Two Small Lego Bricks

At first glance, it’s not clear why Tucker Carlson is angry. He was born into an affluent family, his father has a few small islands and, during his career, served as director of Voice of America and as U.S. ambassador to Seychelles (which is probably the most desirable paid occupation in the world). Young Tucker studied at upscale private schools, and although the CIA didn’t hire him after his first job application, he now pontificates for $10 million on Fox News. His grandchildren won’t have to work a day of their lives. This is one of many similarities between him and his last week’s interviewee, the Hungarian prime minister, who also gives the impression of being a very angry person (because everyone just wants to hurt him).

Carlson and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán really needed each other. They connected like two small Lego bricks. Both live off fighting an uphill battle against an imagined enemy, although they have somewhat differing ideas about it. For example, according to Carlson, Chinese President Xi Jinping kills his political opponents, which is so not true in Orbán’s book that his staff originally left it out of the interview transcript that was sent to foreign correspondents (who then had no choice but to publish the original version). In his discussion on Saturday, Carlson mentioned, critically, that some in America have the nerve to build an illiberal democracy, which, for us, seems like an interesting* thought. We do agree that it’s not a nice thing when politicians who have never held different jobs get rich. Although Carlson was referring to former President Barack Obama, who got rich after his presidency, here, we refer to his new idol who remains in power.

It could be mentioned that Carlson does not speak our language nor have any clue how we live; therefore, it does not matter what he says, but we don’t need to mention that. Rather, let’s treat it as it is: the opinion of a desperate millionaire fearful of losing his own privileges in a changing world. And from the Orbán interview, it is worth noting that he was praying America doesn’t support Hungarian opposition parties next year. Both their angers feed on fear.

*Translator’s Note: The author thinks this is interesting because it is well-known that Orbán has built an illiberal democracy in Hungary and Carlson criticized this practice in their interview.