Since being spit out by the legacy media, Tucker Carlson has amassed a following that’s larger than some major media outlets.
He’ll be taking that popularity out for a spin when he appears for a Tucker Carlson Live Tour performance at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City Sept. 12.
Carlson parted ways with Fox News in 2023 after hosting Tucker Carlson Tonight, for seven years. The show was a must-watch for conservative viewers, becoming the highest-rated cable news program in prime time.
Since then, Carlson has continued to build a substantial following on X and through his streaming service, the Tucker Carlson Network. Currently, The Tucker Podcast is the second most popular show on Spotify, and the network’s videos have garnered millions of views on X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube.
Carlson’s success stands in contrast to that of legacy news outlets, whose authority has waned dramatically. The head of the Washington Post, William Lewis, addressed this reality in a recent staff meeting.
“Let’s not sugarcoat it. … Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff.”
Meanwhile, solo journalists who have untangled themselves from legacy institutions continue to thrive. Carlson is one of many examples, with his personal following on X (12.9M) surpassing the platform’s following for CBS News (8.9M) and NBC News (9.4M).
Whatever one’s feelings toward Carlson, it’s provable by the numbers alone he remains a relevant voice in our nation’s political conversation. Even so, familiar cynical tactics have been employed to silence him.
Oliver Darcy, senior media reporter at CNN, attempted to cancel Carlson’s live show by shaming its distributor, Ticketmaster, for supporting a so-called “right-wing extremist,” “conspiracy theorist” and “grifter.”
“How can any decent person not only participate in enabling Carlson’s poisoning of the public discourse but also justify profiting off of his hateful rhetoric in the process?” asked Darcy.
Such critics evidently believe audiences can’t be trusted to judge Carlson’s rhetoric and discern truth for themselves. In doing so, they seem to set themselves up as a poison control hotline for the mind. Moreover, Carlson’s fans might find it odd that some other journalists, who find their own nourishment under the protective blanket of the First Amendment, would rather suppress speech than allow diversity of thought into the political sphere.
Indeed, in an interview with KCMO Talk Radio host Pete Mundo, Carlson says one of his main motivations for a live show is to avoid censorship by companies such as Google and Facebook.
Carlson refers to both companies as monopolies in the interview, noting that by controlling people’s access to information, “Google has more power than any member of Congress. It has more power than Congress itself.”
According to Carlson, a live show bypasses these companies’ roadblocks: “There’s literally nothing Mark Zuckerberg can do to stop you when you’re standing at a microphone with people in the stadium.”
Additionally, Carlson says he is excited to travel and meet people across America, especially those whose voices may not be reflected by traditional media.
Carlson’s website promises the coast-to-coast live tour will be “interesting and fun as hell.”
Carlson will be accompanied at his Kansas City show by journalist Megyn Kelly. Kelly was similarly ousted by legacy media but retains an impressive following, hosting her own podcast, The Megyn Kelly Show.
Tickets for the event start at $34 and can be purchased here.
