-beltway types, desperate to get on with business as usual, continue to behave as if Americans are divided between Democrats and Republicans.
On some issues, particularly cultural ones, that division remains relevant.
When it comes to power and interests, however, Trump exposed the uniparty rot. Alignments are shifting. On those issues, Americans are divided, not between Democrats and Republicans, but between ins and outs, elitists and populists.
Despite brazen censorship, Carlson remains the most prominent conservative-populist commentator.
Despite brazen censorship, Kennedy has emerged as the primary Democratic challenger to President Joe Biden.
The union of Carlson’s voice with Kennedy’s must strike the rotten uniparty establishment as a political thunderclap.
