You can just say things

Tucker Carlson and the post-fact right

Whatever happened to America, or the US, or California, or whatever they’re calling it? We can’t even agree on what it’s called. For whatever reason, and one suspects it has something to do with the sewer that is X’s ‘For You’ page, there is a section of the American Right that seems to have lost sight of the basic responsibility to care about whether what you say is true. ‘You can just do things’, and, apparently, ‘You can just say things’, regardless of whether those things make any sense at all.

Perhaps the person who has been destroyed more than anyone else by this mentality is Tucker Carlson. I say this with a great deal of sadness: Carlson was once a powerful voice on the American Right, who wielded great influence over conservative voters in an overwhelmingly positive fashion. His six years presenting the highest-rated primetime show on Fox represented perhaps the only period in which the channel played a positive role in the right-wing ecosystem — not just because of his support for Donald Trump, but also because of his willingness to criticise the administration where it deviated from the principles that defined its agenda.

Since being fired from Fox in 2023, Carlson has hosted an independent show which is mostly broadcast from his home in Maine. His contributions have become ever stranger since then, most notably when he claimed to have been attacked in his sleep by a demon:

Megyn Kelly: ‘You think you were attacked by a demon… I challenge anyone to tell us that there aren’t demons among us.’

Tucker Carlson: ‘I never thought there were… because culturally I am just not from a world where people are attacked by demons. And in fact, when it happened the next morning, when I saw the blood on my sheets, I actually called someone who worked for me who was a very sincere, lifelong evangelical, and I said, “Have you ever heard of this?” And she said, “Yeah, it happens all the time.”’

[…]

Tucker Carlson: ‘I go to bed, with my wife and my four dogs who sleep in the bed, who are hunting dogs… I wake up at 2:30 in the morning, and I couldn’t breathe. At all. My throat was closed. It wasn’t like I had [sleep] apnoea, it was strong, I couldn’t breathe. So I get up, I stand in the doorway of our bedroom and I’m like, “Wow, I’m dying”, I can feel myself starting to grey out… [M]y wife wakes up, and says “What is going on?” And all of a sudden, I had this horrible pain underneath my arms, like on the side of my chest. I thought I’d been ripped with a knife or something. It just was very intense. So I go in the bathroom, I turn on the light, and I have claw marks.’

Pimlico Journal has made extensive critiques of Political Christianity in Britain, but it is entirely understandable that the Right in America, a far more religious country, would adopt a more religious tone. Certainly, we have no issue with personal faith; in fact, whilst it’s something I can’t bring myself to, I am certainly open to the idea that it carries benefits for many who can.

That is not what this is. If you are willing to ascribe what sounds like some kind of heart condition to the machinations of literal demons at work in the physical world, you have abandoned any commitment to reality. You have lost any interest in describing facts about the world in terms of material causes and consequences. You have become impossible to debate with, because your belief in your arguments no longer relies on them being true, or even plausible. Any claim can be asserted in this manner. Any falsehood can be accepted. It is true that the institutions which are supposed to distinguish fact from fiction have lied to you, consistently, about many things. But making up your own fictions is not a solution.

One of the most obnoxious tendencies within this new mode of discourse is the presentation of mundane, obvious, irrelevant or nonsensical claims as profound analysis which really says something about the world. Carlson’s piece for The Spectator this week — recycled from the monologue he gave as a preface to an interview with Piers Morgan — started out in precisely this fashion:

Whatever happened to Britain, or the UK, or England, or whatever they’re calling it? We can’t even agree on what it’s called… Britain, which is an island in a pretty inhospitable climate, controlled something like a quarter of the Earth’s surface… And then 25 years later, it was this kind of sad, soggy welfare state, which is, to some extent, what it still is, except maybe even a little bit worse. What happened?

It might seem petty when taken in isolation, but given that this tone exists across a great deal of Carlson’s recent work, it’s worth pointing out that his confusion over the various terms for different parts of this country actually says nothing at all about our political problems and circumstances. In 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain, of which England was a constituent part, were joined into The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. There are therefore several terms which have historically been used to describe this country. The fact that a number of them are still used in different circumstances today says nothing whatsoever about our confused national identity.

It’s also blatantly, factually incorrect to describe Britain’s climate as ‘inhospitable’. Our summers are mild; our winters are relatively warm. There are not more than a couple of days in each decade where one might be at risk of harm from excessive heat or cold. Britain experiences a similar amount of rainfall as New York and Washington DC, and far less than Florida. Again, this may seem an unnecessary quibble, but for the fact that this kind of completely unnecessary falsehood underpins an increasing number of the claims made on the American Right, especially when it comes to their understanding of Britain and Europe. It seems like an unbelievably basic argument to have to make, but it genuinely matters whether the claims that support your arguments are true or false.

Carlson goes on to provide an answer to his question, asked in such insinuating tones. He suggests that Britain has declined not because of material policies, but because of a more fundamental — even spiritual — problem in the British people. This kind of analytical style has come to dominate increasing sections of the American and European Right. In a way, it is easy to see why it can be so attractive. It carries a connotation of intellectual depth, especially in a broader political environment which privileges secret or heretofore undiscovered knowledge — what they don’t want you to know; a little red pill for you, boy!

There is a long history of British ‘declinists’ attributing what are often fairly mundane, if highly damaging, policy decisions to something deep within English (or British) culture: from Correlli Barnett’s claims of an elite bent on building a ‘New Jerusalem’ rather than restoring industrial capacity, to Martin Weiner’s allegations of a deep-seated anti-industrial and anti-technical streak within English culture. Both have been considered ‘essential reading’ for the British Right for decades. The detailed work of the historians who have comprehensively debunked this kind of woolly analysis, by contrast, has never enjoyed such popularity, especially on the Right. But why would it? It is far less entertaining to read. The retreat into discussions of national spirit or character, whilst giving the false impression of sophistication, has always been one of the most popular forms of politics-as-entertainment.

Blaming decline on vague spiritual factors also relieves us from having any responsibility to come up with solutions to immediate, material problems, or to do the difficult and genuinely dangerous thing and actually seek power to change the world. If Tucker Carlson is correct, and George Soros does in fact control the machinations of the world from his conference room in Manhattan, he would be jumping for joy to see the man who was once the leading voice of the new right reduced to incoherent babbling about spiritual decay — because no amount of going to church is going to change our political system.

Carlson links to a video of a woman being arrested for praying outside an abortion clinic, and opines:

So what is that? It’s hard to argue that if your government is arresting people for praying that you’re watching a political phenomenon. Because, of course, praying is not simply a non-violent act. It’s not even a physical act. It can’t possibly, at least in secular terms, affect outcomes or harm anyone. Praying for people can never be a crime. But it is a crime in Great Britain, literally a crime. And the woman you saw is not the only person who’s been arrested for doing it. So clearly we’re watching a spiritual phenomenon here. There’s sort of no arguing it once you see things like that.

Nothing in this entire paragraph is even remotely true, and every sentence is a non-sequitur. There are, in fact, a great number of criminal actions which are neither violent nor even physical — fraud, perjury, slander, and so on. These crimes were, if anything, more commonly accepted in the past (when ‘blasphemy’ was still a crime) than they are today. Of course, it is still wrong to arrest people for silently praying regardless of where that takes place, and anyone who values basic freedoms should oppose such actions whether they take place in Britain, or indeed elsewhere.

Nevertheless, to claim that the laws which ban these practices are an act of spiritual demoralisation is simply to demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of this country. This may be hard for Americans to accept, but Christianity is simply not viewed by the British establishment as something which should be suppressed or controlled, in no small part because there are very few conservative Christians in Britain. It is simply not a real threat. Most denominations are now either explicitly left-wing or, at best, politically quietist.

Outside of a small old guard of Conservative MPs, it is now more common to find political sensibilities genuinely informed by Christian faith among the British Left, as can be seen in former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, current Labour Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander, and even Satan himself; Tony Blair. Anyone could take issue with their interpretations of Christian doctrine, but that they were genuinely motivated, at least in part, by their Christian faith in their politics is clear to see. The average politician in Britain views Christianity as a vaguely positive force in our society. There is no tradition of laïcité in this country’s political culture, and there probably never will be.

Christian socialism has a long history in Britain, and that tradition survives to this day. Christian socialists were instrumental in the formation of the early twentieth century British Left and heavily influenced the first Labour Governments. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) — a core institution of the British New Left — held its first meeting at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster in 1958. Rowan Williams, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002, was arrested as a student for singing psalms at a CND protest, and, much like those who succeeded him, spent a great deal of his time as Archbishop decrying the ‘market state’ and advocating against climate change and for mass migration.

Suffice to say, the British state is not engaged in a anti-religious crusade against the Church. The cause of these arrests is far more mundane. Most British people believe that abortion is an acceptable, if perhaps regrettable, choice for a woman to make. They also recognise that it is a deeply unpleasant experience which can cause a great deal of distress. They feel it is entirely unnecessary to worsen that distress by standing by in silent judgement, and they see the desire to ‘save the souls of aborted foetuses’ as an indulgence. Again, these laws are wrong, and should be repealed, but they do not constitute an act of spiritual warfare, and nor are they driven by a hatred of Christianity.

Carlson goes on to discuss the ‘series of crises’ that face Britain today. Apparently, the most pressing among these are the following:

Drug use, alcohol use. Their appearance has changed. People are no longer as well kept, the streets, the landscape is not tidy anymore. It’s got lots of litter and graffiti in some places.

And why are we facing these horrors?

The point that underlies all of this is a really obvious one, that too few people say. This is the behaviour of a defeated people. This is what it looks like when you lose. This is what it looks like when you’re on your way out to be replaced by somebody else. This is what it looks like to be an American Indian…

Carlson notes the demographic change which has afflicted London over the past eight decades. The immigrants, he says, despite being poorer, are far happier than the natives, because they are not ‘defeated’, and ‘they don’t hate themselves’. Naturally, he gives no evidence at all that immigrants are happier than natives. But besides this, it seems, in Carlson’s analysis, that it is not simply immigration that is the cause of this demoralisation — it is self-hatred which is the cause of both. One wonders which gods the American Indians shunned to summon the white devil to their shores.

History is just filled with examples of people who get invaded and clubbed to death and have their women stolen from them, and they’re fine. They’re fine. It’s the people who feel defeated inside who no longer exist. And that is happening to the West. And it’s measurable.

Actually, I really don’t think it is! But he continues:

Abortion is the way to stop people from reproducing. So is birth control, by the way, of course. So is convincing people that their dumb job is more important than having kids. It’s not. It never will be. Any person who can get clarity for a second will recognise that. It’s only about stopping you from having more of you.

And is there anything that’s a clearer representation of how you feel about yourself than how you feel about having kids?

So Brits are demoralised. They hate themselves, and they have abandoned God. As a result, we have invited the world to settle our cities and decided it’s no longer worth reproducing. I hate to imagine the demoralisation that must have been suffered in South Korea and Japan to produce such low birth rates — although it is curious that they have mostly managed to stave off immigration regardless. And what about China? Aren’t they winning more than anyone? Surely they should be finding new babies in every nook and cranny, not revising down population estimates by hundreds of millions?

Of course, the answer to these questions is that this whole analysis is just complete nonsense. None of it has anything to do with the reality of British society or the political problems we face. The problems of our time are existential, but they are mundane. We face replacement in our own country because we have the wrong immigration policies. We face financial ruin because we have the wrong economic policies. We face a diminution in global power and status because our government is mismanaging the country. This is because we have people with bad ideas in power. The solution to these problems is to figure out an alternative set of policies, take full control of government, and implement them. This is a normal, material political contest with unusually high stakes. It is not a battle against ‘demonic’ forces of evil.

Detaching from these realities is deranging the right in a number of ways, and trends which began on the other side of the Atlantic are now increasingly visible in Britain also. The reconceptualization of mass immigration as a consequence of a deep suicidal impulse borne of spiritual degradation has led to an increasing focus on ‘Islam’ as a threat to the European way of life both at home and abroad, with the suggestion being that we are engaged in some kind of civilisational struggle with the Muslim world. This is simply not true. The Arab world has a combined GDP approximately equal to Germany. Islam has no cultural power, as evident in the fact that there are approximately zero conversions to Islam by Europeans. The resistance to closing our borders comes entirely from the domestic left. This narrative therefore distracts from concrete political problems, and gives energy to Tommy Robinson style multiracial anti-Islam politics which takes the focus off of demographics.

Perhaps more immediately disastrous is the way in which sections of the right have begun to embrace nonsensical economic positions which align with their moral-mental universe but fail to correspond to any sort of reality. It is not in any way illegitimate to suggest that markets can operate inefficiently, or that non-economic social goals might sometimes be prioritised at the expense of wealth. Wading into that conversation nonetheless requires an extreme degree of care, and commitment to rigorous thinking, at risk of wandering into the territory of idiotic populism.

In this campaign ad, a prominent GOP candidate to replace DeSantis as Florida Governor argues that property speculation should be stopped by banning ‘BlackStone’ and ‘foreign investors’ from buying homes in Florida. In the next sentence, he argues that property taxes should be abolished. This is a nonsensical position. If you want to ensure that housing remains a consumption good and does not become financialised, the best way to do this is to tax property at a rate sufficient to eliminate gains from rising asset prices. Instead of thinking seriously about economic issues and their solutions, Fishback opts for braindead populism by lashing out at a financial institution with a vaguely ominous corporate-sounding name. He is not by any measure the most egregious example of this kind of thinking!

Much of the conversation around tariffs and industrial policy falls into the same category. Again, it’s important to reiterate that some kind of industrial policy will certainly be needed to ensure that Western economies remain competitive, to rebuild Western domestic industrial capacity, and to maintain our technological lead in the industries which will dominate the coming decades. These are hard problems which require serious thinking, and we can already see where failure on this leads from the example of the Trump administration, which is seeing a rapid drop in popularity primarily driven by failures on the economy. America can recover from a period of economic mismanagement, but if these failures allow the left to regain power in 2026 and 2028 it may not be able to recover from another four years of open borders.

The Right is at a structural disadvantage compared to the Left. The Left control government at all meaningful levels. They control our society’s intellectual, cultural, and educational institutions. They control the majority of the media, including almost all prestige media (with the exception of Pimlico Journal). Almost everyone who matters in the world is quite firmly on the side of the Left. We have only one advantage, and it is a substantial one. We can tell the truth. We can identify reality. We can point at the problems people face, the ways in which their lives are getting worse, and tell them honestly what the causes of those problems are. Sadly, the truth does not always win. On average, it has been losing for decades. It remains our only hope.

Nobody believes that Nigel Farage will be an exceptionally competent administrator. Nobody expects that he will have a unique ability to manage his cabinet and extract unusually successful results. Everybody recognises that he has no experience of government. Most people think of him as a single-issue campaigner, and few think he currently has well-developed ideas for education, healthcare, or the economy. Despite all of this, he has been the most significant British political figure of the twenty-first century, and he is now the most likely person to become Prime Minister after the next General Election.

How is this possible? What do we see in him? Ask any of his supporters — in 2025, 2015, or 2005 — and they will tell you: He tells it like it is. If that ceases to be true, God save us from the Demons.

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This article was written by George Spencer, our managing editor. Have a pitch? Send it to submissions@pimlicojournal.co.uk.

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