How Tucker Carlson Saved My Life
The conservative icon got me to throw my weed out the window
When I was in my twenties, I was friendly with the conservative commentator and writer Tucker Carlson. I held, and continue to hold, a radically different worldview from him. But I liked and admired him. He was friendly, determined, and knew exactly what he wanted out of life.
I met Tucker in the mid-1990s when I was an editor at The Free Press. The publisher was, in some respects, the driving engine behind the emerging intellectual right wing. It was an exciting and even hopeful time. The right wing voices of conspiracism, climate denial, and nativism had not yet taken hold, and figures like James Q. Wilson, Glenn Loury, Dinesh D’Souza (believe me, he was a lot better then), and Tucker were climbing the cultural ladder. He and I brainstormed a book, which didn’t work out, but we remained friendly.
I have long since lost contact with him. But I was deeply touched by something that Tucker told an interviewer recently — and I think it rescued me at a crucial moment in my life. His counsel was very simple but very powerful. I often tell people to watch for simple things. Familiar expressions become incredibly powerful through application — and only through application.
