Something similar has happened in recent years, as Americans have grown disillusioned with the “war on terror.” The percentage of Americans in general—and Republicans in particular—who say Islam promotes violence was relatively low right after 9/11. It rose substantially between 2002 and 2006, as Americans lost faith in their ability to control and remake the Middle East. In the years since, nativism and Islamophobia have grown more and more dominant on the American right. And for pundits like Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson, keeping America out of the Muslim world, and keeping Muslims—and all non-white immigrants—out of America have become different expressions of the same racialized contempt.
All of which underscores the ideological gulf between Carlson and anti-interventionist leftists like Greenwald, Cohen and Blumenthal. For them, the lesson of Afghanistan and Iraq is that America has no right to impose its will on other nations. For him, it’s that other nations have no right to be civilized by the United States. Carlson never challenges the moral legitimacy of America’s wars, only their wisdom given the inferiority of the people America is trying to save. The problem isn’t us; it’s them.
The difference isn’t merely theoretical. It bears on how reliable an ally Carlson will be to progressive anti-interventionists in the years to come.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member