I got glasses in high school. It was great — I still remember marveling at all the things I could see. Apparently, objects 10 feet away from you aren’t supposed to be blurry. I also remember the school bullies having a blast laughing at ol’ four eyes, who was clearly a nerd now, with the final signifier in place.
Smarmy, sneering Tucker Carlson reminded me so much of those chickenshit bullies. He recently went on air to mock Chris Hayes for wearing glasses, which was a symptom now of being a feminist. Further, he spoke contemptuously of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a woman and “29 year old former bartender” who dared to talk about science. Chris Hayes is what every man would be if feminists had power. I had no idea that forcing men to wear glasses even if they didn’t need them was on the feminist agenda; I guess we’re all going to be forced to get degrees from Brown University and a Harvard fellowship, too.
Tucker Carlson attacks Chris Hayes' masculinity due to his concern about global warming pic.twitter.com/BRhahZbSNJ
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) April 2, 2019
There was more. He compared Hayes to Ellen Degeneres, as if that was some terrible insult.
“He looks like Ellen, kind of a fusion show,” Carlson said. “But did you hear what he said? Our only hope for survival. Holy smokes. That is terrifying. Help us, Chris Hayes.”
That’s not what Hayes said, of course. He said that some saw the Green New Deal as the only way of protecting our way of life. But Carlson’s frequent shtick isn’t to engage with arguments on the merit, preferring, instead, to levy insults.
As he did when first mentioning Hayes.
“Chris Hayes is what every man would be if feminists ever achieve absolute power in this country,” Carlson said. “Apologetic, bespectacled and deeply, deeply concerned about global warming and the patriarchal systems that cause it.”
Let’s compare Carlson to what science says…or at least, what one correlational study found.
To measure this, the researchers looked at Google searches for terms that associated with that insecurity — erectile dysfunction, hair loss, “how to get girls,” etc. — and cross-referenced the frequency of those searches with voting patterns in 2016 and 2018.
“We found that support for [President] Trump in the 2016 election was higher in areas that had more searches for topics such as ‘erectile dysfunction,’ ” the researchers wrote in an article for The Post. “Moreover, this relationship persisted after accounting for demographic attributes in media markets, such as education levels and racial composition, as well as searches for topics unrelated to fragile masculinity, such as ‘breast augmentation’ and ‘menopause.’ ”
But maybe the fact that Carlson is bleeding advertisers is more relevant to his deep insecurities.
Also, if you’re going to sneer at someone who graduated cum laude from Boston University for not being competent to explain science, you might want to get your facts straight, and not misrepresent what was said. What was that about “3 million years of human history”? Homo sapiens is about 200,000 years old, and for most of that we don’t have a record that would count as ‘history’. Is he counting australopithecines in that history?
Yes, I’ve noticed the prevalence of advertisements for virility enhancing products and boner pills on right wing talk radio.
Isn’t Ellen richer than Tucker? Apparently his kowtow function needs adjustment.
Christoph @ 1
Not to mention the common accusations that men who oppose the Right have “low testosterone.”
@Akira MacKenzie, #3: Well, SOMEONE is compensating for something…
I’m guessing, but I’m willing to bet that Hayes gets more py than Carlson — especially if you exclude commercially available py.
Well, that’s interesting. Apparently “” creates bold face until you type “” again, which turns it back to regular.
That’s “three asterisks”
Aw, fuck, let’s go there. I hear he’s desperate for advertisers. How about some makers of male “enhancement” products take out some ads on his show, to the effect of:
Tucker Carlson: It’s not just the bow tie that has him compensating.
or maybe Mattel
Hey, Tucker! Barbie says Ken’s better hung than you!
Feel free to suggest more.
Every time I see a clip of Tucker Carlson, he seems to be in one of two modes. Outrage over some perceived slight, or utter bafflement. He’s the sort that would carry a pocket full of pebbles, so he could periodically drop one and figure out which way gravity is pulling, except that would take too much thought and planning.
And don’t most human adults use some sort of corrective eyewear?
I’ve got my problems in life, but at least I’m not bothered by women running things, and I don’t worry about where the sun goes at night.
Wait. Wait! The sun goes somewhere at night? I thought God just turned it off.
now i’m scared
While the idea of 3 million years of human history is clearly wrong, it might be taken to mean the 3 million years since the genus homo diierentiated from australopithecine, approximately. Even though that history is at best recorded in scattered fossil remnants, as he’d be eager to note in other contexts. A better interpretation would be that we humans now have about 3 million years of CLIMATE history, relying upon techniques such as ice cores.
Of course, no right winger would want to actually intentionally say something true and intelligent, because it would crush their fragile little MAGA credibility with their tribe.
Well, of course. They’re his target audience.
Why should Carlson fret if his assertion that feminists want all men to be Chris Hayes is true? Hayes is white, successful, rich, intelligent, married to a woman and has kids. I thought all white supremacists wanted men to be like that?
Looks like Hayes wearing glasses and not being brutishly vicious in his manner must be more important to white supremacists than all his above characteristics. Shows you what they really value.
I got a good belly laugh out of the idea of Tucker Carlson attacking someone else’s masculinity. Really Tucker? Have you looked in a mirror lately?
Ha, old Chris Hayes, one of the few celebrities I’ve actually met.
He’s about my height – 6’2″ – maybe a bit shorter, and is a pretty decent athlete. We played pick up basketball games at the same spot for a while.
Let me just speculate that Tucker Carlson is not similarly coordinated and would, in fact, lose any “traditional manliness” competition against Mr. Hayes.
I remember getting glasses in the 6th grade and realizing two things: rooms had corners and trees had leaves. They’d all just been blurs up until then. I was so happy.
As for Mothertucker Carlson, I can’t think of anyone more slathered in white, male privilege.
redwood, I mentioned that in an online group, and it was surprising how many people said “Leaves!”.
Including me.
He is also a white supremacist, can’t forget about that.
@doubtthat, # 15: I remember a story where Al Franken was at a gathering, and some guy within earshot of Franken remarked that “liberals are all physical cowards.” Franken politely replied, “Would you care to step outside?” (The guy didn’t care to step outside.)
One week, the apprentice minister at our size-challenged Baptist church gave what may have been his first sermon. It’s the only one I remember from Brother Tom, but I think he went ahead and eventually took over. It was the story of the young boy who got his first pair of glasses, and he said, “Oh, look, Father: That tree has leaves!”
Many years later, it had become a go-to story for any time I wanted to portray a singsong delivery of not-much. Chronology can be hard, but I’ll assume I had already run it into the ground with my friend Mike, who one day observed that I couldn’t read a street sign from a particular distance and suggested I should get my eyes checked. I ended up with glasses (so much for my pride in my eyes, which were the only part of me that didn’t seem defective in some way).
Needless to say, the phrase “Oh, look, Father!”, in Brother Tom’s distinctive cadence, got an additional workout after that.