roobet The Strange Afterlife of Tucker Carlson

On Saturday night in Hershey, Pa., JD Vance will participate in one of the more unusual political events of this presidential campaign. Several thousand people — almost all of whom have paid for the privilege, some as much as $1,600 — will pack into a hockey arena to watch the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interview Mr. Vance, the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee.

The money made from the event will not go to the Trump campaign but to Mr. Carlson’s new media company, which made headlines earlier this month when Mr. Carlson aired — and praised — the views of a Nazi apologist historian who has argued that concentration camps were a “humane” solution to widespread hunger. “Didn’t expect Tucker Carlson to become an outlet for Nazi apologetics, but here we are,” the conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson wrote on X.

Even as Democrats and Republicans denounced Mr. Carlson, Mr. Vance refused to join the chorus, declaring that he would still appear with Mr. Carlson in Hershey because “we believe in free speech and debate.”

But Mr. Vance’s decision to stand with Mr. Carlson isn’t about free speech or even loyalty. Instead, it’s a stark reminder of where power resides in the Make America Great Again movement, and where it will likely stay in the years to come. And it’s not with JD Vance.

Mr. Carlson had the highest-rated show in the history of cable news, and when he was abruptly fired from Fox News last year, it was widely assumed he would fade from relevance. He did — for many Americans, especially liberals. After his disappearance from Fox News’s lineup, the army of liberal media monitors devoted to chronicling his every provocation and outrage turned their attention elsewhere. The Tucker Carlson content farm went fallow.

But he didn’t go away. Six weeks after leaving Fox News, he debuted a new show on the social media platform then known as Twitter (now X); last December he launched the Tucker Carlson Network, a streaming service that today claims to have over 400,000 paid subscribers. Mr. Carlson’s podcast now regularly sits in the top five of Spotify’s weekly podcast rankings and occasionally even beats “The Joe Rogan Experience” for the top spot.

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