Political Currency
The Tucker Carlson Episode & the Teaching of Jesus
by S. M. Hutchens
In late April 2023, Tucker Carlson, the popular conservative news commentator on the Fox Network, was suddenly fired and his program cancelled. Thereupon followed a great deal of soul-searching—mostly of other people’s souls, as such things usually are—by commentators who stressed Mr. Carlson’s remarks on the general corruption of public discourse and policy at the hands not only of liberals, but also of conservatives who cannot bring themselves to respond appropriately to what could only be described by reasonable people as evil, and who are perfectly willing to “bend their conscience to their dealing” (J. R. Lowell) when it suits their purposes in the pursuit of money, power, and influence.
The general tenor of the commentary among conservatives, at least as I perceived it, was in favor of an “all power corrupts and a pox on all your houses” attitude with regard to political authority that bears a superficial resemblance to the essentially critical attitude that our Lord called for, but bears with it a kind of anarchic (and hopeless) skepticism which he did not allow.
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S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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