Tucker Carlson’s Ambient Abuse

Trigger warning: gaslighting, mental/emotional abuse, and the not-so new fascist phenomenon

OLIVIA LOUISE
Sep 2, 2018 · 2 min read

In Tucker Carlons’s latest viral YouTube moment, he speculates why Bezos, the Waltons and the lil Uber Billionaire get to exploit their laborers while relying on the gub’ment to foot the welfare bill. This rhetoric appears to be sympathetic to the working classes and even suggests a possible ethical or moral compass (that we all know Tucker doesn’t have).

This event made it to my news cycle by virtue of a tweet from a friend: “that moment when Tucker Carlson is right” they write. As a survivor myself and one that is still actively healing from emotional and physical abuse, my Gaslight Alarm went off (enough that I felt compelled to write this article).

Now I hate Bezos and most of these late stage capitalist billionaires with their trendy techno-dystopianism. But I hate them as a function of my social and ecological imperatives. Tucker however uses this story as proof of his rejection of the conclusions of Marxism (he calls “the Left”) and only deepens his allegiance to the Free Market, ie ‘Capitalism is only failing because it’s not Free Enough’.

It reminds me of a perhaps lesser known form of interpersonal psychological abuse: it’s called Ambient Abuse.

Most of us, when looking for abuse, are trying to detect something overt. But the Ambient Abuser is characterized by coercive control and gaslighting (covert). These tools are further mystified through disorienting tactics that would make the abuser appear to be “assisting” the target or generously supporting them — all while perpetually diminishing their self-worth. They may even at times strategically admit wrongdoing, only to reassign the blame onto the target’s essential character or to reassert their dominant narrative.

This is called co-optation in both the interpersonal form, as well in this case of Tucker Carlson. His use of leftist rhetoric in order to ‘benevolently’ acknowledge the inequality of the market in these extreme, frankly unique cases only serves his proxy-abuse as he is able to further support his prefigured conclusions and revictimize the Left. In other words, he’ll steal the words of the left in order to push them out of the picture.

Tucker is certainly familiar with helping push the false narrative that Nazis were actually socialists. Don’t fall for the gaslighting. This has been your breadcrumb trail back to center.

Portland based writer, editor, organizer & general shitposter.

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