So-called conservatives like Tucker Carlson want you and me to believe they are defenders of free market capitalism, but in a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, his social fascism colors shined brightly for those with eyes to see.
In an interview conducted with Amazon union organizer Christian Smalls, Carlson said he was “rooting for [him] to succeed” while simultaneously criticizing Democratic Socialist and Marxist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for not helping Smalls (via Mediaite.com):
Christian Smalls was fired from the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island in 2020, but his attempts to unionize the facility did not end there. In February, he was actually arrested after being asked to leave the facility.
Two years into his fight against the company, New York employees voted 1,518 to 1,154 on April 1 to join the Amazon Labor Union he helped found.
Smalls said he succeeded, no thanks to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who he and other union organizers said abandoned them during the fight.
“Were you surprised that Sandy Cortez — Alexander Ocasio-Cortez — who has said repeatedly that she’s on the side of the worker against the corporation, wasn’t standing with you at the barricades?” Carlson asked.
Smalls said Ocasio-Cortez was not alone in abandoning the cause. He said she and other House members supported him initially but were soon nowhere to be found.
“I’ve never been particularly pro-union, but it does seem like Amazon needs some counterbalance,” Carlson said. “If this huge company, the workers have no power, and maybe we could, I don’t know, share a little power with the people who work there. That’s my view, anyway.”
“I certainly am rooting for you,” Carlson said. “Maybe if they throw some more woke slogans at you, you’ll forget you can’t feed your family.” (emphasis mine)
Please note: Carlson’s criticism wasn’t directed at AOC or her Marxist ideology, he was upset that she didn’t act on it. Additionally, he volunteered to assume the role she failed to fill.
Fascism is described in part as a political movement that embraces far-right nationalism and authoritarian government. Fascists believe the state takes precedence over individual interests. Economic self-sufficiency is prized, but through state-controlled companies.
Socialism is described in part as a political movement that embraces Marxism and authoritarian government. Socialists believe the collective takes precedence over individual interests. Economic equality is prized, but through state-owned companies.
Social fascism was a theory that was supported by the Communist International (Comintern) and affiliated communist parties in the early 1930s that held that social democracy (Democratic Socialism) was a variant of fascism because it stood in the way of a dictatorship of the proletariat, in addition to a shared corporatist economic model.
When Joseph Stalin described fascism and social democracy as “twin brothers,” social fascism was accepted by the world Communist movement. Stalin argued that fascism depended on the active support of social democracy and that social democracy depended on the active support of fascism.
Just like the Trumpist Republican Party, Tucker Carlson embraces social fascism and big government over the private sector.
In the first annual National Conservatism Conference (NCC) held July 2019 in Washington, D.C., fascism was preached as a necessary replacement for traditional conservatism because it had outlived its usefulness economically and culturally, and in his keynote address to attendees, Carlson agreed:
“The main threat to your ability to live your life as you choose does not come from government anymore. It comes from the private sector.”
Last fall, Carlson conducted an interview he held with J.D. Vance — an Ohio Trumpist Republican recently endorsed by Trump for the U.S. Senate — where they discussed the need for government to seize the assets of political non-profits that don’t believe as they do, and then redistribute that wealth to organizations that agree with their “conservative” views.
During the interview, Carlson complained that groups like the Ford Foundation can “completely change the country, non-democratically, using their tax exemption,” and he appeared shocked that Marxists like Bernie Sanders weren’t pushing hard to tax “openly partisan” nonprofits. In response, Vance called groups like the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Harvard University endowment “fundamentally cancers on society.”
Since fascism and Democratic Socialism are twins, Tucker Carlson wasn’t so much criticizing AOC as he was agreeing with her anti-free market agenda.
A few months ago, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) joined Influencers with Andy Serwer to share her thoughts on why capitalism is no longer a “redeemable” system in America, and why it should be replaced with Marxism to provide “a more just economy.”
“[Capitalists] can control our labor. They can control massive markets that they dictate and can capture governments. And they can essentially have power over the many. And to me that is not a redeemable system for us to be able to participate in for the prosperity and peace for the vast majority of people.
“Free markets are not the same thing as capitalism. And you can have markets where businesses and ways of producing, trading, selling goods are really controlled and not just controlled but giving more power to workers. People get a fair shake. Union jobs, unionized workplaces, all of these are different steps and levels that we’re talking about in a more just economy.” (emphasis mine)
Perhaps Tucker Carlson can put his social fascism to work to help Democratic Socialists pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a pro-union/anti-liberty law that creates a new Marxist proletariat by destroying the jobs and livelihoods of tens of millions of people who work for themselves.
Under Marxism, the proletariat represents the class of workers engaged in industrial production and whose chief source of income is derived from the sale of their labor power. Marxists believe the proletariat has been exploited under capitalism, forced to sub-standard wages from the business owners who control the means of production (the bourgeoisie).
The ultimate goal of this ideology is for the proletariat to unite and seize power from evil capitalists and create a communist society free of class distinctions — a goal apparently shared by Tucker Carlson.
The destruction of conservatism has been a work-in-progress by the Mitch McConnells and John Boehners of the Republican Party ever since Ronald Reagan handed over the reins to George H.W. Bush, but the stark reality of its demise has come sharply into focus in the Age of Trump.
Equally tragic in the destruction of conservatism is how media conservatives in-name-only like Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson have embraced nationalism/fascism and sold their souls to Faustian Trump.
Tucker Carlson wants you and me to believe he is a defender of free market capitalism, but he has abandoned the principles of liberty to embrace social fascism.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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