Soon came the primetime show, the platform Carlson used to amplify these themes—and to launch nightly grenades “into A–hole H.Q.,” in his own memorable phrase. Like me, you may not have agreed with every position Carlson staked out. To paraphrase the late Ed Koch, if you agree with any pundit on twelve out of twelve issues, see a shrink. But it would be the height of mendacity to deny Carlson’s courage and independence of mind.

For one thing, Tucker normalized criticizing Wall Street and corporations from the right. That may not seem like much of a feat for younger conservatives, who came of age in the aftermath of the Great Recession. But for older Republicans, it was a huge deal—a rupture with ancient pieties. When he skewered Kevin McCarthy for sharing a plush D.C. apartment with pollster and “Google lobbyist” Frank Luntz, Carlson wasn’t just exposing the gross swampiness of the future House speaker; he was also teaching a Reaganite audience to question corporate power.

His best moments, for my money, came when Carlson took on the financial industry, including GOP mega-donors, for “buying large stakes in American companies, firing workers, driving up short-term share prices, and, in some cases, taking government bailouts.”

[Read it all — like Sohrab, I don’t always agree with Tucker, but one has to appreciate how he’s had the guts to cut against the grain. That was especially true when he publicly called out Sidney Powell on the “Kraken” nonsense. — Ed]