Tucker Carlson doesn’t matter. How we talk about him does

The American Right is split into two uneasy factions on foreign policy: hawks, who tolerate US military intervention around the world, and restrainers, who loathe it. Among the most vocal of the restrainer camp is political commentator Tucker Carlson, who issued dire warnings against US backing if Israel should attempt to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. 

Carlson cast such action as a path to catastrophe, claiming it would serve only the interests of a foreign country, and not those of Americans. Despite being long said to have the ear of Donald Trump, the president put him in his place over social media several days into Israel’s campaign in Iran, imploring followers to explain to “kooky” Tucker Carlson that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. 

Just in the few days since, Carlson has already lost considerable standing — yes among conservatives, but also among Trump’s MAGA base supporters, who, war-weary as they are, overwhelmingly oppose letting Iran develop nukes. There is a growing consensus that Carlson is misinformed, and that his stance on this issue in particular is born of downright fiction. The same cannot be said, though, of another accusation that Carlson faces from many supporters of Israel: that he is an antisemite.

Antisemitism is, regrettably, quite prevalent on the restrainer Right. That’s not incidental. The restrainer worldview is especially susceptible to antisemitism because it orients itself around the assumption that Americans are being manipulated into wars by a pervasive oppressive force. The more conspiratorial the restrainer mindset becomes, the more it overlaps with classic antisemitic tropes, framing the Jewish state as a geopolitical puppeteer whose American supporters are either accomplices or dupes.

But the answer isn’t to label everyone in the restrainer camp antisemitic. That is both inaccurate and strategically unwise. Take Carlson. He doesn’t make statements that are explicitly antisemitic. His tone is often conspiratorial, yes, but there’s a more straightforward explanation for his posture.

What motivates Carlson is a fear that took root in Iraq. After supporting America’s 2003 invasion, he became disillusioned by the overreach, the lies, and the staggering cost in blood and credibility. All of this shattered Carlson’s ability to trust any use of American military power. 

He’s hardly an outlier. A generation of Republicans came out of Iraq suspicious of everything: intelligence claims, foreign policy consensus, even the idea of moral clarity abroad. But where others learned caution, Carlson learned panic. Everything now looks like Iraq redux. Anyone asking for resolve looks like a neocon in disguise.

So when Iran moves toward nuclear weapons and Israel takes action, Carlson doesn’t see a danger to US interests being neutralized. He sees a trap. He reacts with hallucinatory intensity, projecting the ghosts of 2003 onto the present. He collapses real threats and imagined conspiracies into a single, incoherent warning: DON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN!

That impulse may be deranged, but it is not in and of itself antisemitic. And calling it that too quickly doesn’t just miss the point. It dilutes the charge. 

Treating confusion or trauma as if they are inherently bigoted helps no one, least of all the Jews. Ascribing antisemitic malice where none exists – or even where none necessarily exists – trivializes the term “antisemitism.” And like any overused accusation, it loses force. People tune out precisely when we need them listening.

Not everyone who gets Israel wrong is a lost cause. Some are misinformed. Some are traumatized. Some are simply in love with their own contrarianism. And some, like Carlson, are all of these things. 

Carlson may not influence Trump as many people had thought, but millions of his viewers and listeners will undoubtedly carry political weight in future elections. And if we want them to listen to criticism of Carlson, we should speak with moral clarity and rhetorical care.