Right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson says that because of his fury over President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, he won’t vote for the Republican Party in the midterm elections. Trump should be terrified: Carlson’s defection from the party is precisely the kind of intra-MAGA blow that could demobilize Republican voters ahead of November.
In an interview with the “Can’t be Censored” podcast that aired Thursday, Carlson said, “There’s no chance I would support the Republican Party” this fall because he cannot back “a political party that’s not loyal to the United States, that puts the interest of a foreign country above those of its own citizens.” The country Carlson is referring to is Israel. And while his argument is not accurate, it taps into a narrative that has a lot of potency on the right.
Carlson’s increasingly hostile position toward the GOP is dangerous for the party’s midterm prospects.
As I explained last month, Carlson is the most prominent commentator on the right who promotes the idea that Israel has made the U.S. into a “slave” and has manipulated Trump and the U.S. into a war with Iran. That argument stems from ethnonationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories that suggest Israel (and, it is implied, the Jewish community more broadly) is puppeteering the U.S. This position allows Carlson to simultaneously encourage ethnic chauvinism at home and argue for isolationist foreign policy — in this case, cutting off ties to Israel as a way to end warmaking. As always with right-wing nationalists, society’s problems lie with groups deemed insidious “outsiders” rather than systems or ideologies at home.
The truth, of course, is that Israel has no power to force the U.S. to do anything it doesn’t want to do. A war between the U.S. and Iran has long been a possibility — one that Trump has fantasized about for nearly 40 years. And his withdrawal from the Obama administration’s deal with Iran in his first term set the stage for this war. The U.S. and Israel started this war together over perceived shared interests.
Reality notwithstanding, Carlson’s increasingly hostile position toward the GOP is dangerous for the party’s midterm prospects. Polls show increasingly negative attitudes toward Israel on the right, particularly among young Republicans; support for Israel is evolving into a wedge issue within the GOP. Now Carlson is not just disagreeing with Trump’s pro-Israel, pro-war position. He is treating Trump’s stance as an unforgivable offense. “I’ve been a consistent defender for 35 years of the Republican party,” Carlson said. “There’s no defending this, because it’s immoral, and it’s exactly the opposite of what a political party in a democracy is charged with doing, which is representing its own voters.”
Regardless of where Republicans land on Israel policy, the war in Iran is not considered widely successful among Republicans, and Trump’s approval ratings have fallen as the war has increased energy prices. Now the most influential right-wing commentator on America is saying that the war is such a terrible misdeed that it’s worth shunning the party over it.
Carlson knows he has persuasive power. “I’m out, and if I’m out, then I think a lot of other people are out,” he said during the interview. His position isn’t necessarily enough to get people to drop their registration with the party. But it certainly could hurt enthusiasm. That in turn could mean lower turnout and a rougher midterm outcome for the president and his party.
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