Tucker Carlson is using a cancel culture-style narrative to fuel COVID vaccine conspiracies
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Fox News has been the epicenter of coronavirus denialism over the past year. "Now, with the virus slowly being brought under control, the network’s opinion side has begun raising bogus concerns about the vaccine. And no one has done more to advance vaccine skepticism on the network than Tucker Carlson," says Alex Shephard. "Carlson led his Monday night program, the most popular on cable news, with a sinister segment that falsely suggested there were a vast number of unknown risks involved in vaccinations. 'Don’t dismiss those questions from anti-vaxxers,' he said. 'Don’t kick people off social media for asking them. Answer the questions. It turns out there are things we don’t know about the effects of this vaccine—and all vaccines, by the way. It’s always a trade-off,' he continued, slipping into full-on anti-vax mode...This is the same narrative Carlson pushes on cancel culture. Here, too, the insidious power of the left, Big Tech, and the media combine. Many honest people like Carlson have questions that aren’t being answered; all they want is a debate. But instead, they are mercilessly canceled. The evil forces won’t rest until all of their critics are silenced. After all, if they’ll come for Dr. Seuss, they’ll come for you, too. In this version of reality, nothing you read or see can be trusted—except, that is, for Tucker Carlson, a champion of all the people fed up with being told what to do and say and think. Thankfully, they have a frozen-food heir with a perennially pursed lip to turn to. Carlson is making vaccines a part of his larger cultural narrative. This is profoundly cynical and could have life and death consequences for his viewers. It’s also cowardly—Carlson is hiding behind the pretext of 'just asking questions,' allowing him to deny that he has any insidious intent at all."
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