Note to John Oliver: How Not to Attack Tucker Carlson

Perhaps it’s a sign of the times and my weariness with the
approaches of the Democratic party (which is my party) that I’m starting to find fault with a former hero of mine in John Oliver.

Tucker Carlson: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) — YouTube

Taking down Tucker Carlson should be a slam dunk. If you have any desire to not live in a country where politicians and politically invested people (usually the right) are willing to destroy their opponents as well as any semblance of a functioning democracy for the sake of their party, then Tucker Carlson is your number one enemy. No matter what lows the Republicans sink to, he will always defend it. Not that there aren’t a lot of details that make it worse, but that’s, more or less, all you need to know.

However, John Oliver exercises a pretty sloppy round of generalizations and fallacious arguments that play into the hands of the white victim complex that Tucker Carlson preaches.

Unfortunately, John Oliver starts out by smearing Carlson merely for being White. This isn’t a smoking gun or some deep analysis. Oliver overtly calls out Carlson’s serendipity at breaking into the news industry for having the “whitest origin story ever told.” Carlson was largely unqualified for his career path or even higher academia, but that doesn’t mean that using White as a derogatory term (something increasingly common place) is a useful way to bring people away from Carlson’s side…