There is no Tucker on tonight. Tonight, no smirk, no squint, no sneer, no racist rhetoric, accompanied by a stifled giggle. Tonight, if you turn on the TV, it will not stare back at you perplexed and angry as though you are a startling typo that has made the Bible sexy. You will not be all but directed on whom to harass or threaten. You will have to make things up as you go along. Tonight, if you say, “Roku, show me the exact diametric opposite of ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,’ ” your TV will not have a ready answer.
There is no Tucker on tonight. There will still be television to alarm you, if you like to be alarmed. You can flip to Newsmax and get your dose of daily horrors coupled with an ad for an enormous golden coin. And it is not as though Fox News’s daily transmission of ugliness (and, helpfully, what pillows to toss and turn upon as you lie awake at night, seething!) has faded. There are still broadcast options for learning why what is wrong with the world is Someone Else’s fault.
But there is no Tucker on tonight. For one vertiginous hour, his viewers must guess on their own whom to hate. I do not envy them; it is not easy to know who will be his next target! You would think “people” would be a good bet, but sometimes it is not people at all, but M&Ms! Tuckerless, his fans will be forced to conjure baseless conspiracy theories on their own. Who is pulling the strings, and what are the strings? It will be lonely, sitting there unsure of whom to rail against. (And supposing they guess wrong?)
There is no Tucker on tonight. Who knows what your grandmother will do with this suddenly free hour! Maybe she will read a book, instead! Maybe tomorrow night she will go for a walk, make a face at a baby, say hello to a good dog. Maybe the night after that she will pick up the phone and call someone she hasn’t spoken to in years, and really listen. Maybe she will take up knitting, or gardening, or join antifa. Or maybe she will just turn on Newsmax.
But at least there is no Tucker on tonight. If you want to watch someone spout white-supremacist talking points, you will have to be pushed down a YouTube rabbit hole by a malign algorithm like everyone else.
Tonight, he is gone, but that does not mean he will never come back. (Perhaps, next time, for a state-sponsored propaganda network!) There is something unsettling about the disappearance, like when the sea draws back before the wave hits. Could this really have happened at any time? There was no curse keeping him there? All those nights spewing his conspiracy theories and anger, he could simply have … not? And it is not as though the rest of Fox News is as mysteriously quiet; Sean Hannity is not donning a hair shirt and appearing on air with lamentations. Fox is not replacing Carlson’s show with one big scrolling correction, periodically interrupted by video messages from family seeking to contact lost relatives. Tucker is gone; the rest remains. His brand of pollution still lingers in the air.
But at least there is no Tucker on tonight.
