A sad fact of life is that most people die before ever truly knowing the impact that they’ve had on those around them. Only at funerals do we usually understand the mark a person has left on the world. Tucker Carlson is one of the few people on earth who knows just how much of an impact he’s had after half the country spiraled into what can only be described as a state of mourning over the cancellation of his wildly popular and influential Fox News show.
Indeed, countless Americans have come forward over the last few days, attesting to Tucker’s character, humility, thoughtfulness, and the positive influence he’s had on the county. The Federalist’s Sean Davis wrote how Tucker “was the *only* person in cable or broadcast media who was not just willing, but eager” to “discuss the spiritual implications” of the horrifying Nashville shooting targeted at Christians and carried out by a transgender-identifying person.
Journalist Nate Hochman divulged how Tucker called him “out of the blue,” when the Dispatch was trying to cancel him. “One of the most powerful men in conservative politics took the time to sit down and call some random 23-year-old kid he had never met — just to tell him to hang in there, and to ask if there was anything he could do to help. It’s something I will never forget,” Hochman wrote on Twitter.
Radio host Larry O’Connor shared how Tucker invited him for Thanksgiving so he wouldn’t have to spend it alone when O’Connor first moved to D.C. after getting a divorce. “He invited me to his home and I enjoyed Thanksgiving with his father, his wife, his children and his dogs,” O’Connor wrote. “They treated me like I was a part of the family. It turned what would have been a sad and lonely day into one I’ll never forget.”
Matt Walsh wrote about the time Tucker messaged him “out of the blue several years ago just to tell me he appreciates my work” at a time when Walsh was much less well-known. “I didn’t think he even knew who I was,” said Walsh. “He took the time to track my number down and reach out. Very few people like that in this business.”
As for myself, Tucker was the first person to ever put me on television. He gave me the opportunity to speak about the genocidal abortion rates of babies with Down Syndrome, like my little sister. In college, I co-founded a student-run newspaper and despite it being small and unknown, Tucker highlighted our fight against the University of Chicago’s Covid booster mandate and our take-down of the University’s supposed “disinformation conference.”
And when my friend Ellie Puentes was expelled from her university for refusing to comply with her former school’s Covid booster mandate, Tucker allowed Ellie to share her story on his show. The platform Tucker gave Ellie changed the entire trajectory of her life after a kind couple who watched Ellie’s segment on Tucker offered to give her a full-ride scholarship to the University of Tennessee at Martin, where she attends school now.
Tucker has a special power for driving political discourse. As The Federalist’s Samuel Mangold-Lenett notes, Tucker did this through his “unique ability to bridge a seemingly unbridgeable generational divide.” Tucker could translate the heart of the right-wing movement to all Americans — young, old, rich, and poor – during his brilliant and concise 10-minute monologues.
But as these testimonies highlight, Tucker is not just a media star, he is someone with a Christian spirit. His actions clearly are not animated by power or a desire for influence. He is motivated by love for our country, compassion for the canceled victims of the Orwellian thought police, and a desire for our nation to turn back toward Christ.
Perhaps his greatest quality of all is courage. He is brave in his reporting and commentary — saying what needed to be said, irrespective of the backlash he receives from the leftist media, the establishment right, and big-time executives. As he said during his keynote address at the Heritage Foundation’s 50th-anniversary, “Lies are contagious, but so is the truth … the more you tell the truth, the stronger you become.”