Would Tucker Carlson make a good running mate for Donald Trump?
Donald Trump appeared on the Clay & Buck show, and the host (I don’t know whether Clay or Buck) asked Trump if he’d consider Tucker as a running mate. After waffling along for a while about the number of viewers he got when he talked to Tucker (very high), compared to viewership for the Republican debates (very low), Trump finally said he would consider Tucker because the latter has “great common sense.” That’s true but Tucker has something even more important: He’s a remarkably gifted communicator in ways that Trump is not.
In his own way, Trump is a very gifted communicator, which is why he was one of the most popular entertainers in America. He has the ability to drive points home through vivid language. “Build a wall.” “Sleepy Joe.” “Low energy Jeb.” None of them are clever phrases because they have wit, rhymes, or alliteration.
In other words, Trump will never be a Winston Churchill. After all, when Harry Truman said of Clement Attlee, who replaced Churchill at 10 Downing Street, “He seems a modest sort of fellow,” Churchill’s instant response was “He’s got a lot to be modest about.” He also memorably called Ramsay MacDonald “a sheep in sheep’s clothing.” One delights in Churchill’s quips. That’s not Trump.
But in his own way, Trump has a remarkable ability to carry people along with his ideas. What Trump cannot do is defend those ideas with any depth or even coherence. He waffles along, as he did in the video above where, instead of just answering the question, he first boasts about his ratings and attacks his opponents’ ratings. It’s a maddeningly indirect style of speech.
Many feel (I among them) that this rambling style gets in the way of conveying important ideas to Americans during incredibly fraught times. We desperately need someone who has a bully pulpit and can articulate big ideas—statesmanlike ideas—about things such as American exceptionalism, the evil of antisemitism, the virtue of the morals set out in the Ten Commandments (whether you’re religious or not), the national need for a border (rather than just “build a wall” and “they’re not sending us their best”), etc.
This doesn’t have to mean using big words. After all, we must acknowledge that, thanks to leftist control over education, Americans seemingly have a communication ability that’s at about the 4th grade level. But even at that level, using simple language, a gifted communicator can sell big and important ideas. But Trump can’t. He speaks in a Trumpian shorthand that sells products without explaining principles.
That’s where Tucker would come in. Unlike Kamala the Cackler, with her inane circular sentences and paragraphs that add no useful content to Biden’s incoherence, Tucker is a master communicator who has a knack when it comes to explaining big ideas. (And this is true whether one agrees with him or not.) Trump could govern and sell, while Tucker could articulate the principles behind the policies.
I’m not saying that Tucker would be a good choice for veep or that he would or should want the job. I’m just saying that, when it comes to communications from the White House, he would be the yin to Trump’s yang, with the two of them presenting a perfect front of truly speaking to the American people.
Incidentally, this is an old idea. When God called upon Moses, Moses objected that he was a bad communicator being slow of tongue and lacking in eloquence. (Exodus 4:10.) God refused to see that as a problem. (Exodus 4:11.) Instead, whether he gave Moses the solution or Moses figured it out, by the time Moses showed up in front of Pharaoh, he had his brother Aaron with him to help him communicate those all-important idea about liberty. (Exodus 5.)
So, while I’m certainly not endorsing Tucker as a running mate, it’s not a terrible idea, assuming he wants the job.
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